The universality of human development

While organicism may provide a more complete perspective than mechanism for viewing human development (Lerner, 2002), Pepper (1970) says that the organismic perspective is diminished because it does not deal with historic processes and "takes time lightly". In other words, while organicism emphasizes the universality of human development, it does not take into account the contextual influences of individual development.

For example, theories of aging from an organismic perspective view the adult years as a period of decline; however, research shows instead that individual differences increase as adults age depending on factors that had little to do with age, like when and where they are born (Lerner, 2002). In other words, individuals can grow and change throughout life (Brim & Kagan, 1980), which makes development more dynamic than the organismic perspective allows.