中文摘要：

长期以来，发展心理学研究主要采取变量定向的方法。近年来，随着发展心理学理论的发展和人类发展个体差异的科学事实的积累，个体定向的方法得以发展并且成为发展心理学研究的主要方法思路之一。个体定向的方法关注作为整体的个体，旨在确定有意义的同质性个体类别或亚组。个体定向的方法包括一系列的基本理论原则，具体数据分析方法包括传统聚类分析、基于模型的聚类方法以及配置频次分析等。发展心理学研究需综合运用个体定向的方法与变量定向的方法。

英文摘要：

Variable-oriented approach has been dominating in developmental research. However, over the past two decades, with the theoretical perspectives portraying development as a holistic, highly interactional, and individualized process, and the empirical research indicating there were individual differences in development, the person-oriented approach emerged and gained popularity in developmental research. The focus in on individuals in a person-oriented approach and the goal is to group homogenous individuals into the theoretically or practically meaningful categories or subgroups. The basic tenets of person-oriented approach are presented, and the data analyzing methods including the traditional clustering, model-based clustering, and configural frequency analysis are reviewed. Important issues in conducting a person-oriented research including the validity of categories or subgroups obtained and the match between the theoretical tenets and the concrete methods are discussed, and the researchers are suggested to integrate the person-oriented and variable-oriented approaches in developmental research.