Editorial: Moments in History as a Catalyst for Science: Placing the Individual Within a Specific Time and Place

Abstract

Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory¹ argued that the historical context of development, the chronosystem, can have as large an impact on the course and tenor of development as the closely tethered microsystem of family, neighborhood, and school that we typically focus on in the laboratory and in the clinic. While we often speak of these nested systems as a background construct, we rarely have a direct view of the empirical consequences of matching the individual with a unique moment of time, separate and apart from the typical factors thought to influence development. Zeytinoglu et al.² provide an opportunity to do just that as they examine the consequences of having a childhood history of behavioral inhibition on patterns of anxiety in the face of novel COVID-19 restrictions in early 2020. In doing so, they note the mediating factors, evident in the years between toddlerhood and adulthood, that help better understand the coming together of individual and context. In discussing this important contribution to the literature, we can also see how the field has often relied on accidents of history to advance our understanding of human development and psychological functioning.