My biographical sketch describes how I became a cultural/cross-cultural developmental scientist as a complete autodidact. During the late 1960s in Germany universities were in a massive process of change which only later resulted in formal institutional structures and curricula. Until then, there was complete freedom for pursuing interests and selecting topics. I was generally interested in other cultures and found opportunities to study children and families abroad. Connecting with evolutionary theory prompted me towards being a universalist. In another direction, meeting great minds in the fields of cultural and cross-cultural psychology helped me find my point of view as a developmental scientist studying children’s developmental pathways in different cultural environments. Together with wonderful colleagues, I studied systematic contextual variations in solving general developmental tasks. My overall conclusion is that culture needs to be consistently introduced into developmental science and all its applications (in policy and practical interventions).

This chapter summarises the findings from relevant national and international research studies exploring neurodevelopmental impairment among young people who offend and describes the potential role of these disorders in developmental pathways for the onset of antisocial behaviour. In particular, we consider the increased exposure to social and environmental risk for offending resulting from neurodevelopmental impairment and disabling and criminalising processes that these young people are subjected to, including within the criminal justice system. Dismantling these barriers requires recognition, understanding, resources and awareness. Age-appropriate accommodations are needed to ensure that children affected by impairments have their rights respected, protected and fulfilled in criminal proceedings.

In our rejoinder to the excellent commentaries provided by Macfie, Noose, and Gorrondona (This Volume) and Davies and Thompson (This Volume), we discuss three key directions for research and clinical work that emerge from our chapter on environmental and sociocultural influences on personality disorders. First, it is critical to recognize the importance of early caregiving environments and family processes in the etiology of personality pathology. Second, identifying transactional models that integrate biological, psychological and sociocultural influences may move the field towards a more holistic and multifaceted understanding of the underpinnings of personality pathology. Third and finally, expanding the use of dimensional models of personality pathology may contextualize these transactional relationships and facilitate more rapid advances in our understanding and conceptualizations of (mal)adaptive expressions of personality traits. Dimensional models may further facilitate consideration of socioeconomic, cultural and geopolitical influences in evaluating and defining the maladaptiveness of specific traits and behaviors. Increasing our focus on contextual, environmental, and sociocultural influences in research design, assessment, and case conceptualization will improve personality research and clinical care.

This commentary on Sharp and De Clerq’s chapter (this volume) describes potential benefits of integrating and synthesizing research conducted primarily predominantly with adults from a personality pathology perspective with the increasingly robust body of research conducted with children and adolescents from a developmental psychopathology perspective. Both perspectives view psychopathology as emerging from an interplay of biologically-based vulnerabilities and risk and protective factors at multiple levels of social ecological systems (e.g., individual, family, community, and culture). Both attempt to understand developmental pathways and trajectories that may evolve into more durable and distinctive patterns of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that may be categorized as a personality disorder or other mental disorder. Both perspectives hope to identify effective interventions that may prevent more severe and chronic disorders among at-risk individuals. The authors argue that the integration of personality pathology and developmental psychopathology perspectives may contribute to the development of more sophisticated transdiagnostic approaches that inform clinical case formulation and treatment planning for children and adolescents.

During the course of the past four decades, developmental psychopathology has emerged as a new science that integrates various disciplines, the efforts of which had previously been distinct and separate. The distinctiveness and uniqueness of a developmental psychopathology approach lie in its focus on normal and abnormal, adaptive and maladaptive, developmental processes. A developmental analysis presupposes change and novelty, highlights the critical role of timing in the organization of behavior, underscores multiple determinants, and cautions against expecting invariant relations between causes and outcomes. A developmental analysis is essential for tracing the roots, etiology, and nature of maladaptation so that interventions may be timed and guided as well as being developmentally appropriate. Moreover, a developmental analysis proves useful for discovering the compensatory mechanisms – biological, psychological, and social-contextual – that may promote resilient functioning despite the experience of significant adversity. Inherent to a developmental psychopathology approach is a commitment to the importance of applying knowledge of normal development to the study of typical populations. Even prior to the emergence of a mental disorder, certain pathways signify adaptational failures in normal development that probabilistically forebode subsequent psychopathology. The approach suggested by a developmental psychopathology framework requires a comprehensive assessment of functioning including multidisciplinary, multidomain, multilevel, and multicontextual measurement strategies. Additionally, developmental psychopathology is a lifespan perspective, because it is only by examining a range of conditions from infancy through adulthood that developmental continuities and discontinuities can be elucidated fully.