Ecological Systems Theory

Ecological Systems Theory

Introduction

The Ecological Systems Theory was originally contributed by a very famous scholar of psychology named Urie Bronfenbrenner. The development of psychology of a person is influenced by several different environmental systems. The systems which comes into immediate contact with a person like family and school affect the psychology of a person, the relationships with parents effects the relationships with one's school fellows, the effect of external variables on a person effects on the people around them, the culture effects the person's psychology, and the changing environment over time; life styles; values also effect the psychology of the people. They are categorized under five different systems by Urie Bronfenbrenner, which we will be covering in our paper.

Five different sorts of systems have been defined in the theory which contains the rules, norms and roles that outline development. Included in the system are macrosystem, exosystem, mesosystem, microsystem and the chronosystem. The cultural extent at large is macrosystem. An environment that is external to a person's experience and in which he is not involved directly, but it does affect him somehow is the exosystem, like the workplace of the parent of a child. The environment that is immediate in which a person is operating, or the classroom and the family are part of microsystem. The interaction of two microsystems is called a mesosystem, such as a connection between the school and the home of a child. The chronosystem comprehends the aspect of time as it relates to a child's environments. The leader in creating these systems was Bronfenbrenner who introduced researchers into examining the political structures, economy and the family as influencing factors in the development into adulthood of a child. There is a need to understand how this ecological theory influences the environment in relation to the development of the human being.

Discussion

Background

Also recognized as the Human Ecology Theory, the Ecological theory states that the different types of environmental systems have an influence on the development of human (Addison, 1992). The theory helps us understand our behavior at work or at school and how does it compare to our behavior in the occurrence of our family and why we may behave differently (Crandell, 2012). Degrees of variations in our behavior are influenced throughout our lifespan due to the different environments we encounter, and this holds with the Ecological Systems Theory. The various systems that form a part of this theory need to be conversed to get a clearer picture of how each system plays a role in influencing the environment that relates to the human development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Microsystems

A pattern of activities, social roles and interpersonal relations faced by the growing person is called a microsystem (Crandell, 2012). It is a pattern with features that are physical, social and particularly symbolic in a given setting of face to face (Henderson, 1995). The pattern invite, permit or inhibit engagement in progressively more complex, sustained in the environment that is immediate. Settings like family, school, group of peers and workplace are included in ...