Urie Bronfenbrenner is generally regarded as one of the world's leading scholars in the field of developmental psychology (Vander Zanden, Crandell & Crandell 2007). His Ecological Systems Theory holds that development reflects the influence of several environmental systems, and it identifies five environmental systems: Micro system: The setting in which the individual lives. These contexts include the person's family, peers, school, and neighborhood. It is in the micro system that the most direct interactions with social agents take place; with parents, peers, and teachers, for example. The individual is not a passive recipient of experiences in these settings, but someone who helps to construct the settings.
Development is defined as the orderly and sequential changes that occur with the passage of time as an organism moves from conception to death. Developmental psychology is defined as the branch of psychology that deals with how individuals change with time while remaining in some respects the same (Zanden et al., 2007). Developmental psychologists have been seeking ways to determine how we change and the changes that take place during our lives as we develop. Urie Bronfenbrenner develops a theory that involves how a person and their ecological environment interact and the influence that a person’s environment plays in their development. Bronfenbrenner is most famous for his views on ecological psychology.
The subsequent discussion offers an analysis of these levels and their influence to child development, and then the writer offers a personal analysis of the influence of the ecological theory in decision making. The theory suggests there are four levels of the environment that simultaneously influence individuals. Brofenbrenner suggest that we can’t fully understand development without considering how a person is influenced by each of these levels (Vander Zanden, 2007). Bronfenbrenner examines the mutual accommodations between the developing person and these changing contexts in terms of four levels of environmental influence: the microsystem, the mesosytem, the exosystem, and the macrosystem (Vander Zander, p. 8, 2007). The microsystem consists of the network of social relationships and physical settings in which a person in involved in each and every day.
Ecological Systems Theory Affects of Development According to Brofenbrenner’s theory of ecological development there are four main systems that work together that influence a person’s development. Brofenbrenner developed these systems so he could better understand human development within the context of relationships that make up the person’s environment. The ecology of human development is the scientific study of the progressive relationships between an active, growing human being and the changing properties of the immediate settings in which the developing person lives. This process is affected by the relations between these settings and by the larger contexts in which the settings are embedded (Miller, J. 2003).
I will attempt to take Bronfenbrenner’s model and match it with my own development, focusing on key transitions to see if they usefully explain my own personal development. Above is a diagram (source: edfd 127.wikispaces.com) illustrating Bronfenbrenner’s model, it shows the five layers in the nest analogy, first the Microsystem or immediate environs
The primary learning perspective portrayed in the article is the Behavioral theory of learning or Behaviorism. In Behaviorism, learning is defined as an observable behavior change due to an experience with environmental stimuli. An assumption of Behaviorism is that people’s behaviors result from their experiences with their environment. Another assumption of Behaviorism is that learning happens when the stimuli and responses are associated and occur close together. An additional assumption of Behaviorism is that learning is observable,
McGregor’s ideas suggest that there should be two approaches towards the management of people and that there are two different fundamental properties, which highlight a person’s behavior in a working environment and organizational life. He based his theory upon the work of Abraham Maslow’s the development of the five “Hierarchy Needs Model”: Biological and Physiological, Safety, Belongingness and Love, Esteem and Self-Actualization as to what attributes the entry level need to move forward by advancing in their career. Now that a slight understanding on what McGregor’s work was based on has been given, McGregor’s Theory X and Y can be looked at in a bit more detail, starting with his Theory X. Theory X assumptions to management roles or to the staff are that of they are lazy and unmotivated. They will avoid tasks and they dislike work, they have a negative view on human nature and would need working supervision.
Running head: Bronfenbrenner Analysis Andrea Miller Capella University Bronfenbrenner Analysis COUN5004 January 01, 2012 Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory of Development is an important aspect in being able to capture how certain people make sense of certain circumstances that arise. Bronfenbrenner does not want to simply focus on one thing. He wants to focus on the relationship between a person’s environment and the person as opposed to simply one or the other. He also does not want to concentrate on isolated variables that influence any particular decision he wants to focus more on the process of development that leads the person to that particular decision (Crandell, Crandell, and Zanden, 2009). Bronfenbrenner first introduced the ecological theory in a comprehensive statement in 1979.
In regard to nature and nurture, I feel that the book is accurate in stating on page 18 that they are interdependent upon one another versus separate and “against” one another. Regarding universality and specificity, Sternberg’s findings on page 21 shows that we must use a multi cultural approach to fit in with our multi cultural world that exists now. Finally, in regard to activity and passivity, I feel that the term the book used of bidirectionality on page 23 accurately to illustrate the “organism and the environment changing each other”. Using the bioecological lens to examine how development is impacted from childhood to adulthood is the discussion of biological supports and cultural supports and how we change and adapt across the lifespan. The book proposes that successful adaptation is benefited mostly by biological supports in the first part of life and then in changes later in life to cultural supports being more important
As our earth continues to evolve new ethical issues arise constantly. Now not only is there the ethical areas we have always dealt with there is now also environmental ethics which is reaching the health care field. Environmental ethics is the discipline that studies the moral relationship of human beings to the environment (Brennan & Lo, 2007). The articles in the May 31, 2007, OJIN topic, "Environmental Health: Important Choices for a Greener World," suggest the many ways in which nursing can be instrumental in advocating for a new awareness of the need for environmental ethics. Exploitation of the environment has exposed us to a wide variety of diseases caused by chemical, physical, biological, and psychological agents; and there is increasing evidence that global climate changes are already affecting human health.