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The Wiley Handbook of Developmental Psychology in Practice: Implementation and Impact, First Edition. Edited by Kevin Durkin and H. Rudolph Schaffer. © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Published 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

On Giving Away Developmental Psychology

Kevin Durkin and H. Rudolph Schaffer

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The book you have just opened deals with thousands of billions of dollars – and much more.

If you are a taxpayer (or aspire to become a taxpayer), or a parent (or plan to become a parent), some of those dollars, euros or pounds will be yours. It costs a lot to raise children, to provide the care and services that they will need on the long journey to adulthood; these costs are met by families, public services, and charities. If you are a practitioner in a field related to human development and well‐being, or a policymaker engaged in decisions about the distribution of resources across services, you will be aware that the costs borne by the broader community are enormous – so much so that we often do not have enough to address all needs.

And the costs multiply when things go wrong. Consider the economic costs:

• when children are exposed to abusive, discordant or inadequate family contexts (Cicchetti et al., Chapter 15; Cummings et al., Chapter 3; Dishion and Yasui, Chapter 17; Moreland and Dumas, Chapter 4; Sanders and Calam, Chapter 5);

• when millions of children receive poor child care (Hardway and McCartney, Chapter 7); or their parents encounter inadequate advice (Leach, Chapter 2);

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4 Kevin Durkin and H. Rudolph Schaffer

• when educational services consign whole generations to methods of reading instruction that fly in the face of research evidence (Johnston and Watson, Chapter 9), fail to exploit the benefits of research‐based innovations in mathematical education (Ginsburg and Ertle, Chapter 10) or fail to detect hidden disabilities that impact on learning yet are at least amenable to therapy (Conti‐Ramsden and Durkin, Chapter 16);

• when children are victims of bullying (Smith, Chapter 12), avoidable acci-dents (Thomson, Chapter 13), or prejudice (Cameron & Rutland, Chapter 14, Patterson & Farr, Chapter 6);

• when societies fail to provide adequate help to children and young people with, or at risk of, mental health problems (Cooper and Knitzer, Chapter 18);

• when adolescents veer into antisocial behavior and high risk taking (Dishion and Yashui, Chapter 17);

• when teenagers become pregnant (Martin and Brooks‐Gunn, Chapter 8);• when young people enter society with poor understanding of their rights,

responsibilities and opportunities as citizens (Helwig & Yang, Chapter 11).

As several of the contributors point out, the profoundly difficult topics with which they are dealing are associated with enormous, ongoing material costs to nations worldwide. The best available (most rigorously computed) estimates tend to be for the leading industrialized nations, but readers from other countries will be able to see the broad implications for their own economies. When things go wrong in child development, or in families, or as young people meet institutional or soci-etal problems, or when children’s potential is neglected or thwarted, there are immediate costs to the individuals and social structures involved, followed by financial repercussions that can extend over decades.

Importantly, the biggest costs are likely to be incurred when we do little or nothing to address the issues, problems and needs (Aboud & Yousafzai, 2015; Scott, Knapp, Henderson, & Maughan, 2001). The economics of intervention are complex and vary across contexts (including whether they are preventive or remedial) and time frames; this is not our primary concern here but it is relevant to bear in mind that interventions to support healthy development have been reported to show benefit‐to‐cost ratios ranging from 3:1 to 18:1 (Engle et al., 2011; Hardway & McCartney, Chapter 7, this volume; Heckman, 2006; Reynolds, Temple, White, Ou,& Robertson, 2011). Intervention does cost – but it also returns. Furthermore, provided that the benefits are demonstrable in high quality research, this is an equation that resonates with policymakers and the layperson (Moreland & Dumas, Chapter 4, this volume).

Readers will already have considered that, of course, in each of the above contexts there are other costs: the psychological costs of stress and suffering. It is sobering to reflect, as we progress through the authoritative reviews in the chapters ahead, that we are not surprised to learn that so many children face circumstances and events

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Giving Developmental Psychology Away 5

that are, literally, terrifying. Children suffer maltreatment and abuse at home. The caregivers that children depend upon may be in the throes of marital conflict that affects the whole household. In the playground or park, many children are victim-ized. Many face ethnic prejudice in their schools or communities. Some will enter gangs by their early teens, and some of these are soon on their way to prisons. Early sexual activities can lead to premature parenthood, with radical impact on individ-uals’ circumstances and prospects. Still more tragically, the privations and cruelties that life can inflict are not distributed evenly; many young people are exposed to combinations or accumulations of these adversities. Our contributors speak to these concerns and, for many of the present authors, the alleviation of unhappiness and suffering is a key motivation for advancing applied developmental psychology.

Another dimension of costs, interrelated with the above, is the impact of devel-opmental problems on the quality of society. As well as the economic liabilities of less‐than‐optimal literacy and numeracy education, these skills impact in countless ways on the conduct of everyday life. As well as the psychological detriment to direct victims of abuse or antisocial behavior, there are indirect costs to many more in terms of the ways we perceive and experience our communities. It is hard to quantify the economic costs of poor moral reasoning abilities or deficient civics education, but suppose a substantial sector of the population reaches adulthood with no conception of their own or others’ rights. As Helwig and Yang (Chapter 11) draw to our attention, the consequences for society of shortcomings in moral understanding, grasp of the principles of justice, democratic processes, and the rights and duties of democratic citizenship are profound. Yet we still struggle with (or, in some societies, ignore completely) how this vital area of education can best be conducted. Their chapter demonstrates how applied developmental research has the potential to provide theoretically‐based yet practical routes to stimulating advances in moral and civic education – but also that it is confronted by many real‐world obstacles.

In the face of the diverse costs of the many potential problems besetting human development, it follows that we should be asking how developmental science can help us to address them. Answering this question is the central purpose of this Handbook. Accordingly, the volume sets out to describe and analyze what happens when researchers offer the fruits of their studies to potential recipients – be they professional workers in the field, local or national organizations, parents or the general public. Its aims are to examine the process of knowledge transfer and imple-mentation, in order to investigate both the opportunities and obstacles involved and to consider the factors that lead to successes and disappointments. To this end we draw on the experience of a range of academics representing a variety of topics in developmental psychology with definite implications for practice, all of whom are willing to share the experiences they encountered when confronting the “giving away” process as part of their work.

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Can we Give Away Developmental Psychology?

There is widespread awareness these days that developmental research is producing a considerable body of knowledge that is not only theoretically significant but is potentially useful in the real world. It follows that the outcomes of research studies ought, therefore, to be passed on to practitioners and policymakers, and many publications now include a section on the implications the findings obtained have for intervention. Nevertheless, the impact of research‐based knowledge on practice has been patchy – notably successful in some areas, leading to significant advances in the well‐being of children and their families, yet in other areas there is still a considerable gap between research and its application.

Clearly, the giving away process is not a straightforward one; in particular, one needs to question the still prevailing assumption among many people that it is a simple unidirectional matter of knowledgeable researchers communicating their findings to ignorant practitioners willing to abandon previous practices and adopt new ideas. Publicizing research results and pointing out their implications is only part of the story; their implementation is another; and it is the latter that is now in need of close attention.

Developmental psychologists are engaged in pursuing two aims. One is to add further to the body of knowledge we have accumulated so far about psychological development, in order to determine the processes responsible for change over age and formulate the theoretical principles which would help us to understand how and why development occurs. This is generally referred to as basic research, in that it is theory driven, is mostly conducted with traditional scientific methodology and constitutes understanding for the sake of understanding. The second aim is a practical one, namely to help chil-dren avoid or at least overcome the hazards of life, to make the most of their capacities and to attain optimal competence in social and cognitive spheres. Such applied research includes both prevention and intervention efforts; it takes place in real‐life locations and sets out to solve society’s problems as they impinge on children and their families.

These two aims – understanding and helping – have been somewhat uneasy bedfellows over the years. Various questions arise: Are the two compatible, in that both can be regarded as part of the same discipline? Moreover, can any one individual researcher effectively pursue both aims, even within the same investiga-tion? Is one more “respectable” than the other? Do they require different skills and, therefore, different training courses? Can basic research benefit from the lessons learned by applied work, as much as vice versa? Developmental psychologists have taken different views as to how the tension between the two aims can be resolved, and there have indeed been “fashions” in the answer provided. Thus, even in the relatively short history of developmental psychology one can roughly distinguish three periods, in each of which a particular attitude prevailed.

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Historical Shifts in Giving Away

The first period covers the beginnings of the scientific study of child development in the last two decades of the nineteenth century and the first four or five decades of the next century, when the simultaneous pursuit of both aims was not regarded as in any way problematic and, indeed, the initial motivation to learn about chil-dren arose from applied concerns. As Sears put it, “Child development was formed by external pressures broadly based on desires to better the health, the rearing, the education, and the legal and occupational treatment of children…The field grew out of relevance” (Sears, 1975, p. 4). When the first formal research center in North America was set up in 1919 it was named the Iowa Child Welfare Station, and given the brief of conducting research directed at all problems of children’s development and welfare. And, for that matter, the early fathers and mothers of child psychology almost without exception conducted research motivated by a mixture of basic and applied goals. G. Stanley Hall, for example, was convinced that child psychology research is capable of providing crucial guidance to those engaged in educational practice; John B. Watson applied his behavioristic princi-ples to the rearing of children and publicized his ideas in the form of popular articles and books addressed to parents; and Gesell, a student of Hall, intended his charts of psychological norms not just to add to our scientific knowledge of children’s development but also to act as a guide to parents in avoiding unrealistic expectations as well as helping pediatricians to distinguish normality from pathology. The spirit of the times was well summarized by Charlotte Bühler (1935), when at the very beginning of the Introduction to her textbook From Birth to Maturity, she stated:

The development of modern child psychology in the last 10 to 20 years, through its scientific study of the child in all its life situations, enables us today not only to present a very complete scientific picture of mental development but also to solve many of the practical problems which children present. Psychology can now give us information and advice in regard to those practical problems that confront parents and teachers in the understanding, upbringing and education of children. It can in addition assist us in meeting such community problems as the care, placement and treatment of orphans, children of the poor, feeble‐minded, delinquent, adopted and foster children.

Overoptimistic, perhaps, yet the view expressed in this quotation reflects the predominant belief in those early decades in the history of child psychology, that there is no incompatibility between the motives to understand and to help, either for the discipline as a whole which can, indeed should, pursue both, or for

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individual academics who need not align themselves with one or the other approach. A general assumption prevailed that scientific knowledge is bound to lead to practical advances, and accordingly psychologists saw it as their task to employ their knowledge for social reform. What was not recognized at that time, however, was that merely publicizing that knowledge was not in itself sufficient to bring about change; the intricate connections between research and practice that now preoccupy many developmental psychologists were not yet recognized.

In the 1940s and 1950s a very different view began to emerge. Psychology, it was concluded, had to demonstrate that it was a “real” science, and pursuing applied research can only compromise its aspirations to respectability. As a result, primarily under the influence of learning theory, the use of controlled experimentation, gen-erally under laboratory conditions away from the messiness of the real world, became the primary way of building up the body of theoretical principals required to account for the nature of child behavior. Motivation for research was generally provided by theory‐inspired questions rather than by applied concerns, for it was not considered part of the job descriptions of academics to solve the problems of society. Take the views of Wayne Dennis, as reported by Milton Senn (1975) in the course of a discussion with him:

There is certainly nothing of the reformer in me at all, except that I hope the truth has some good effects. I am more interested in finding out what a child is actually like. I am not trying to change them. I hope that whatever child psychology as a scientific study discovers will be useful, but that is to be determined later and not before you start your investigation. (Senn, 1975, p. 64)

In fact, Dennis’s studies of institutionalized infants, carried out in the 1940s and 1950s and summarized in his book Children of the Crèche (Dennis, 1973), were extremely influential in improving the conditions of orphanages and in preventing or at least reversing the ill‐effects of deprivation. However, to bring about such changes was not Dennis’s motive in setting out on his investigations, and it was left to others with a more applied orientation to make practical use of the data he had supplied. A sharp divide thus appeared between basic and applied interests, in that the two were widely regarded as quite separate enterprises. Professional advance-ment in universities depended largely on contributing to basic research, and little attempt was made by academics to build bridges with practitioners and learn about their concerns, let alone to provide solutions. The introduction of rigorous meth-odology and pursuit of theoretically motivated questions was, of course, of great importance, but the price paid was a view of psychology among practitioners and the general public as an arid subject that only incidentally had anything to offer them in their struggles with everyday life.

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Fortunately this phase did not last long, and from the 1960s and 1970s onwards the pendulum began to swing back once more to a view of child psychology as an enterprise that could be used for practical as well as theoretical purposes. The event that heralded this change is generally considered to be George Miller’s presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1969, in which he made a passionate plea to the members of his profession to “give psychology away”. Rarely can a three‐word phrase have had as much impact and been quoted so often since. A few more words of Miller’s also repay careful attention:

I can imagine nothing we could do that would be more relevant to human welfare, and nothing that could pose a greater challenge to the next generation of psycholo-gists, than to discover how best to give psychology away…Psychological facts should be passed out freely to all who need and can use them…[Thus] our scientific results will have to be instilled in the public consciousness in a practical and usable form so that what we know can be applied to ordinary people. (Miller, 1969, p. 1074)

And yet, as Miller wisely warned:

I am keenly aware that giving psychology will be no simple task. In our society there are depths of resistance to psychological innovations that have to be experienced to be believed…Many who have tried to introduce sound psychological practice into school, clinics, hospitals, prisons or industries have been forced to retreat in dismay. They complain, and with good reason, that they have been unable to buck the “System”, and often their reactions are more violent than sensible. The System, they say, refuses to change even when it does not work. (Miller, 1969, p. 1071)

Why the change back to a belief in the legitimacy of psychology as a science with applied interests? Two sets of influences can be singled out, one arising from within psychology itself and marked by the demise of learning theory. The reductionist philosophy on which the theory was based had served its somewhat limited purpose and was increasingly seen as arid; conceptualizing psychological phenomena in mental as well as in behavioral terms became increasingly accept-able once more; and the emerging attention paid to the context in which human beings functioned as a determinant meant that researchers began to abandon the laboratory as the only setting for their studies and once again collected their data in the hurly burly of the real world. The other set of influences came from changes taking place in society. In the latter part of the twentieth century in particular, the conditions under which many children were being brought up began to arouse increasing concern. Phenomena such as the rise in the rate of divorce and single parenthood, the realization that even in the wealthiest countries a large number of children are living in poverty, the growing disquiet felt about child abuse, the

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prevalence of addiction, antisocial behavior and mental ill‐health among the young, and the worry that technological innovations such as television and computers may have adverse as well as beneficial effects – all these resulted in society turning once more to psychologists and bringing pressure on them to come up with explanations and solutions.

The psychological profession has by and large responded positively to this challenge. There were, it is true, some initial misgivings as to the effects that becoming increasingly involved in applied issues would have on the scientific status of the discipline (Morrison, Lord, & Keating, 1984), but as Cairns has pointed out, this has not occurred – “on the contrary, carefully evaluated social applications have helped create a more robust, verifiable and relevant science” (Cairns, 1998, p. 92). The result is that Applied Developmental Psychology (or Applied Developmental Science, as it has come to be known in order to include the contributions of other sciences such as biology, education, economics and sociology) is now a respected and rapidly growing field, especially in the United States, with its own journals, associations and training courses, “that seeks to significantly advance the integration of developmental science with actions that address … pressing human problems” (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000, p. 11).

In short, we have reached the position where, as Lerner (2012) argues persua-sively, the notion of a separation of “pure” and “applied” is anachronistic within developmental science. In the course of a single research study or program it is possible both to contribute to basic theory and to help in solving applied problems (Schwebel, Plumert, & Pick, 2000). Furthermore, if we are to generate and test meaningful theories, our work has to be “embedded in the actual ecology of human development in order to have generalizability to the lived experiences of individuals and as such … constitute intervention (applied) research and, at the same time, research testing basic explanatory processes of human development” (Lerner, 2012, p. 32, emphasis added). In a similar spirit, Cicchetti et al. (Chapter 15, this volume) point out that: “The ultimate goal of science is to benefit from the generation of a knowledge base.”

Our knowledge of our participants, their progress and problems, would be truly impoverished (and nonscientific) if we did not take account of where they live, what they do, and how they respond to their experiences. Offering numerous examples of Lerner’s “both at the same time” maxim, every chapter in this collec-tion draws on basic research and every chapter reviews findings that speak to the theories, models and interests of basic researchers, while locating their enquiries very much in the realities of people’s lives. The work assembled here aspires towards the goal Lerner recommends for the future of our discipline, namely that the emphasis is on “rigorous, theory‐predicated research about the mutually influential relations among individual and ecological processes, about the embodiment of

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human development within the rich and complex ecology of human life, [that] will continue to be at the forefront of developmental science” (Lerner, 2012, p. 33).

Implications and Implementation

There is no doubt that the gap between theory and application is becoming less wide than it was at one time. This is seen, for example, in the forging of a working relation-ship in many areas between psychological science and public policy, thanks largely to the inspiring example set by certain individuals, such as Edward Zigler (Aber, Bishop‐Josef, Jones, McLearn, & Phillips, 2007). It is also found in the establishment of training courses for the application of developmental research, open not only to devel-opmental scientists but also to those from a policy and practice background, thus providing an opportunity to learn a common language, share problems and acquire similar sets of methodological tools to tackle these problems (Lerner, Jacobs, & Wertlieb, 2005). And it is also seen in the many reports of basic research that now have a concluding section on the implications of their findings for practice.

Highlighting the practical implications of a scientific study is a valuable, indeed essential aspect of the research‐to‐action process, but it is by no means the end of the story. Implication needs to be followed by implementation, that is, ensuring that potentially useful findings are in fact used. To disseminate research results among the relevant policy and practitioner groups, even if the right outlets and the appropriate language are used, does not in itself guarantee action. There are still academics who assume that if one can demonstrate by means of objective research that A is better than B at a statistically significant level of 0.05 or better, the power of such evidence will by itself persuade everyone concerned to drop course B and adopt A instead. That, alas, is a naive attitude; there are many reasons for taking or not taking decisions other than knowledge alone.

Let us emphasize that by no means everything that psychological research has to offer encounters such problems. As Phillip Zimbardo (2004) in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association – 35 years after that given by Miller – pointed out, there are many research findings which have been readily accepted by the public and are now so pervasive that they are generally taken for granted: work on psychological testing, positive reinforcement, prejudice and discrimination, psychological stress and many other topics has widely been recog-nized as of great potential value in fostering human welfare. At the same time, and often at a personal as well as an official level, numerous creative working relationships have been established between academics on the one hand and policymakers and practitioners on the other, ensuring that evidence based findings result in interventions

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to the benefit of clients in need. And yet, as the contributors to this volume make clear, there are numerous other areas where this does not apply, where certain factors operate in creating obstacles to spanning the research–practice gap. Clearly these factors need to be identified and, given the move from a unidirectional to a bidirec-tional view, respected in the transmission process. This is perhaps the most important task now confronting anyone working on the giving away of psychology.

About this Book

While every aspect covered by developmental psychology has the potential to be exploited for its use in applied settings, in some such exploitation has gone much further. It is from these that we have chosen certain topics, the choice depending, in part, on just how active the effort has been in transferring research findings to practitioners and, in part, on the wish to cover a wide diversity of areas in order to examine the extent to which they share both the problems confronting anyone engaged in knowledge transfer and the conclusions to be drawn from efforts to solve them. There are no doubt many other topics we could have selected, but those included here do serve as examples of the efforts that have been made on the part of a growing number of workers in applying a research orientation to real‐world problems. Inevitably, many chapters address themselves to aspects of dysfunction and atypical development, but it is in these areas that there is the greatest need for informed policy and action and that have consequently attracted most attention from applied psychologists.

The chapters chosen are grouped in three sections, entitled Family Processes and Child Rearing Practices, Educational Aspects, and Clinical Aspects. These group-ings are not rigid or impermeable and readers will encounter many areas of overlap across sections and chapters.

The authors are all eminent researchers whose studies have definite implications for practice and who have confronted the giving away process as part of their work. We asked contributors, where appropriate, to follow a particular structure when writing their chapters. In each case, there is a conventional component, namely setting out the scene by presenting a succinct overview of the relevant research. Then, we asked authors to reflect on how they had experienced the giving away process, what they had learned from it and what they would wish to share with potential future researchers and practitioners in their field of expertise. This could include accounts of the actual implementation of the research and its reception by the relevant individuals and institutions in the field, and the myriad factors bearing on the course of their programs, including interactions with policymakers and other external influences.

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With respect to their own areas of specialism, each chapter tells its own story. Rather than reiterate their thoughtful expositions here, we will attempt instead to preview some of the recurrent and generic themes concerning the giving away process. Some of these are obvious areas that researchers will have to grapple with if they work in the real world, and some may be less obvious; yet, crucially, most of them receive far less attention in the scientific literature than they warrant. They bear very directly on our work and the processes of implementing and translating research – but they are not often taught, and many researchers learn about them the hard way. They con-cern working with policy makers, working with external institutions and agencies, working with the media, and reflections on the history of research programs.

Working with policymakers

When research is addressed to questions concerning how children should be raised, how families can be supported, how we can help those with difficulties, how educational systems can be improved, it is very likely to intersect with the interests of policymak-ers. Many of the chapters in this collection report aspects of such intersections.

As Hardway and McCartney discuss, in most areas of human development some kind of policy is inevitable and some kind of research is likely: it would be good to bring them together but, for reasons they elaborate, this is often not achieved. Cooper and Knitzer, addressing related issues, remind us that public policy is a blunt tool, fashioned in contexts that meet some needs and fail to tackle others. Furthermore, policy can change (and sometimes for the better) as research gathers momentum and publicity. Smith, for example, describes how bullying was once an area of policy vacuum yet, in a relatively short space of time, became the focus of mandatory policy that affected every school in his country.

Several of the chapters ahead also describe encountering indifference, resistance and political pressures. While many of the contributors can point to areas where public policies have been helpful, none is able to enter a “Completely satisfactory” report. This is not because policymakers are bad people: they work in very different systems with very different agendas. An important part of the giving away process is learning to communicate in ways that are meaningful to them.

Other institutions: Schools, child care centers, community agencies and the legal system

As has become increasingly apparent, and as will be amplified in several chapters here, giving away research is not a unidirectional process (McCall & Groark, 2000), where knowledgeable researchers hand over their conclusions to ignorant

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practitioners and grateful policymakers only too willing to adopt the new ideas. Any potential consumer of research is not a tabula rasa, but is influenced by many considerations other than knowledge alone, such as political and ideolog-ical factors, financial constraints, perceived threat to professional role, emotional resistance, sheer inertia and a range of other obstacles to change.

Much applied developmental research has implications for the institutions in which children spend much of their time, such as schools and child care centers, or other community‐based agencies that deliver services to families and children (Cooper and Knitzer). Often, and especially in the wake of broader economic crises, these bodies are working in the context of financial stringencies that bear on how adequately they can meet their primary purposes (Cicchetti et al.). To gain access to these institutions to run research programs and interventions, and to collaborate with the staff, usually entails seeking approval from educational authorities, directors, principals, and head teachers. This may involve careful and sometimes protracted negotiations with senior administrators who may have many other calls on their time and resources. Cicchetti, Ginsberg and Ertle, and Moreland and Dumas, in their respective chapters, describe important practical issues that can arise when working with the directors of child care centers and agencies, even when the directors are very enthusiastic about the project.

The staff in these workplaces (including teachers, assistants, educational psychologists, and other therapists) are generally highly motivated, skilled and experienced professionals who are very committed to the well‐being and advance-ment of the children in their care. They are also extremely busy and, in most educational systems, subject to a lot of pressure from policymakers, their own management, parents, and other sources. Their work is highly accountable and they are required to tick (literally) a lot of boxes, often on a daily basis. Thus, when it comes to implementing and testing the fruits of rigorous developmental research in the classroom, what seems like a good plan from the perspective of a research institution may be confronted with the rude reality that teachers some-times have competing priorities and, occasionally, strong reasons not to want to do what the researcher believes would be a good thing to do. Even incontrovert-ibly desirable activities, such as teachers providing a series of practical training sessions to instruct 5–7‐year‐olds how to manage traffic hazards in the street, may be too much to add to teachers’ already high workloads (Thomson). Ginsburg and Ertle provide a frank and very revealing description of the issues facing teachers – and, hence, their own applied developmental work with them – in the process of giving away a rich and creative, research‐based mathematics curric-ulum for 4‐ and 5‐year old children, in predominantly low‐income schools and childcare centers in New York City and New Jersey. This project also enjoyed the full support of district level officials.

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Any project with a longitudinal dimension will face challenges in recruiting and retaining participants; these challenges are likely to be still greater when the sample of interest has high levels of social disadvantage or stress. Moreland and Dumas offer very practical guidance on how to address these challenges.

The legal system is another important environment in which applied develop-mental psychology interacts with the structures, assumptions and processes of the larger society. Child and adolescent offenders have been a longstanding focus of applied developmental research (Dishion and Yasui). Indeed, children’s involve-ment with the law – as the subjects of custody decisions, as victims and witnesses – has been one of the most active areas of applied developmental research and implementation over the last few decades (Cashmore & Bussey, 1996; Ceci, Markle, & Chae, 2005; Patterson & Farr, Chapter 6, this volume; Saywitz, 1989; Zajac, O’Neill, & Hayne, 2012).

The legal system has to make decisions about the well‐being of young people, often in very complex and fraught circumstances (Schaffer, 1998). Frequently, the system is ready, even keen, to draw on the evidence base provided by developmental researchers (Cicchetti et al., Patterson and Farr). As Patterson and Farr illustrate, there are direct ways in which developmental psychology enters into and influences legal decision making (including formal citation of research findings and consulta-tion of expert witnesses), as well as indirect ways, such as the dissemination of ideas through the mass media, which in turn may form part of the backdrop of assump-tions of lawyers and judges. These authors show, in an account of the evolving of the American legal system in relation to parenting by gay and lesbian people, that the impact of developmental research can be difficult to predict. Successful legal actions, such as litigation by victims of bullying (Smith), can impact greatly on policymakers’ sensitivity to issues.

Delivery of any successful service in any human workplace depends on the quality, skills and motivation of the relevant staff and their managers. This is very much the case in respect of the kinds of projects undertaken by applied developmentalists. Training staff appropriately and thoroughly is essential and several chapters discuss the practicalities involved in their particular sphere of interest (for example, Cicchetti et al. on the selection and training of staff in family centers). As Cummings et al. report, one further constraint – very salient to most researchers – that bears on the training of research and intervention personnel is that sources of funding are usually fluctuating, subject to gaps or disappearance. This is not unique to our employment sector but, as in others, it can mean that investment in the right people can be put under pressure as they are compelled for their own economic security to seek more stable sources of income. Interestingly, in some contexts, volunteers can be recruited to, and trained for, applied research projects with positive results (see Thomson on volunteer trainers working to improve child pedestrian safety).

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Sensitivity is needed when offering practitioners new ways of doing things. As authors report, whether it be promoting child pedestrian safety (Thomson) or teaching mathematics (Ginsburg and Ertle), some will be alert to the possibility of implied criticism of their current practices, and this has the potential to create a barrier to the researcher’s message. Indeed, professional self‐preservation in the face of divergent and sometimes conflicting advice can lead to teachers sometimes adopting eclectic approaches to pre‐empt possible criticism of oversight or neglect (Johnson and Watson).

The media

The media are relatively neglected in developmental research (Durkin & Blades, 2009). Even research into the most popular topic in this area, effects of media vio-lence, is more often conducted by social psychologists than developmentalists. Yet most applied developmentalists will come into contact with the media at some stage – reactively and/or proactively – and it is striking how often the topic comes up (unprompted!) in the chapters that follow.

The topics on which we work relate to the well‐being of developing people, equity and support. Specific research projects or findings will attract the attention of journalists. In many cases, this can be an innocuous process (e.g., the press report the launch of a newly funded project, perhaps basing the story very closely on the research institution’s press release) or even beneficial (e.g., media publicity helps with participant recruitment or access to other organizations). Smith discusses how media coverage raised public awareness of the problems of school bullying, leading to action from policymakers, more funding for research and more investment in effective school procedures. Cameron and Rutland describe how very strong working relationships with practitioners were triggered by researchers’ appearances in the media. Sometimes, experienced researchers will initiate such coverage delib-erately and often media outlets are willing to assist because they see the human interest of the research.

Several chapters report on uses of media may as part of the research and/or inter-vention process (for example, Smith, on the provision of help packs and telephone helplines to address school bullying). In some cases, information relayed via media may be the most readily available, or even the only, option for reaching families which are unable or unwilling to participate in face‐to‐face, on‐site sessions (for example, Cummings et al., Sanders and Calam).

Media may be exploited also for translational purposes, to communicate with, inform and coordinate key stakeholders (Thomson). Conti‐Ramsden and Durkin describe the ways in which researchers and practitioners are using the Internet to

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promote public and professional awareness of an often hidden childhood disability (language impairment) and to make research findings accessible to affected individ-uals, their families and others. Hardway and McCartney emphasize the need for researchers to work effectively with the media to communicate our messages to policymakers. Researchers and policymakers, they point out, have much to learn from each other but operate within very different constraints, a reality that makes communication much more difficult that it might at first appear.

Sanders and Calam provide an extensive account of the potential role of media in teaching parenting skills, particularly in connection with the Triple P Program. They offer a conceptual framework for how the media can be used and, drawing on their own considerable experience, discuss the many concerns that researchers and practitioners may have about working with and via media. Again, their strategies and findings will be of benefit to colleagues in other areas of applied developmental psychology who are planning to include media components in intervention or translational work.

Working with the media can be precarious. Well‐being is, by definition, desir-able but many people do not have it. To achieve it may require changes to the status quo (for example, changes in the distribution of resources or the provision of new services); changes (or proposed changes) to the status quo are contentious, so there is potential for adverse reactions within the media. These may take the form of direct criticism of the project (e.g., a hostile column or editorial) or an active search for opposition. For example, one of us once held a research grant to investigate aspects of children’s understanding of gender role stereotypes in television. His uni-versity issued a short press release to summarize the background and purposes of the work, which included an interest in testing children’s reactions to counterste-reotyped portrayals (male nurses, female plumbers, etc.). A local newspaper responded with a column headed ‘Boys will be boys’, in which the journalist explained that gender roles and behavior were given by nature and he urged that public monies should not be wasted on academic projects that did not recognize the irreversibility of evolution’s achievements. It was scarcely a devastating critique, and debate and challenge are to be welcomed (furthermore, the paper accepted a rebuttal). But media objections do have the potential to foster a climate in which a research venture is inconvenienced (for example, inducing reluctance in schools to grant access to potential participants, or attracting further critiques from politicians who may not be sympathetic to change). Media interventions are often attempted in contexts where there are strong countervailing sociocultural assumptions and it cannot be guaranteed that the messages delivered will be effective; some critics will object that even covering the issue will furnish a climate of complicity – see, for example, Martin and Brooks‐Gunn on reactions to television programs intended to help deter teenage pregnancy. Another pernicious example (potentially harmful to

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good teaching practice) can be seen in media reactions to research on the effectiveness of synthetic phonics in reading (Johnston and Watson).

A common journalistic strategy is to seek contrary opinions to engender contro-versy. In a democratic society, this is a reasonable process but it does mean that the terms of debate can shift radically outside those that might be assumed within academic contexts (which is not to attribute to the latter environment a complete absence of emotions, biases, and competing interests!). So, for example, a major research project, such as might be headed by many of the contributors to this volume, can be pitted on national radio against a vocal critic representing a pressure group that subscribes to opposing goals and values. In some cases, the critic may have legitimate credentials (professional expertise in the domain of interest) and in some cases she or he may not.

This is not to assume that we (researchers) are right and the media (or the opposing lobby group, politicians, or individuals) are wrong. Nor should we expect that media outlets be staffed exclusively by professionals who see things much as we do and wait only for news from us that they can translate into empathetic articles. The more important point is that research which engages with the real world is likely to find itself dealing with the real world, and this can be a delicate process in which it behoves researchers to anticipate, where possible, and to deal with, where necessary, ramifications of their work that go beyond the parameters taken for granted in academic discourse. For better or worse, this makes for a different con-text from running E‐prime experiments testing undergraduates’ reactions to transient visual stimuli – and, as shown in the work of many contributors to this volume, it calls for a different mixture of skills.

Penelope Leach is well versed in dealing with the mass media. As a leading practitioner in writing books and articles and presenting television programs for parents, she has reached very large audiences to present parenting advice based on psychological research. In Chapter 2, she provides a rich historical overview of the ways in which the developing science of developmental psychology has both responded to prevailing sociopolitical and cultural assumptions and impacted upon them.

Reflections on the history of programs

We also encouraged authors, where appropriate, to reflect on historical develop-ments related to the subjects of their chapter. This was not for the traditional reason of documenting the development of the background literature. As above, historical perspectives help us to see how ideas emerge (and fade) and invariably remind us of how closely scientific developments are tied to the sociocultural and ideological

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climates in which they unfold (Arnett & Cravens, 2006; Leach, Chapter 2, this volume; Lerner, Fisher & Weinberg, 2000; Mülberger, 2014; Oppenheimer & Barrett, 2011). This is of particular interest to the present collection in terms of what it reveals about the conditions under which developmentalists attempt to give the fruits of their specialisms away and the ways in which they are received.

Smith, in summarizing the recent history of research and practice relating to bullying, makes the thought‐provoking observation that only a few decades ago there was scant interest in bullying as a research topic. A similar point could be made about research into parenting by gay and lesbian people (Patterson and Farr). In the case of bullying, the prevailing assumption seems to have been that it was part of life; in the case of gay parenting, perhaps the assumption was that it was not part of life – in both cases, these assumptions are now consigned to the dustbin of history and applied developmental research has played an important role in respond-ing to and facilitating changes in societal perspectives. Cicchetti et al. describe how, through collaboration with researchers and over the course of a decade, service providers came to shift an initially resistant stance to the notion of random assign-ment of participants in the course of evaluation. Thomson shows how research helped practitioners come to terms with the fact that there is much more to child pedestrian safety than telling children to be careful when crossing the road.

In other contexts, historical perspectives reveal telling contrasts between the refinement of intellectual activity in a given field and the resistance of practice to any change at all. Consider, for example, the exciting developments in moral development theory over the last 30 or so years versus what is observable in moral and civics education in many classrooms (Helwig & Yang, Chapter 11, this volume). And history can highlight the consequences of undirected eclecticism: Johnson and Watson offer fascinating observations about the “archeology” of the last few decades of teaching practice in reading in UK schools, in which prevailing methods retain fossilized strands of earlier, sometimes intuitive, approaches, now juxtaposed with – and, unfortunately, potentially undermining – more recent evidence‐based techniques.

There is another sense in which the history of research programs is revealing. Good researchers are good learners, and good learners profit from their errors and other feedback. Thwarted plans, disappointments, serendipity, and obstacles tell us a lot, not only about what works and does not work at the practical level but also about where our theories and methods are in need of improvement. Several con-tributors describe in valuable detail how their progress and practices were reshaped in the light of discoveries made in implementation in the “actual ecology of human development.” These accounts, in turn, provide invaluable guidelines to future applied researchers, as well as what Dishion and Yasui show, in a very positive sense, is the reassuring “comfort of failure” and the rewards of resilience.

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Conclusions

In sum, our contributors show that giving away developmental psychology involves much more than is captured in the traditional sections of a scientific report. Whether it be negotiating with policymakers, collaborating with practitioners from very different professional backgrounds, or communicating with or via the mass media, there are many variables at play. These are not background “noise” to the scientific project but the inevitable settings – part of the ecology – in which research is applied and implemented. Unless you are very fortunate, you do not get taught this stuff in graduate school!

We hope, then, that this Handbook will be more than a fascinating compilation of cutting edge research, eloquently summarized by leading exponents. We hope that it will be useful. Distinctively, it assembles the wisdom, experiences, self‐reflections and, occasionally, warnings of a wide range of experts who have grappled with the many challenges – and rewards – of giving developmental psychology away. Future researchers, drawn to these and other areas of developmental imple-mentations, will profit from careful attention to the authoritative reports here of what happens when developmental research is put in action.

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