Spelling out some unaddressed conceptual and methodological challenges in empirical lifespan research

The importance of taking a lifespan approach to describe and understand human development has long been acknowledged (e.g., Baltes, 1987). Nevertheless, theoretical or empirical research that actually encompasses the entire lifespan, that is, from early childhood to old age, is rare. This is not sur...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inActa psychologica Vol. 226; p. 103585
Main Authors Moersdorf, Lea, Freund, Alexandra M., Daum, Moritz M.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Netherlands Elsevier B.V 01.06.2022
Elsevier
Subjects
Challenges
Child, Preschool
Empirical Research
Group comparisons
Humans
Lifespan development
Longevity
Measurement invariance
Operationalization
Group comparisons
Measurement invariance
Lifespan development
Challenges
Operationalization
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Summary:The importance of taking a lifespan approach to describe and understand human development has long been acknowledged (e.g., Baltes, 1987). Nevertheless, theoretical or empirical research that actually encompasses the entire lifespan, that is, from early childhood to old age, is rare. This is not surprising given the challenges such an approach entails. Many of these challenges (e.g., establishing measurement invariance between age groups) have been addressed in the previous literature, but others have not yet been sufficiently considered. The main purpose of this article is to present several examples of such largely unaddressed conceptual and methodological challenges and reflect upon possible ways to address them. We discuss the usefulness of a lifespan approach and the generalization of the challenges to other research comparing different groups, such as gender, culture, or species.
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ISSN:0001-6918
1873-6297
DOI:10.1016/j.actpsy.2022.103585