“When you come to a fork in the road, take it”: Richard M. Lerner’s impact on applied developmental science

Richard M. Lerner has long been a beacon that has guided the way for Applied Developmental Science—both the field and the journal. As we take up the mantle of editing this journal, we find it most appropriate to entitle this piece with a quote from Yogi Berra. A boy from Brooklyn, Rich is a Yankees fan through and through, despite spending the better part of the past two decades surrounded by Red Sox fans. Much like Mr. Berra, Lerner’s turns of phrases and storytelling are quite memorable to those fortunate enough to hear them.

Throughout his life, Rich has never been one to sit idly at a proverbial fork in the road. He has selected his paths in unconventional ways such as when he flipped through a course catalog to switch college majors from physical education to Psychology despite knowing nothing about the latter (Lerner, 2014). More often, though, Rich has ignored forks in the road and instead cut his own path forward. When his father passed away unexpectedly, he chose both college and work. Rather than choosing a well-defined field for his early research (e.g., Lerner & Korn, 1972), Rich took an interdisciplinary approach without even knowing it (Lerner, 2014)! In essence, when he came to a fork in the road, he took it.

Contributions to Applied Developmental Science (the field)

Ignoring forks in the road (i.e., split dualities) also provides an apt metaphor for Dr. Lerner’s approach to human development. His work on mutually influential relations between individuals and their settings as the fundamental building blocks of human development (e.g., Lerner, 1984) rejects reductionist models based on Cartesian metatheories that split processes and phenomena into distinct “paths” (Lerner, 2019; Overton, 2015).

Lerner is both a pioneer in developmental science, having laid important pieces of the field’s foundation, and an innovator who continually pushes the frontiers of theory, research, and practice. His vita reflects this impact, as Professor Lerner has contributed to more than 750 scholarly publications including over 80 authored or edited books. His work has been recognized by scholarly societies including the American Psychological Association, Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Research in Child Development. In July 2017, Pope Francis appointed Lerner to a five-year term as a Corresponding Member of the Pontifical Academy for Life. As a self-described social entrepreneur, Rich has furthermore bridged the worlds of academia, practice, and philanthropy to provide a vision and framework for how to optimize the course of human development.

Rich’s work has inspired countless programs of research, but perhaps his most lasting impacts will be come from the multitude of students and colleagues that have accompanied him on his journey. Dr. Lerner has chaired the dissertations of more than fifty students across Michigan State University, The Pennsylvania State University, and Tufts University, many who are now leaders in academic and applied settings. Indeed, we are greatly indebted to Rich ourselves, having been fortunate enough to work as post-doctoral scholars and research faculty in his lab, the Institute for Applied Research in Youth Development (IARYD) at Tufts University.

We grew tremendously during our time at Tufts, not only in terms of academic scholarship but also as mentors, collaborators, and colleagues. Rich oversaw the IARYD in a way that very much reflected the “Big Three” of youth development programs (positive and sustained relationships, skill-building activities, and leadership opportunities; Lerner, Lerner, Bowers, & Geldhof, 2015), and he has continued to offer us his support and wisdom to this day. Even academics need support as they navigate the ebbs and flows of life-span development!

During our time at IARYD, Rich oversaw the work of dozens of individuals on multiple applied projects situated at the very forefront of the field; however, his care and concern for each member of the lab was evident through his engaged approach and supportive guidance. This support meant weekly one-on-one meetings and a tireless dedication to building the social capital of his mentees by connecting them with superb scholars from across the globe. Rich paired this access to immeasurably precious resources with opportunities for self-initiative and agency. Finally, Rich empowered all IARYD team members to lead by structuring a tiered mentoring system in which more-senior scholars were empowered to oversee projects and mentor their junior colleagues. This careful and time-graded balance of mentorship, opportunities, and agency has helped former students and postdoctoral trainees blossom into successful developmental scientists with well-respected research programs in their own right.

The salience and effectiveness of Rich’s approach to nurturing the development of future scholars first became clear to Ed during his time as a fellow at the 2011 National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Summer Institute on Applied Research in Child and Adolescent Development. Sharing stories with emerging scholars from around the country about their lives as postdocs or assistant professors, Ed realized how fortunate he was to have been working in Lerner’s lab. Not only did Ed feel supported and well-prepared for the expectations of scholarship, but he also had stories of experiences with Rich and Jacqueline V. Lerner, his wife and frequent collaborator, that provide the flavor to life.

Contributions to Applied Developmental Science (the journal)

Of the journal’s three founding editors, Rich is the only one to have retained his position across all 23 of its first volume years. More broadly, Lerner’s research has exemplified those qualities we hope to see reflected in the journal’s content and that we as developmental scientists strive to integrate into our own work—a decidedly interdisciplinary scope, a strong theoretical foundation, methodological rigor, and a continual acknowledgement that research is most impactful when it guides applied practices.

Rich’s contributions to the field have built on the work of scholars such as Werner (1948), Sears (1957), and Schneirla (1957). Lerner (2014) credits Schneirla’s ideas on circular functions as foundational to how he has framed all of his research, “that individuals, through their effects and actions on the context, could contribute to circular functions that provided a source of their own development” (p. 284). The concept of developmental regulations governing individual ←→ context relations as advanced by German action theorists such as Baltes and Baltes (1980), Heckhausen (1999), and Brandtstädter (1998) were also integrated into Lerner’s life-span theory of human development (Ford & Lerner, 1992; Lerner, 1978, 1982, 2002, 2006; Lerner & Busch-Rossnagel, 1981; Lerner & Overton, 2008). His strong relationship with Paul Baltes greatly influenced Lerner’s view of his own scholarship and contributed to the present-day constitution of the multidisciplinary field of developmental science. Always endorsing Kurt Lewin’s maxim that “there is nothing as practical as a good theory” (e.g., Lewin, 1943), Lerner’s work with Jacqueline V. Lerner also provided a widely adopted model for understanding positive youth development (Lerner et al., 2015).

Rich has always paired his theoretical acumen with an unflagging dedication to applying the best available methods for answering research questions (Molenaar, Lerner, & Newell, 2014). In particular, he has been a champion for moving the field away from ergodic approaches (Molenaar, 2004) that treat population-level associations as equally descriptive of within-person processes. In this respect, Rich has both advocated for the widespread adoption of study designs that acknowledge important intra-individual variability (e.g., development) and implemented such designs in his own work. Taking a relational developmental systems perspective seriously requires acknowledging the complete fusion of person-context systems and the fact that no two person-context systems are exactly alike.

The goal of optimizing human development as a defining characteristic of Lerner’s work began with the publication of “Applied developmental psychology as an implementation of a life-span view of human development,” in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology in 1989 (Birkel, Lerner, & Smyer, 1989). Lerner brought a life-span perspective and the ideas and optimism about the relational developmental systems-derived conception of plasticity to the inaugural meeting of National Task Force in Applied Developmental Science (Fisher et al., 1993). In the ensuing decades, Lerner has advanced applied developmental science as scholarship that seeks to integrate developmental research with policies and programs that promote positive human development (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000; Lerner & Overton, 2008). The innovations in theory and methodology that Lerner has proffered are essentially linked to his advocacy for the contribution of applied developmental science to social justice.

Applied Developmental Science: A new frontier

As Rich explained in his editorial celebrating Celia Fisher’s tenure as coeditor this journal (2015), an insistence on interdisciplinary collaboration became the cornerstone of our journal’s founding mission. “[L]launching a journal that appeared as if one field (for instance, psychology) was hegemonic in research pertinent to promoting positive human development would be uninformed, narrow, and antithetical to enabling scholars to cross disciplinary boundaries to elucidate the processes involved in healthy and positive development,” (Lerner, 2015, p. 2). Such an interdisciplinary approach required rethinking typical publication models that emphasize the publication of narrow age- and/or area-specific articles. The mission of Applied Developmental Science was instead to publish theory-predicated and methodologically rigorous quantitative and qualitative research that enhances the description, explanation, and optimization of the development of diverse individuals across the life span.

With this charge in mind, Rich Lerner, Celia Fisher, and Rich Weinberg launched and became the inaugural editors of Applied Developmental Science. Rich Weinberg served in this capacity for five years before rotating off in 2005 and eventually was replaced by Larry Gianinno in 2007. Larry rotated off three years later, at which point Rich Lerner and Celia Fisher spearheaded the journal as a team until Celia transition away from editing the journal at the end of 2014. Rich Lerner then became the Journal’s sole editor but retained the collegial spirit of its administration by increasing the scope of its editorial board. Rather than selecting a board with similar interests that align specifically with a niche area, Rich’s vision for Applied Developmental Science was to diversify in order to attract widespread attention from diverse parts of the field. Rich’s model has continued through today, and the journal especially encourages submissions related to one of its eleven target areas, each with its own Associate Editor and three-member editorial board, while also encouraging timely and impactful submissions related to any other area of Applied Developmental Science as a field.

Rich revived the idea of multiple journal editors in 2018, at which point we transitioned from Associate Editors and joined Rich as coeditors of the journal. Rich’s plan from that point was to help hone our editorial skills until being able to transition off the journal himself. With a combination of joy, sadness, and excitement, we are announcing that the time for Rich to transition off has come.

Rich has made his transition off the editorial team exceedingly easy for us, and we are forever indebted to the scaffolding and mentorship he provided while we became accustomed to our new roles as editors. We firmly believe that the Associate Editor framework Rich first implemented in 2015 has helped diversify the journal while ensuring we remain a magnet for high-quality research. As such, we do not anticipate major changes in the journal’s structure or operations in the near future and will maintain our current team of Associate Editors. These colleagues will continue to focus their efforts on specific substantive or methodological domains of applied developmental science that we view as key areas of current scholarship and emerging areas of substantive importance.

Our current Associate Editors include: Jonathan M. Tirrell, Tufts University (Character Development), Lacey J. Hilliard, Suffolk University (Media as a Context for Human Development), Sara K. Johnson, Tufts University (Methods, and Measures), Tama Leventhal, Tufts University (Neighborhoods and the Broader Contexts of Human Development), Shelley MacDermid-Wadsworth, Purdue University (Military Children and Families), Aaron Metzger, West Virginia University (Civic Engagement), Megan Mueller, Tufts School of Veterinary Medicine (Human-Animal Interaction), Velma McBride Murry, Vanderbilt University (Social Justice), Catherine Raeff, Indiana University of Pennsylvania (Cultural Perspectives and Processes), Jean Rhodes, University of Massachusetts-Boston (Community-Based Programs), and Henrik Daae Zachrisson, University of Oslo (Education and Schools). Each of these Associate Editors have an Editorial Board of three colleagues with expertise in their focal area. We are deeply grateful to the colleagues who have served as Associate Editors and to the colleagues who serve on the reviewer boards of the Associate Editors and, as well, to the scores of colleagues who serve each year as Ad Hoc Reviewers.

Our foremost aim for the journal is to maintain the theoretical and methodological rigor that has led Applied Developmental Science to become a leading outlet for research that enhances the description, explanation, and optimization of the development of diverse individuals. Second, we aim to continue strengthening the diversity of perspectives and peoples included in the pages of the journal, which has become a hallmark of Applied Developmental Science. The field of developmental science is interdisciplinary and integrated into diverse settings across the globe. Contemporary approaches to human development have impelled the need for voices from the Global South, and we hold profound appreciation for the contributions made by applied developmental scientists in these regions. Their creativity, scientific acumen, and passion for using good science to enhance the lives of the diverse people of the world brings vigor, vitality, and validity to the field and to the pages of the journal. Therefore, we encourage submissions from scholars working in these regions to consider Applied Developmental Science as an outlet for their work. Greater inclusion of diverse scholarship emphasizes the salience of developmental systems in human development.

Finally, we aim to emphasize the practical implications of the research published in Applied Developmental Science in order to enhance its visibility and utility for a wide audience of scholars and professionals. We formally ask that future submissions to the journal include a clear section highlighting the implications of their research for practice and policy and make a brief description of these implications part of their abstracts. Not all practitioners have access to full-text articles, and briefly summarizing key implications in article abstracts will gently push for greater research-practice integration. In this light, we strongly encourage authors to consider open-access as a way to expand the reach of their work when available funding permits them to do so.

We want to close by expressing our deepest gratitude to Richard M. Lerner for the leadership and support he has provided to us, to the journal, and to the field. The path that Rich forged for himself as an applied developmental scientist has provided a guide for the future of the field, the journal, and for future scholars. With Lerner as a model, scholars can take the fork in the road and pursue a research agenda that does not require them to compromise the core principles of applied developmental science.