Chapter 8 demonstrates how RIO allows analysts to incorporate the case-oriented logic of configurational comparative analysis into a regression framework. We contrast regression with qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), discuss key benefits of QCA, and outline a comparative configurational approach to regression. We illustrate how RIO can be used to realize some of the benefits of configurational comparative analysis through (1) a macro-comparative analysis of education-based inequality in political participation and (2) an analysis of the correlates of poverty using nationally representative data from the United States.

Pavone analyzes how our evolving understanding of case-based causal inference via process-tracing should alter how we select cases for comparative inquiry. The chapter explicates perhaps the most influential and widely used means to conduct qualitative research involving two or more cases: Mill’s methods of agreement and difference. It then argues that the traditional use of Millian methods of case selection can lead us to treat cases as static units to be synchronically compared rather than as social processes unfolding over time. As a result, Millian methods risk prematurely rejecting and otherwise overlooking (1) ordered causal processes, (2) paced causal processes, and (3) equifinality, or the presence of multiple pathways that produce the same outcome. To address these issues, the chapter develops a set of recommendations to ensure the alignment of Millian methods of case selection with within-case sequential analysis.

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.