children who experience maltreatment, Carter developed problems trusting adults—especially men. He was reluctant to develop close emotional ties with others or to rely on others when he was sad, scared, or in need of comfort and reassurance. Instead, Carter became mistrustful of others and often expected others to be angry or hurtful toward him. These early experiences placed him on a developmental path strewn with many obstacles toward a healthy view of himself and others.
Carter’s early experience of maltreatment also taught him that physical aggression can be an effective, short-term strategy for expressing anger and solving interpersonal problems. Instead of learning to avoid arguments or to regulate his emotions, Carter tended to solve disputes by yelling, pushing, or punching. These aggressive actions interfered with his ability to develop more adaptive, prosocial problem-solving strategies and led him further along a path to long-term problems.
Now in middle school, Carter has few friends and is actively disliked by most of his peers. Because of his social rejection, Carter spends time with other peer-rejected youths who introduce him to more serious, disruptive behavior: truancy, vandalism, and alcohol use. Carter is following a path blazed by many youths who show conduct problems and antisocial behavior in adolescence.
©iStockphoto.com/Juanmonino
Luckily, it is not too late for Carter. His school psychologist might help him find ways to reconnect with prosocial peers. Maybe Carter can join a sports team or after-school club? The psychologist might also be able to teach Carter new strategies to regulate his emotions and solve social problems so that he does not have to rely on fighting. Most importantly, perhaps the psychologist’s actions and empathy can convince Carter to trust other adults. Interventions like these can help Carter find a new path to adulthood that is characterized by behavioral, social, and emotional competence.
Another example of heterotypic continuity can be seen in Emma, an extremely shy preschooler. Approximately 15% of infants inherit a temperament that predisposes them to become shy and inhibited when placed in unfamiliar situations (Fox, Snidman, Haas, Degnan, & Kagan, 2015). Emma, who inherited this tendency, developed extreme anxiety when separated from her mother. She would cry, tantrum, and become physically ill when her mother would leave her at preschool. Although Emma’s separation anxiety gradually declined, she began experiencing problems with chronic worrying in middle school. Now, as a young adult, Emma continues to experience problems with both anxiety and depression. Although Emma’s symptoms have changed over time, her pattern of underlying emotional distress has persisted into adulthood.
Equifinality and Multifinality
Of course, not all childhood disorders persist into adulthood. Why do some conditions show continuity, whereas others do not? Developmental psychopathologists are very interested in individual differences in these divergent developmental outcomes. Predicting individual differences in development is extremely difficult because, as we have seen, many factors interact over time to affect children’s outcomes. The interactions between factors, over time, produce two phenomena: equifinality and multifinality (Hinshaw & Beauchaine, 2015).
Equifinality occurs when children with different developmental histories show similar developmental outcomes (Figure 2.1). Imagine that you are a psychologist who conducts evaluations for a juvenile court. As part of your duties, you assess adolescent boys who have been arrested and convicted of illegal activities in order to make recommendations to the court regarding treatment. All of the boys that you assess have similar developmental outcomes—that is, they all show conduct problems. However, after you interview many of the boys, you discover that their developmental histories are quite different. Some boys were physically abused in early childhood. Other boys had problems with ADHD and risk-taking behavior. Still other boys had long histories of aggressive and destructive behavior. Your discovery illustrates the principle of equifinality in child development: There are many different paths to the same developmental outcome.
Figure 2.1 ■ Equifinality and Multifinality
Note: Equifinality occurs when children with different histories show the same outcome; multifinality occurs when children with the same history show different outcomes.
The principle of multifinality refers to the tendency of children with similar early experiences to show different outcomes. Imagine that you are a clinical social worker who evaluates children who have been physically abused. During the course of your career, you have assessed a number of children who have been abused by their caregivers. You notice that some of these children show long-term emotional and behavioral problems, whereas others seem to show few long-term effects. Your observation reflects the principle of multifinality: Children with similar early experiences can show different developmental outcomes.
The principle of equifinality makes it hard to determine the cause of a child’s disorder. Because of equifinality, we usually cannot infer the causes of children’s problems based on their current symptoms. For example, many people incorrectly believe that all adolescents who sexually abuse younger children were, themselves, sexually abused in the past. In actuality, adolescents engage in sexual abuse for many reasons, not only because they were victimized themselves (Fox & DeLisi, 2019).
The principle of multifinality limits our ability to predict a child’s developmental outcome. For example, many people erroneously believe that if a child has been sexually abused, she is likely to exhibit a host of emotional and behavioral problems later in life, ranging from sexual dysfunctions and aggression to depression and anxiety. In fact, the developmental outcomes of boys and girls who have been sexually abused vary considerably. Some children show significant maladjustment while others show few long-term effects. Their diversity of outcomes illustrates the difficulty in making predictions regarding development (Hinshaw & Beauchaine, 2015).
Review
Developmental pathways reflect the manner in which children face developmental tasks over time. Competence in early developmental tasks (e.g., trust in infancy) can promote competence in later tasks (e.g., friendships in adolescence).
Some disorders, like autism, show homotypic continuity; they remain relatively stable over time. Most disorders, such as anxiety and mood disorders, show heterotypic continuity; the overt signs and symptoms of the disorder change over time, but the underlying problem remains relatively constant.
Equifinality occurs when children with different histories show the same outcome. Multifinality occurs when children with the same history show different outcomes.
Why Do Some Children Have Better Outcomes Than Others?
Risk and Protective Factors
What explains equifinality and multifinality? Why is there such great variability in children’s developmental pathways? The answer is that child development is multiply determined by the complex interplay of biological, psychological, and social–cultural factors. Some of these factors promote healthy, adaptive development, whereas others increase the likelihood that children will follow less-than-optimal, more maladaptive, developmental paths.
Developmental psychopathologists use the term risk factors to describe influences on development that interfere with the acquisition of children’s competencies or compromise children’s ability to adapt to their environments. Risk factors can be biological, psychological,
