Crisis and human development

Crises are everywhere – from environmental collapses, wars, and skyrocketing inequalities to ageing populations and pandemics, yet there is no universal way that individuals respond to these. What can be said about these? This is an invitation for us, loosely defined as social, cultural and developmental psychologists, to stop and think: we emphasise the role crises play in human and cultural development. Our starting point is that, to consider the relevance of crises for human societies and individuals, one needs to address them in time, that is, developmentally; and that one cannot understand development without understanding of crises. Furthermore, a sociocultural psychological perspective is particularly suited for teasing out people’s diverse experiences and perspectives on similar events, and how crises emerge, develop, and resonate in unique ways across life courses. This article first retraces the etymology of the terms crises and development, and then reviews how crises and development have been articulated in the history of psychology. From there, we turn to the question of crises in development. We present three epistemological principles of our sociocultural stance for studying crises and developments: temporalities and spatialities matters; experiences are dialogical and perspectival; and an idiographic approach offers fertile ground for capturing their complexity.