A multiple-levels-of-analysis approach to the study of developmental processes in maltreated children.

B efore the early 1970s, scientific investigations of children from high-risk environments, as well as those with mental disorders, portrayed the developmental course of such individuals as deterministic, inevitably eventuating in maladaptive and psychopathological outcomes (1). As researchers discovered that not all high-risk children evinced the dire consequences that the existing theories of psychopathology predicted, comprehending the processes through which children at risk did not develop psychopathology became viewed as important for informing theoretical viewpoints on the development of maladaptation and pathology (2). Indeed, over the past several decades advances have occurred in understanding the complexity of causality, the interaction of risk and protective factors, the heterogeneity of disorders, and the importance of biological and psychological developmental processes and mechanisms (3, 4). The work of Kaufman et al. (5) in a recent issue of PNAS illustrates that individual risk factors alone seldom are powerful predictors of later psychopathological outcomes (6, 7). Much more often, adequate prediction of either disturbance or resilience requires considering multiple risks and protective factors and their interplay. It is now common knowledge that the same risk factors may be associated with different outcomes (i.e., multifinality) and that subgroups of individuals exhibiting similar problems arrived at them from different beginnings (i.e., equifinality) (8). Furthermore, comprehending the factors contributing to positive outcomes despite the presence of significant adversity (i.e., known as resilience; see ref. 1) can help to broaden the understanding of developmental processes that may not be evident in normative environments. The study of child maltreatment, perhaps the greatest failure of the caregiving environment to provide the expectable experiences that are necessary to promote normal developmental processes, provides researchers with a vital opportunity to investigate the pathways to normal and deviant outcomes (9). Child abuse and neglect set in motion a probabilistic path of epigenesis for maltreated children characterized by an increased likelihood of failure and disruption in the successful resolution of salient developmental tasks, resulting in a profile of relatively enduring vulnerability factors that increase the probability of the emergence of maladaptation and psychopathology (10). The majority of our knowledge about the pathways, developmental trajectories, and ultimate consequences of psychopathology in maltreated children has been informed by investigations that have focused on relatively narrow domains of variables and that have been predominantly psychological in nature (9). To develop a thorough and comprehensive understanding of adaptive and maladaptive functioning, it is essential that scientists increasingly incorporate a multiple-levels-of-analysis perspective into their research (11). Such multiple-levelsof-analysis investigations may reveal the genetic elements that are probabilistically associated with maladaptive developmental outcomes and psychopathology, and, alternatively, those genes that may serve a protective function for individuals experiencing significant adversity.