Explore Psychology

Ecological Theory: Bronfenbrenner’s Five Systems

Categories Development , Theories

Ecological theory suggests that human development is influenced by several interrelated environmental systems. Introduced by psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner, ecological theory emphasizes the importance of understanding how various systems and environments interact with and influence people throughout life. 

Key Takeaways

  • Ecological theory examines how individuals are shaped by their interactions with various environments.
  • Bronfenbrenner’s model categorizes these environments into microsystems, mesosystems, exosystems, macrosystems, and chronosystems.
  • The theory highlights the importance of considering environmental context in understanding human development.
  • While offering valuable insights, ecological theory also poses challenges, such as complexity and limitations in generalization.

Table of Contents

What Is Ecological Theory?

Bronfenfrenner’s ecological theory suggests that the interaction between and individual and their environment influences the developmental process. Bronfenbrenner organized these environmental factors into different systems or layers–each one interacting with each other as well as the individual.

In order to understand how humans develop throughout life, it is important to examine the multiple connections and influences of such systems. These influences include the immediate environment, including family and peers, as well as the much broader society and culture in which the individual and these other systems exist.

The Five Systems in Ecological Theory

Ecological theory describes five layered systems or levels that influence human behavior and development. These levels are often portrayed as a series of concentric circles. At the center of the system is the individual. The first layer is the one that they have the most immediate contact with, with each circle expanding outward and encompassing all of the inner layers.

The five levels of ecological theory are the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem.

1. Microsystem

The microsystem refers to the immediate environments where individuals directly interact, such as family, school, peer groups, and religious institutions. These settings have a profound impact on a person’s development, as they provide the most immediate and intimate social experiences. 

For example, within the family microsystem, children learn essential skills, values, and behaviors through interactions with parents, siblings, and caregivers. Similarly, the school microsystem shapes cognitive development, social skills, and peer relationships. 

These microsystemic interactions are crucial as they lay the foundation for future relationships and societal engagement.

2. Mesosystem

The mesosystem encompasses the interconnections between various microsystems in an individual’s life. It focuses on how different settings interact and influence each other, ultimately impacting the individual’s development. 

For instance, the relationship between family and school is a significant aspect of the mesosystem. A child’s experiences at home can affect their performance and behavior at school, and conversely, school experiences can influence family dynamics. 

Understanding these interactions is essential for comprehending the holistic nature of human development and the interconnectedness of different environments.

3. Exosystem

The exosystem comprises external settings that indirectly impact an individual’s development, even though they do not directly participate in those settings. Examples include the parents’ workplace, community services, and mass media. 

These environments may influence the individual through the experiences of people close to them or through policies and societal norms. 

For instance, a parent’s job stability or workplace stress can affect family dynamics and, subsequently, a child’s well-being. Similarly, community resources and media portrayals can influence individuals indirectly and influence societal perceptions and values.

4. Macrosystem

The macrosystem encompasses the broader cultural, societal, and political contexts that influence development. It includes cultural norms, economic systems, ideologies, and government policies. These elements shape the values, beliefs, and opportunities available to individuals within a society. 

For example, cultural attitudes toward education, gender roles, and socioeconomic inequality significantly impact individuals’ life paths and opportunities. Understanding the macrosystem is crucial for recognizing the broader structural forces that shape human development and behavior.

5. Chronosystem

The chronosystem incorporates the dimension of time into Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory, emphasizing how individual and environmental factors change over time and influence development. This system recognizes the importance of historical events, life transitions, and personal experiences at different developmental stages. 

For example, changes in family structure, societal norms, and technological advancements can profoundly affect individuals’ development across the lifespan. By considering these temporal factors, ecological theory provides a dynamic framework for understanding human development throughout the entire lifespan.

History of Ecological Systems Theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner was a renowned developmental psychologist. He introduced the ecological systems theory to provide a comprehensive framework for understanding human development. 

Born in 1917 in Russia, Bronfenbrenner immigrated to the United States with his family during the Russian Revolution. His early experiences as an immigrant deeply influenced his perspective on human development, leading him to explore the complex interactions between individuals and their environments.

Bronfenbrenner’s interest in understanding how various environmental factors shape development stemmed from his observations as a psychologist working with children and families. He sought to move beyond traditional theories that focused solely on individual traits or familial influences and instead emphasized the importance of considering the broader ecological contexts in which individuals live.

Bronfenbrenner developed his ecological systems theory throughout the latter half of the 20th century, drawing from interdisciplinary research in psychology, sociology, anthropology, and biology. He published his seminal work, “The Ecology of Human Development: Experiments by Nature and Design,” in 1979, where he presented his theory in detail.

Central to Bronfenbrenner’s theory is the notion that human development occurs within a series of nested environmental systems, each exerting varying degrees of influence on the individual.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory has had a profound impact on the field of developmental psychology . It emphasizes the importance of considering the dynamic interplay between individuals and their environments. 

His work has influenced research, policy-making, and intervention strategies aimed at promoting healthy development across the lifespan. Urie Bronfenbrenner’s legacy continues to shape our understanding of human development and the complex ecological contexts in which it occurs.

Examples of Environmental Influences in Ecological Theory

To understand ecological theory, it can be helpful to take a closer look at some of the influences that people experience at each level:

Microsystem

  • Family : Parenting styles , sibling relationships, household routines.
  • School : Teacher-student interactions, peer relationships, classroom environment.
  • Peer groups : Friendship dynamics, social support networks, peer pressure.
  • Religious institutions : Belief systems, community engagement, moral teachings .
  • Family-school : Parent-teacher communication, involvement in school activities.
  • School-peer groups : Peer influence on academic performance, social dynamics within school settings.
  • Family-religious institutions : Religious practices within the family, involvement in religious community activities.
  • Peer groups-community services : Peer support for accessing community resources, involvement in community service projects.
  • Parent’s workplace : Work hours, job stability, workplace culture.
  • Community services : Access to healthcare, availability of recreational facilities, quality of public transportation.
  • Mass media : Portrayal of societal norms, the influence of media on attitudes and behaviors.
  • Extended family : Support from extended family members, family gatherings, and traditions.

Macrosystem

  • Cultural norms : Attitudes toward education, gender roles, and family structure.
  • Socioeconomic systems : Economic inequality, access to resources and opportunities.
  • Political ideologies : Government healthcare, education, and social welfare policies.
  • Historical context : Societal changes over time, impact of historical events on cultural values.

Chronosystem

  • Family changes : Divorce, remarriage, birth of siblings.
  • Socioeconomic transitions : Job loss, career advancement, changes in income level.
  • Technological advancements : Impact of technology on communication patterns, learning opportunities, and social interactions.
  • Historical events : Wars, economic recessions, civil rights movements.

These examples illustrate the diverse aspects within each system of ecological theory and highlight the interconnectedness of different environmental influences on human development.

How These Systems Interact

These systems within Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory interact dynamically, influencing each other and ultimately shaping individual development. Here are a couple of examples to illustrate this interaction:

Microsystem-Mesosystem Interaction

Parental involvement in school activities can positively impact a child’s academic performance. When parents communicate with teachers (microsystem) and participate in school events (mesosystem), they reinforce the importance of education and create a supportive learning environment for the child.

Exosystem-Macrosystem Interaction

Government policies regarding parental leave can affect both family dynamics and workplace culture. When a country implements policies that support parental leave (macrosystem), it enables parents to spend more time with their children during critical developmental stages. 

This can lead to positive outcomes for children’s socioemotional well-being and family cohesion (exosystem). Additionally, such policies may contribute to broader societal changes by promoting gender equality in the workforce.

Practical Applications for Ecological Theory

Ecological theory offers valuable insights that have been applied across various fields, including psychology, education, social work, and public policy. Some key applications include:

Education and School Systems

  • Understanding how different factors within and outside the classroom influence students’ academic achievement and socioemotional well-being.
  • Designing interventions and programs to create supportive learning environments.
  • Enhancing teacher-student relationships and peer dynamics.

Family Interventions and Counseling

  • Assessing family dynamics and interactions using a holistic approach.
  • Identifying areas for intervention to strengthen family functioning and relationships.
  • Exploring connections between the family and other settings, such as school or community services.

Community Development and Social Services

  • Addressing systemic barriers to opportunity and promoting community resilience.
  • Designing culturally responsive interventions that meet the diverse needs of communities.
  • Advocating for policies that promote social justice and equity.

Policy-Making and Advocacy

  • Creating inclusive policies that support the well-being of all individuals and communities.
  • Adapting policies to evolving societal needs and challenges.
  • Recognizing the impact of institutional factors such as racism and economic inequality.

Research and Evaluation

  • Studying the complex interactions between individuals and their environments.
  • Identifying risk and protective factors that influence human development.
  • Assessing interventions’ impact on multiple levels of the ecological hierarchy.

Ecological theory informs various fields, providing a comprehensive framework for understanding and promoting human development in many different contexts. Health practitioners, mental health professionals, policymakers, and researchers can utilize this framework collaboratively to create supportive environments and foster positive outcomes for all.

Strengths and Limitations of Ecological Theory

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is one way of thinking about human development . Like other theories, it has both strengths and shortcomings.

  • Comprehensive approach : Ecological theory provides a comprehensive framework for understanding human development by considering the complex interactions between individuals and their environments.
  • Holistic approach : It emphasizes the importance of examining multiple levels of environmental influence, from immediate settings to broader societal contexts, to gain a holistic understanding of development.
  • Applicability : The theory has practical applications across various fields, including education, social work, and policy-making, guiding interventions and programs aimed at promoting positive outcomes for individuals and communities.
  • Emphasis on context : By highlighting the significance of environmental context, ecological theory acknowledges the diversity of human experiences and the impact of cultural, socioeconomic, and historical factors on development.

Limitations

  • Complexity : The interconnected nature of ecological systems can make it challenging to disentangle the specific influences on individual development, leading to complexity in research and intervention efforts.
  • Overlooks internal factors : Ecological theory primarily focuses on environmental influences on development, sometimes overlooking the role of individual agency and internal factors in shaping behavior and outcomes.
  • Difficulty in generalization : Contextual factors vary widely across individuals and communities, making it difficult to generalize findings or interventions derived from ecological theory to different cultural or socioeconomic contexts.
  • Potential for oversimplification : In attempting to capture the complexity of human development within a hierarchical framework, there is a risk of oversimplification, overlooking nuances and interconnections between systems.

While ecological theory offers valuable insights into the dynamic interplay between individuals and their environments, researchers and practitioners must be mindful of its limitations and consider them when applying the theory to real-world contexts.

Eriksson, M., Ghazinour, M. & Hammarström, A. Different uses of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory in public mental health research: what is their value for guiding public mental health policy and practice ? Soc Theory Health , 16, 414–433 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41285-018-0065-6

Hupp, S., & Jewell, J. (Eds.). (2019). The Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development (1st ed.). Wiley. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781119171492

Özdoğru, A. (2011). Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory . In: Goldstein, S., Naglieri, J.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development . Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_940

Teater, B. (2021). Ecological systems theory . In K. W. Bolton, J. C. Hall, & P. Lehmann (Eds.), Theoretical Perspectives for Direct Social Work Practice (4th ed.). Springer Publishing Company. https://doi.org/10.1891/9780826165565.0003

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

On This Page:

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory posits that an individual’s development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems, ranging from the immediate surroundings (e.g., family) to broad societal structures (e.g., culture).

These systems include the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem, each representing different levels of environmental influences on an individual’s growth and behavior.

Key Takeaways

  • Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory views child development as a complex system of relationships affected by multiple levels of the surrounding environment, from immediate family and school settings to broad cultural values, laws, and customs.
  • To study a child’s development, we must look at the child and their immediate environment and the interaction of the larger environment.
  • Bronfenbrenner divided the person’s environment into five different systems: the microsystem, the mesosystem, the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem.
  • The microsystem is the most influential level of the ecological systems theory. This is the most immediate environmental setting containing the developing child, such as family and school.
  • Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory has implications for educational practice.

A diagram illustrating Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory. concentric circles outlining the different system from chronosystem to the individual in the middle, and labels of what encompasses each system.

The Five Ecological Systems

Bronfenbrenner (1977) suggested that the child’s environment is a nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next. He organized them in order of how much of an impact they have on a child.

He named these structures the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the chronosystem.

Because the five systems are interrelated, the influence of one system on a child’s development depends on its relationship with the others.

1. The Microsystem

The microsystem is the first level of Bronfenbrenner’s theory and is the things that have direct contact with the child in their immediate environment.

It includes the child’s most immediate relationships and environments. For example, a child’s parents, siblings, classmates, teachers, and neighbors would be part of their microsystem.

Relationships in a microsystem are bi-directional, meaning other people can influence the child in their environment and change other people’s beliefs and actions. The interactions the child has with these people and environments directly impact development.

For instance, supportive parents who read to their child and provide educational activities may positively influence cognitive and language skills. Or children with friends who bully them at school might develop self-esteem issues. The child is not just a passive recipient but an active contributor in these bidirectional interactions.

2. The Mesosystem

The mesosystem is where a person’s individual microsystems do not function independently but are interconnected and assert influence upon one another.

The mesosystem involves interactions between different microsystems in the child’s life. For example, open communication between a child’s parents and teachers provides consistency across both environments.

However, conflict between these microsystems, like parents and teachers blaming each other for a child’s poor grades, creates tension that negatively impacts the child.

The mesosystem can also involve interactions between peers and family. If a child’s friends use drugs, this may introduce substance use into the family microsystem. Or if siblings do not get along, this can spill over to peer relationships.

3. The Exosystem

The exosystem is a component of the ecological systems theory developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner in the 1970s.

It incorporates other formal and informal social structures. While not directly interacting with the child, the exosystem still influences the microsystems. 

For instance, a parent’s stressful job and work schedule affects their availability, resources, and mood at home with their child. Local school board decisions about funding and programs impact the quality of education the child receives.

Even broader influences like government policies, mass media, and community resources shape the child’s microsystems.

For example, cuts to arts funding at school could limit a child’s exposure to music and art enrichment. Or a library bond could improve educational resources in the child’s community. The child does not directly interact with these structures, but they shape their microsystems.

4. The Macrosystem

The macrosystem focuses on how cultural elements affect a child’s development, consisting of cultural ideologies, attitudes, and social conditions that children are immersed in.

The macrosystem differs from the previous ecosystems as it does not refer to the specific environments of one developing child but the already established society and culture in which the child is developing.

Beliefs about gender roles, individualism, family structures, and social issues establish norms and values that permeate a child’s microsystems. For example, boys raised in patriarchal cultures might be socialized to assume domineering masculine roles.

Socioeconomic status also exerts macro-level influence – children from affluent families will likely have more educational advantages versus children raised in poverty.

Even within a common macrosystem, interpretations of norms differ – not all families from the same culture hold the same values or norms.

5. The Chronosystem

The fifth and final level of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is known as the chronosystem.

The chronosystem relates to shifts and transitions over the child’s lifetime. These environmental changes can be predicted, like starting school, or unpredicted, like parental divorce or changing schools when parents relocate for work, which may cause stress.

Historical events also fall within the chronosystem, like how growing up during a recession may limit family resources or growing up during war versus peacetime also fall in this system.

As children get older and enter new environments, both physical and cognitive changes interact with shifting social expectations. For example, the challenges of puberty combined with transition to middle school impact self-esteem and academic performance.

Aging itself interacts with shifting social expectations over the lifespan within the chronosystem.

How children respond to expected and unexpected life transitions depends on the support of their ecological systems.

The Bioecological Model

It is important to note that Bronfenbrenner (1994) later revised his theory and instead named it the ‘Bioecological model’.

Bronfenbrenner became more concerned with the proximal development processes, meaning the enduring and persistent forms of interaction in the immediate environment.

His focus shifted from environmental influences to developmental processes individuals experience over time.

‘…development takes place through the process of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions between an active, evolving biopsychological human organism and the persons, objects, and symbols in its immediate external environment.’ (Bronfenbrenner, 1995).

Bronfenbrenner also suggested that to understand the effect of these proximal processes on development, we have to focus on the person, context, and developmental outcome, as these processes vary and affect people differently (Bronfenbrenner & Evans, 2000).

While his original ecological systems theory emphasized the role of environmental systems, his later bioecological model focused more closely on micro-level interactions.

The bioecological shift highlighted reciprocal processes between the actively evolving individual and their immediate settings. This represented an evolution in Bronfenbrenner’s thinking toward a more dynamic developmental process view.

However, the bioecological model still acknowledged the broader environmental systems from his original theory as an important contextual influence on proximal processes.

The bioecological focus on evolving person-environment interactions built upon the foundation of his ecological systems theory while bringing developmental processes to the forefront.

Classroom Application

The Ecological Systems Theory has been used to link psychological and educational theory to early educational curriculums and practice. The developing child is at the center of the theory, and all that occurs within and between the five ecological systems are done to benefit the child in the classroom.

  • According to the theory, teachers and parents should maintain good communication with each other and work together to benefit the child and strengthen the development of the ecological systems in educational practice.
  • Teachers should also be understanding of the situations their student’s families may be experiencing, including social and economic factors that are part of the various systems.
  • According to the theory, if parents and teachers have a good relationship, this should positively shape the child’s development.
  • Likewise, the child must be active in their learning, both academically and socially. They must collaborate with their peers and participate in meaningful learning experiences to enable positive development (Evans, 2012).

bronfenbrenner classroom applications

There are lots of studies that have investigated the effects of the school environment on students. Below are some examples:

Lippard, LA Paro, Rouse, and Crosby (2017) conducted a study to test Bronfenbrenner’s theory. They investigated the teacher-child relationships through teacher reports and classroom observations.

They found that these relationships were significantly related to children’s academic achievement and classroom behavior, suggesting that these relationships are important for children’s development and supports the Ecological Systems Theory.

Wilson et al. (2002) found that creating a positive school environment through a school ethos valuing diversity has a positive effect on students’ relationships within the school. Incorporating this kind of school ethos influences those within the developing child’s ecological systems.

Langford et al. (2014) found that whole-school approaches to the health curriculum can positively improve educational achievement and student well-being. Thus, the development of the students is being affected by the microsystems.

Critical Evaluation

Bronfenbrenner’s model quickly became very appealing and accepted as a useful framework for psychologists, sociologists, and teachers studying child development.

The Ecological Systems Theory provides a holistic approach that is inclusive of all the systems children and their families are involved in, accurately reflecting the dynamic nature of actual family relationships (Hayes & O’Toole, 2017).

Paat (2013) considers how Bronfenbrenner’s theory is useful when it comes to the development of immigrant children. They suggest that immigrant children’s experiences in the various ecological systems are likely to be shaped by their cultural differences. Understanding these children’s ecology can aid in strengthening social work service delivery for these children.

Limitations

A limitation of the Ecological Systems Theory is that there is limited research examining the mesosystems, mainly the interactions between neighborhoods and the family of the child (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000). Therefore, the extent to which these systems can shape child development is unclear.

Another limitation of Bronfenbrenner’s theory is that it is difficult to empirically test the theory. The studies investigating the ecological systems may establish an effect, but they cannot establish whether the systems directly cause such effects.

Furthermore, this theory can lead to assumptions that those who do not have strong and positive ecological systems lack in development. Whilst this may be true in some cases, many people can still develop into well-rounded individuals without positive influences from their ecological systems.

For instance, it is not true to say that all people who grow up in poverty-stricken areas of the world will develop negatively. Similarly, if a child’s teachers and parents do not get along, some children may not experience any negative effects if it does not concern them.

As a result, people need to avoid making broad assumptions about individuals using this theory.

How Relevant is Bronfenbrenner’s Theory in the 21st Century?

The world has greatly changed since this theory was introduced, so it’s important to consider whether Bronfenbrenner’s theory is still relevant today. 

Kelly and Coughlan (2019) used constructivist grounded theory analysis to develop a theoretical framework for youth mental health recovery and found that there were many links to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory in their own more recent theory.

Their theory suggested that the components of mental health recovery are embedded in the ‘ecological context of influential relationships,’ which fits in with Bronfenbrenner’s theory that the ecological systems of the young person, such as peers, family, and school, all help mental health development.

We should also consider whether Bronfenbrenner’s theory fits in with advanced technological advancements in the 21st century. It could be that the ecological systems are still valid but may expand over time to include new modern developments.

The exosystem of a child, for instance, could be expanded to consider influences from social media, video gaming, and other modern-day interactions within the ecological system.

Neo-ecological theory

Navarro & Tudge (2022) proposed the neo-ecological theory, an adaptation of the bioecological theory. Below are their main ideas for updating Bronfenbrenner’s theory to the technological age:

  • Virtual microsystems should be added as a new type of microsystem to account for online interactions and activities. Virtual microsystems have unique features compared to physical microsystems, like availability, publicness, and asychnronicity.
  • The macrosystem (cultural beliefs, values) is an important influence, as digital technology has enabled youth to participate more in creating youth culture and norms.
  • Proximal processes, the engines of development, can now happen through complex interactions with both people and objects/symbols online. So, proximal processes in virtual microsystems need to be considered.

Urie Bronfenbrenner was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1917 and experienced turmoil in his home country as a child before immigrating to the United States at age 6.

Witnessing the difficulties faced by children during the unrest and rapid social change in Russia shaped his ideas about how environmental factors can influence child development.

Bronfenbrenner went on to earn a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan in 1942.

At the time, most child psychology research involved lab experiments with children briefly interacting with strangers.

Bronfenbrenner criticized this approach as lacking ecological validity compared to real-world settings where children live and grow. For example, he cited Mary Ainsworth’s 1970 “Strange Situation” study , which observed infants with caregivers in a laboratory.

Bronfenbrenner argued that these unilateral lab studies failed to account for reciprocal influence between variables or the impact of broader environmental forces.

His work challenged the prevailing views by proposing that multiple aspects of a child’s life interact to influence development.

In the 1970s, drawing on foundations from theories by Vygotsky, Bandura, and others acknowledging environmental impact, Bronfenbrenner articulated his groundbreaking Ecological Systems Theory.

This framework mapped children’s development across layered environmental systems ranging from immediate settings like family to broad cultural values and historical context.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective represented a major shift in developmental psychology by emphasizing the role of environmental systems and broader social structures in human development.

The theory sparked enduring influence across many fields, including psychology, education, and social policy.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the main contribution of bronfenbrenner’s theory.

The Ecological Systems Theory has contributed to our understanding that multiple levels influence an individual’s development rather than just individual traits or characteristics.

Bronfenbrenner contributed to the understanding that parent-child relationships do not occur in a vacuum but are embedded in larger structures.

Ultimately, this theory has contributed to a more holistic understanding of human development, and has influenced fields such as psychology, sociology, and education.

What could happen if a child’s microsystem breaks down?

If a child experiences conflict or neglect within their family, or bullying or rejection by their peers, their microsystem may break down. This can lead to a range of negative outcomes, such as decreased academic achievement, social isolation, and mental health issues.

Additionally, if the microsystem is not providing the necessary support and resources for the child’s development, it can hinder their ability to thrive and reach their full potential.

How can the Ecological System’s Theory explain peer pressure?

The ecological systems theory explains peer pressure as a result of the microsystem (immediate environment) and mesosystem (connections between environments) levels.

Peers provide a sense of belonging and validation in the microsystem, and when they engage in certain behaviors or hold certain beliefs, they may exert pressure on the child to conform. The mesosystem can also influence peer pressure, as conflicting messages and expectations from different environments can create pressure to conform.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Developmental research, public policy, and the ecology of childhood . Child development, 45 (1), 1-5.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development . American psychologist, 32 (7), 513.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future perspective .

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Evans, G. W. (2000). Developmental science in the 21st century: Emerging questions, theoretical models, research designs and empirical findings . Social development, 9 (1), 115-125.

Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994). Nature-nurture reconceptualised: A bio-ecological model . Psychological Review, 10 (4), 568–586.

Hayes, N., O’Toole, L., & Halpenny, A. M. (2017). Introducing Bronfenbrenner: A guide for practitioners and students in early years education . Taylor & Francis.

Kelly, M., & Coughlan, B. (2019). A theory of youth mental health recovery from a parental perspective . Child and Adolescent Mental Health, 24 (2), 161-169.

Langford, R., Bonell, C. P., Jones, H. E., Pouliou, T., Murphy, S. M., Waters, E., Komro, A. A., Gibbs, L. F., Magnus, D. & Campbell, R. (2014). The WHO Health Promoting School framework for improving the health and well‐being of students and their academic achievement . Cochrane database of systematic reviews, (4) .

Leventhal, T., & Brooks-Gunn, J. (2000). The neighborhoods they live in: the effects of neighborhood residence on child and adolescent outcomes . Psychological Bulletin, 126 (2), 309.

Lippard, C. N., La Paro, K. M., Rouse, H. L., & Crosby, D. A. (2018, February). A closer look at teacher–child relationships and classroom emotional context in preschool . In Child & Youth Care Forum 47 (1), 1-21.

Navarro, J. L., & Tudge, J. R. (2022). Technologizing Bronfenbrenner: neo-ecological theory.  Current Psychology , 1-17.

Paat, Y. F. (2013). Working with immigrant children and their families: An application of Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory . Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, 23 (8), 954-966.

Rhodes, S. (2013).  Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory  [PDF]. Retrieved from http://uoit.blackboard.com

Wilson, P., Atkinson, M., Hornby, G., Thompson, M., Cooper, M., Hooper, C. M., & Southall, A. (2002). Young minds in our schools-a guide for teachers and others working in schools . Year: YoungMinds (Jan 2004).

Further Information

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Developmental research, public policy, and the ecology of childhood. Child Development, 45.

Bronfenbrenner Ecological Systems

Related Articles

Vygotsky vs. Piaget: A Paradigm Shift

Child Psychology

Vygotsky vs. Piaget: A Paradigm Shift

Interactional Synchrony

Interactional Synchrony

Internal Working Models of Attachment

Internal Working Models of Attachment

Soft Determinism In Psychology

Soft Determinism In Psychology

Branches of Psychology

Branches of Psychology

Learning Theory of Attachment

Learning Theory of Attachment

helpful professor logo

Ecological Perspective: Definition and Examples

Ecological Perspective: Definition and Examples

Viktoriya Sus (MA)

Dr. Chris Drew is the founder of the Helpful Professor. He holds a PhD in education and has published over 20 articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education. [Image Descriptor: Photo of Chris]

Learn about our Editorial Process

ecological perspective examples and definition, explained below

The ecological perspective is a theoretical and practical approach to the social sciences that emphasizes the interactions between an individual and their environment.

This perspective views individuals as active agents who engage in reciprocal relationships with their physical, social, and cultural contexts.

The ecological perspective indicates that psychological factors can not be seen in isolation but must be understood concerning other factors at play within an individual’s surroundings.

For instance, a child’s development can be influenced by their immediate family or caretakers in the microsystem.

Still, it can also be affected by other macro factors like a parent’s job insecurity within the exosystem, which may affect their parenting style or ability to provide adequate resources for the child.

So, an ecological perspective acknowledges the complexity and interconnectedness of various aspects that shape human behavior and development.

chris

Definition of Ecological Perspective

According to Lobo et al. (2018), the ecological perspective in psychology considers how multiple environmental factors influence human behavior and development.

This perspective emphasizes that individuals develop within and are influenced by complex systems of social, cultural, and physical environments.e

According to Satchell and colleagues (2021),

“…an ecological approach is about the understanding of individual’s perceived behavioral opportunities and gives important focus on what the environment might offer an individual in a place” (p. 1).

Fact File: Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

One of the most influential ecological perspectives is that of Urie Bronfenbrenner, who viewed individuals as situated within systems – microsystem, macrosystem, and ecosystem, each with different levels of influence (Crawford, 2020). For example, an individual’s immediate physical environment (microsystem) can include things like their home and school surroundings. The exosystem may include institutions like political entities or religious organizations in which people participate indirectly. And macro systems operate at cultural levels and encompass customs, norms, laws, and values.

The ecological perspective emphasizes studying individuals in a naturalistic setting using rigorous naturalistic observation methods to gain deep insight into an individual’s behavior vis-à-vis the environment (Heft, 2013).

For example, a study on the impact of poverty on child development might look at factors such as access to nutritious food or quality healthcare within a family’s immediate environment (microsystem).

Still, it also assesses the effects of larger economic policies or neighborhood conditions within the exosystem/macro system.

Overall, the ecological perspective provides a scientific understanding of how various environmental contexts interact with individual biological, cognitive, emotional, and social factors to shape human development across different lifespan stages.

Examples of Ecological Perspective

  • The impact of ‘nurture’ in child development : A child’s upbringing is greatly influenced by their immediate family and caretakers (microsystem), which can include parenting style, availability of resources, and other family dynamics. Additionally, the exosystem (such as community resources and social support structures) and macrosystem (cultural values and traditions) significantly impact a child’s development (see also: nature vs nurture debate ).
  • Real-life s ocial network s impact our life chances : Individuals create relationships that form complex social networks. These networks can extend beyond their microsystems to encompass mesosystems such as local communities or broader systems like groups based on shared interests.
  • Workplaces affect our income and prosperity : Work environments can impact employee productivity and satisfaction in various ways, such as job demands/resources available, manager support, organization culture, etc., ultimately influencing the individual’s psychological well-being.
  • The h ealthcare system affects your long-term health : The quality of healthcare services is not solely dependent on doctors but encompasses the entirety of a patient’s experience. This includes the involvement of family caregivers’ involvement and the overall operation and management of hospitals and healthcare institutions.
  • Environmental stewardship affects your health : Global concern with ecology mandates us to study interactions between individuals and the natural environment that impacts them, i.e., recycling habits or transportation choices for reducing carbon footprints.
  • The education system affects your job prospects : An individual’s academic success isn’t only dependent on individual intelligence or motivation but is also influenced by the surrounding educational environment. It includes school resources, curricula guidelines, or initiatives encouraging diversity and inclusion in the classroom.
  • Politics & legislation affect what you can and can’t do : Political changes on a large scale, such as shifts in economic power structures or changes in international relations, can profoundly impact people’s day-to-day lives. These changes can alter various settings, from social interactions to institutional policies, and influence how individuals perceive and experience their lives over time.
  • Mental health support may consider environmental factors in a support plan: Mental health professionals may integrate an ecocentric approach while working out a treatment plan for a client/patient, which considers not just individual psychopathology but also social and environmental factors that influence the person.
  • Good housing and neighborhoods affect wellbeing : Built environment (housing, transportation, and amenities located nearby) can affect psychological well-being (e.g., green spaces promote activities conducive to physical exercise) and the safety of people.

Origins of Ecological Perspective in Psychology

The ecological perspective in psychology has its roots in various disciplines like biology, sociology, and anthropology . We can trace its origins to several key historical movements that emerged during the early 20th century.

One important precursor was behaviorism – an approach emphasizing observing and measuring behavior rather than unobservable mental processes such as thoughts or emotions (Holahan, 2012).

In the 1930s, psychologist James Gibson voiced criticism against traditional behaviorism, which he believed ignored the complexity of human thought processes, such as accurately perceiving objects or movement (Lobo et al., 2018).

He emphasized the importance of perception’s influence on action in determining behaviors, which led to the development of approaches based on environmental systems analysis (Lobo et al., 2018).

Kurt Lewin, another influential figure, proposed field theory, highlighting how individuals are part of a psychological environment defined by their social and cultural context (Heft, 2022).

He emphasized that cognition, both personal (internal mindset) and collective process, is heavily shaped by interactions with external environments/systems.

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory integrated these ideas by anchoring discussions within a systemic approach while developing ideas about how interactions between individuals across multiple environmental levels influence individual development.

From the viewpoint of this theory, a better understanding of transitions across different life stages requires considering individual development within a larger environmental context (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

This is because both the individual and the environment influence each other when studying mental development from birth through maturity.

These historical movements emphasized understanding how human beings interact with their environment at different levels while highlighting the significance placed on context (physical, social-cognitive-affective-cultural).

They paved the way for interdisciplinary theories such as Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory and impacted diverse areas of psychology, from lifespan development to mental health studies.

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

ecological systems theory

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory is a framework for understanding human development as a complex process influenced by multiple interacting environmental factors that coordinate to shape individual experiences.

The theory proposes that people must be understood in isolation and within the social and cultural contexts in which they develop (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

According to the theory, human development happens within social environments , which can be classified into several hierarchical levels such as microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem:

1. Microsystem

The microsystem refers to the closest personal environments that directly influence an individual’s experiences.

These may include family or home environments, as well as schools or peers with whom individuals interact regularly (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Microsystem Example

The parents are the most important part of a person’s microsystem. A child’s bond with family is the first bond, and is hugely influential in developing early values and belief systems .

2. Mesosystem

Mesosystems refer to the connections between microsystems where interactions occur, such as the relationship between a child’s school and their family environment.

The quality of these interactions can be affected by how these subsystems are linked to one another, sharing mutual involvement (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Mesosystem Example

The family and the school are perhaps the two most important microsystems that impact a child’s psycho-social development. When they interact, this is an instance of the mesosystem at work. If the family and school have a good relationship, this can greatly help a child’s development and learning.

3. Exosystem

Exosystems refer to external systems that impact individuals indirectly, such as societal norms, cultural expectations, and policies that govern institutions like government regulatory bodies or workplace regulations.

These systems can significantly impact an individual’s circumstances, even if they are not directly associated with them (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

For example, a change in government policy regarding healthcare can have a ripple effect on the healthcare services available to an individual, even if they do not work in the healthcare industry or have any direct involvement with the government.

Exosystem Example

The occupation of a child’s parent, or the changes in the parents’ occupation, are factors not directly related to the child and yet they have a major influence in shaping their selves.

4. Macrosystem

The macrosystem encompasses a society’s broad cultural and social values within a larger historical context, including religion, customs, culture, and political ideologies.

These values constantly impact policies and laws, shaping a particular culture and defining what behaviors are considered acceptable or unacceptable (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

Macrosystem Example

Different societies have different cultural norms and values that children imbibe. A child growing up in a tribal community in sub-Saharan Africa is shaped by a different macrosystem than another child growing up in an urban Scandinavian town.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) theoretical approach accounts for how interactions at each level of the environment influence an individual’s biological, psychological, and socio-emotional development over time.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory emphasized the interdependence of environmental systems and was sensitive to demographic and culture-specific processes influencing each level of influence.

He recognized the unique interactions among various environmental system levels that provide opportunities and challenges at different stages, leading to enhanced or maladaptive developmental outcomes (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

By understanding the complex interactions between individuals and their environments, the theory can inform interventions aimed at promoting positive development.

The Value of an Ecological Perspective

An ecological perspective is an important approach in sociology, psychology , and the social sciences as it underscores the role of environmental context in shaping individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.

This approach highlights how both internal and external factors interact dynamically to form human development (Lobo et al., 2018).

The ecological perspective encourages using multiple research disciplines to understand humans’ complex psychological environment and behavior through a coordinated and intersectional approach.

Furthermore, the ecological perspective promotes systematic analysis, making it easier to study and understand complex systems within contexts calling for mapping out complex relationships between people and the environment (Brymer & Schweitzer, 2022).

Importantly, the ecological perspective places the person-environment relationship at its core, giving greater recognition of the importance of biological, psychosocial, and cultural factors on outcomes in people’s lives.

Therefore, the analysis takes into account the influences across various layers, emphasizing the holistic nature of an individual’s life and experiences.

Furthermore, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective aims to illustrate the developmental stages over time and how various systems (such as micro, meso, exo, and macro) interact to influence them (Bronfenbrenner, 1979).

It also considers the transitions, such as from adolescence to adulthood/aging, societal changes, and other crucial variables that affect life choices.

Overall, the ecological perspective enriches psychological knowledge significantly by offering a dynamic framework that considers interdependent relations between individuals and their diverse environments.

An ecological perspective is a significant psychological approach emphasizing the complex interplay between individuals and their environments.

This perspective enables researchers to understand how different environmental factors can impact an individual’s biological, psychological, and social development over time.

The significance of the ecological perspective rests on its ability to provide detailed insights into how individuals adapt to their environment as they transition through diverse developmental stages.

By considering various subsystems interacting at multiple levels – micro/ meso/ exo/ macro – valuable data that may inform public policy can be derived for addressing problems such as social inequality .

Overall, ecological perspectives continue gaining popularity among researchers worldwide due to achieving solutions-oriented approaches that facilitate the nurturement of healthy initiatives promoting improved individual outcomes.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979).  The ecology of human development . New Jersey: Harvard University Press.

Brymer, E., & Schweitzer, R. D. (2022). Learning clinical skills: An ecological perspective.  Advances in Health Sciences Education . https://doi.org/10.1007/s10459-022-10115-9

Crawford, M. (2020). Ecological systems theory: Exploring the development of the theoretical framework as conceived by Bronfenbrenner.  Journal of Public Health Issues and Practices ,  4 (2), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.33790/jphip1100170

Heft, H. (2013). An ecological approach to psychology.  Review of General Psychology ,  17 (2), 162–167. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032928

Heft, H. (2022). Lewin’s “psychological ecology” and the boundary of the psychological domain.  Philosophia Scientae ,  26-3 , 189–210. https://doi.org/10.4000/philosophiascientiae.3643

Holahan, C. (2012).  Environment and behavior . Springer Science & Business Media.

Lobo, L., Heras-Escribano, M., & Travieso, D. (2018). The history and philosophy of ecological psychology.  Frontiers in Psychology ,  9 . https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02228

Satchell, L. P., Kaaronen, R. O., & Latzman, R. D. (2021). An ecological approach to personality: Psychological traits as drivers and consequences of active perception.  Social and Personality Psychology Compass , 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1111/spc3.12595

Viktoriya Sus

Viktoriya Sus is an academic writer specializing mainly in economics and business from Ukraine. She holds a Master’s degree in International Business from Lviv National University and has more than 6 years of experience writing for different clients. Viktoriya is passionate about researching the latest trends in economics and business. However, she also loves to explore different topics such as psychology, philosophy, and more.

  • Viktoriya Sus (MA) #molongui-disabled-link Cognitive Dissonance Theory: Examples and Definition
  • Viktoriya Sus (MA) #molongui-disabled-link 15 Free Enterprise Examples
  • Viktoriya Sus (MA) #molongui-disabled-link 21 Sunk Costs Examples (The Fallacy Explained)
  • Viktoriya Sus (MA) #molongui-disabled-link Price Floor: 15 Examples & Definition

Chris

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Theory of Planned Behavior Examples
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 18 Adaptive Behavior Examples
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Cooperative Play Examples
  • Chris Drew (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/chris-drew-phd-2/ 15 Parallel Play Examples

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Study.com

In order to continue enjoying our site, we ask that you confirm your identity as a human. Thank you very much for your cooperation.

Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory

  • Reference work entry
  • Cite this reference work entry

essay on ecological approach

  • Asil Ali Özdoğru 3  

4850 Accesses

1 Citations

54 Altmetric

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory is a comprehensive system theory of human development that includes elements from social, cultural, economical, and political contexts in the development of an individual.

Description

In his seminal book The Ecology of Human Development , Urie Bronfenbrenner [ 3 ] introduced a new theory of human development that emphasizes interactive processes between the person and the environment. His ecological systems theory proposed that individual’s development in any given area is primarily shaped by the interactions and relationships between the individual and different layers of surroundings. Activities, roles, and relationships of individuals in any setting constitute contexts of development. According to the ecological view, a thorough study of human development can best be achieved by the analysis of these different levels and contexts of person–environment interactions.

In ecological systems theory, nested layers of environment, like the...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

American Psychological Association (APA). (2004). Early intervention can improve low-income children’s cognitive skills and academic achievement. Psychology Matters . Retrieved online on February 19, 2008, from http://www.psychologymatters.org/headstart.html

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1969). Motivational and social components in compensatory education programs: Suggested principles, practices, and research designs. In E. H. Grotberg (Ed.), Critical issues in research related to disadvantaged children (pp. 1–32). Princeton, NJ: Educational Testing Service.

Google Scholar  

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development: Experiments by nature and design . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Office of Head Start, Administration for Children and Families. (2007). Head start program fact sheet . Retrieved online on February 23, 2008, from http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/hsb/about/fy2007.html

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Educational and Counseling Psychology, University at Albany, SUNY, 1400 Washington Ave, ED 233, Albany, NY, 12222, USA

Asil Ali Özdoğru

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Neurology, Learning and Behavior Center, 230 South 500 East, Suite 100, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84102, USA

Sam Goldstein Ph.D.

Department of Psychology MS 2C6, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, 22030, USA

Jack A. Naglieri Ph.D. ( Professor of Psychology ) ( Professor of Psychology )

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2011 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

About this entry

Cite this entry.

Özdoğru, A. (2011). Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Theory. In: Goldstein, S., Naglieri, J.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Child Behavior and Development. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_940

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-79061-9_940

Publisher Name : Springer, Boston, MA

Print ISBN : 978-0-387-77579-1

Online ISBN : 978-0-387-79061-9

eBook Packages : Behavioral Science

Share this entry

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

  • Publish with us

Policies and ethics

  • Find a journal
  • Track your research

HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article

The history and philosophy of ecological psychology.

\r\nLorena Lobo

  • 1 Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud y de la Educación, Universidad a Distancia de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
  • 2 Department of Logic and Philosophy of Science, IAS-Research Centre for Life, Mind and Society, Universidad del País Vasco-Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea, San Sebastian, Spain
  • 3 Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid, Spain

Ecological Psychology is an embodied, situated, and non-representational approach pioneered by J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson. This theory aims to offer a third way beyond cognitivism and behaviorism for understanding cognition. The theory started with the rejection of the premise of the poverty of the stimulus, the physicalist conception of the stimulus, and the passive character of the perceiver of mainstream theories of perception. On the contrary, the main principles of ecological psychology are the continuity of perception and action, the organism-environment system as unit of analysis, the study of affordances as the objects of perception, combined with an emphasis on perceptual learning and development. In this paper, first, we analyze the philosophical and psychological influences of ecological psychology: pragmatism, behaviorism, phenomenology, and Gestalt psychology. Second, we summarize the main concepts of the approach and their historical development following the academic biographies of the proponents. Finally, we highlight the most significant developments of this psychological tradition. We conclude that ecological psychology is one of the most innovative approaches in the psychological field, as it is reflected in its current influence in the contemporary embodied and situated cognitive sciences, where the notion of affordance and the work of E. J. Gibson and J. J. Gibson is considered as a historical antecedent.

Introduction

This article has been written to be part of the research topic “History of Psychology as a Scientific Discipline,” an article collection for Frontiers in Psychology. Here we offer a succinct introduction to the history and philosophy of ecological psychology for the general reader, aiming to complement former introductions and works offered by researchers within this approach.

Ecological psychology is an embodied, situated, and non-representationalist approach to cognition pioneered by J. J. Gibson (1904–1979) in the field of perception and by E. J. Gibson (1910–2002) in the field of developmental psychology. Ecological psychology, in its very origins, aimed to offer an innovative perspective for understanding perception and perceptual learning that overcomes the traditional psychological dichotomies of perception/action, organism/environment, subjective/objective, and mind/body. These dichotomies are at the basis of some theoretical assumptions in the field of psychology, such as the poverty of stimulus and the passivity of perception. Precisely, the ecological approach challenged these widely accepted ideas that mainstream experimental psychology sustained during its run-up at the first half of the 20th century. Thus, once the framework of ecological psychology was established during the second half of the 20th century, it became an alternative in the debate between cognitivism and behaviorism. While both approaches considered themselves as competitors, they were taken as complementary from an ecological standpoint ( Reed , 1991 ). This is so because they emphasized distinct stages of a whole cognitive picture sustained by the same principles. The ecological approach rejected the inferential and representational commitment of cognitivism and the physicalist idea of stimulus of behaviorism.

The main aim of this article is to offer a systematic introduction to the history and theory of ecological psychology, highlighting the academic biographies of the main proponents of this framework and the philosophical concerns that guided its genesis and development. It is not our objective to give an exhaustive account of the framework, but to offer a comprehensive overview of its main assumptions and achievements. For doing this, in section Theoretical Influences and the Genesis of Ecological Psychology we analyze the theoretical influences of J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson that shaped the ecological approach to perception from the 1920s to the 1950s. We focus on pragmatism, behaviorism, phenomenology, and Gestalt theory as main influences. In section The Establishment of the Ecological Account, we sketch the main principles of ecological psychology that originated from the 1960s to the 1970s and their reception in the neogibsonian literature. These principles are perception-action, perceptual systems, organism-environment system, ecological information, specificity, affordances, and perceptual learning. In section Relevant Developments, we explain the main progresses of the ecological approach from the 1980s to the 2010s, emphasizing the role of visual control of action and Lee’s tau (τ) theory and its influence in the ecological approach. At this point, we also highlight the developments of the so-called Connecticut School ( Heft and Richardson, 2013 ) and other relevant studies included in the neogibsonian framework.

Theoretical Influences and the Genesis of Ecological Psychology

In this section we analyze the main influences that gave rise to ecological psychology. We identify three main sources of influence: James’ radical empiricism and neutral monism, behaviorism, phenomenology, and Gestalt theory.

The first source of inspiration 1 that J. J. Gibson took into account for developing the ecological approach to cognition was American pragmatism and, in particular, the ideas of James on radical empiricism and neutral monism. J. J. Gibson was highly influenced by Holt, who taught him the main principles of radical empiricism at Princeton, were J. J. Gibson got his B.Sc., M.A., and Ph.D. (1925, 1926, and 1928, respectively) ( Hochberg, 1994 , pp. 152–153).

According to pragmatism, practical consequences should be taken as more relevant than abstract principles to explain scientific practices, ethics, and cognition. This school rejects some shared aspects of idealism and empiricism (the passivity of perception and the representationalist account of the mind) and focuses on the active capacities of organisms and their adaptation to the environment for explaining cognition. According to pragmatism, “individuals can never know the world independently of their own experience” ( Heft, 2001 , p. 74). James’ version of pragmatism includes an epistemic thesis, radical empiricism, and a metaphysical thesis, neutral monism. These two theses are intertwined. Radical empiricism claims that our knowledge comes from experience, which is taken as the capacity of engaging into meaningful interactions with the world. These meaningful interactions include objects of perception, the relations among those objects, and also the relations of those objects to us. Thus, we experience those relations in a meaningful and organized way. James concludes that we can describe this relational world of pure experience either from the side of the object (the sense datum) or from the side of the subject (the experience). Therefore, this approach is called neutral monism: there is only one stuff that can be described physically or psychologically ( James, 1895 , p. 110).

The influence of radical empiricism in J. J. Gibson’s view is quite clear: he claimed in his autobiography that he was a radical empiricist J. J. Gibson (1967) and this view is at the very basis of his description of affordances. Having in view the Jamesian idea that pure experience can be described either physically or psychologically, he defined affordances as “both physical and psychical, yet neither” ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 , p. 121). This description of affordances, as we can see, cannot be understood without appealing to the influence of radical empiricism and neutral monism.

In his last year as undergraduate student at Princeton, J. J. Gibson took a course with Langfeld in experimental psychology. The year after, Langfeld offered him an assistantship. That year, Holt moved to Princeton, and taught J. J. Gibson the principles of behaviorism and radical empiricism. Since then, in J. J. Gibson’s words: “[f]or 30 years I was reluctant to abandon it [Holt’s motor theory of consciousness]” ( J. J. Gibson, 1967 , p. 129). For all these reasons, historians of ecological psychology understand that J. J. Gibson’s approach to perception is an experimental version of James’ radical empiricism ( Heft, 2001 ).

Behaviorism

Many authors understand ecological psychology as a version of behaviorism ( Costall and Morris, 2015 ) and it is true that, in his own words, J. J. Gibson “became excited by the behaviorist revolution” ( J. J. Gibson, 1967 , p. 128). We think that the origin of the sympathies of J. J. Gibson toward behaviorism came from Holt’s unorthodox understanding of behaviorism.

Although Holt was close to James and some of his ideas, he did consider himself neither a pragmatist nor a behaviorist ( Langfeld, 1946 , pp. 251–255). He endorsed a Jamesian concept of consciousness; this is, he understood consciousness as an activity rather than as a reified object of study. But, at the same time, he combined this idea with the methods of behaviorism (although reacting against the passivity of perception usually accepted by this approach), creating his own motor theory of consciousness. Holt also included in his explanations aspects of behavior rejected by traditional behaviorism, such as goals or plans ( Holt, 1914 ). In fact, the problem of purposive behavior is much more emphasized in Holt’s explanation of behavior than in traditional behaviorism.

At his respect, note that Tolman, another student of Holt, emphasized purposive behavior in his behaviorist view and developed the idea of ‘sign Gestalt’ as external relations among objects that explain their demanding character (see section Gestalt Psychology). This idea is quite similar to J. J. Gibson’s idea of affordance ( Warren, 1984 , p. 684). E. J. Gibson also found similarities between J. J. Gibson’s notion of affordance and Tolman’s idea of ‘manipulanda’ for explaining what he called behavior-support. According to Tolman, behavior-support were characters in the environment that helped behavior-acts to go without disruption. Manipulanda were the characters of objects that supported motor activity (properties such as lengths, fluidities, or solidities) that were not defined ‘in themselves’ but with regard to the kinds of manipulations that they support for a given organism (sit-in-able-nesses, pick-up-able-nesses, etc.) ( Tolman, 1932 , p. 448, as cited in E. J. Gibson, 1982 , p. 61). Although there are key differences between J. J. Gibson’s ecological approach and Tolman’s behaviorism, there are enough similarities between manipulanda and affordances to consider the former as an inspiration of the latter.

It is also worth mentioning that E. J. Gibson was fond of this sort of behaviorism with a pragmatist turn. Her work was highly influenced during her Ph.D. studies by Hull (1929) another behaviorist. In particular, his paper “A functionalist interpretation of the conditioned reflex”, where he reinterpreted the behaviorist conditioned reflex in a pragmatist way, was specially inspiring for her ( E. J. Gibson, 1991 , 2002 ; p. 5, 28).

Despite its influence, ecological psychology offers some of the most powerful arguments against behaviorism. J. J. Gibson rejected the behaviorist idea of stimulus for two reasons: first, because it was measured as a physical unit (light, pressure, waves of sound) unrelated to the agent’s capacities; second, because it was passively received by the senses, whereas ecological psychology emphasized the active exploratory role of the agent. Therefore, J. J. Gibson understood the senses as perceptual systems ( J. J. Gibson, 1966 ), as we will see in section Perception-Action Loop and Perceptual Systems. The behaviorist idea of stimulus was subsumed within the cognitivist approach, where it was enriched and stored to generate representations ( Reed, 1991 ; see also section Perceptual Learning), something that J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson (1955) directly rejected. Thus, he developed his own idea of ‘stimulus information,’ now named ecological information that we analyze in section Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity.

Gestalt Psychology

Koffka, Wertheimer, and Köhler were the main representatives of Gestalt psychology, a theory that defended a phenomenological approach to perceptual consciousness understood as the primacy of the mental organization. Gestaltists embraced some kind of dualism between the mental and physical realms, and suggested that mental organization mimics, or is isomorphic to, physical properties.

Gestalt theory influenced ecological psychology in many ways. First, as shown in the previous section, the varieties of pragmatism and behaviorism in which J. J. Gibson was educated prevented him from accepting the anti-positivist and anti-empiricist theses of Gestalt psychology. In his doctoral dissertation, J. J. Gibson refuted the explanation of Wulf, a student of Koffka in Berlin, who argued that memories of visually perceived forms are reproduced according to the principles of Gestalt organization. J. J. Gibson (1929) published these results in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 1929 and interpreted them as showing the effect of perceptual habits according to Holt’s quasi-behaviorism. In J. J. Gibson’s words:

“The types of change here observed may all be explained, it is believed, by the supposition that the experience of the individual has brought into existence certain habitual modes of perception, and that these perceptual habits, rather than the laws of configurations, condition the changes observed” ( J. J. Gibson, 1929 , p. 35).

On the other hand, J. J. Gibson confronted the elementarist-inferential tradition of experimental psychology by arguing against the sensation-perception dichotomy and the poverty of stimulus. He did so by appealing to the ideas of higher order variables (like optic flow, see sections Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity and Visual Control of Action and Tau Theory) and meaning thanks to the notion of affordances (possibilities for action, see section Affordances). Some authors interpreted his arguments and ideas as inspired by the Gestalt tradition (e.g., Jenkins, 2008 ; Richards, 2012 ).

After obtaining his Ph.D. in Psychology in 1928, J. J. Gibson moved to teach Psychology at Smith College, where he became a colleague of Koffka. They were in contact until 1941, when Koffka passed away and J. J. Gibson joined the Air Force. An essential aspect that J. J. Gibson inherited from Gestalt psychology is the idea that the objects of perception (the Gestalten) are our primary way of engaging with the world, that the experience is given to us by certain laws that shape it, and that there is no point in reducing those objects into simpler physical units or elements that are recombined in our head because they are already structured and meaningful. Although J. J. Gibson never accepted the Gestaltist distinction of the mental and the physical, the ideas of the irreducible aspect of our experience and the seek for its lawful description were taken by J. J. Gibson and lead him to develop the concepts of affordance and ecological scale (the psychological level for explaining behavior, see section Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information and Specificity).

Regarding affordances, J. J. Gibson accepted the Gestaltist conception of the stimulus as having a functional relation with the perceiver. Gestaltists understood that meaning or values were subjectively imposed to the natural word, and they offered different characterizations for explaining this. Lewin developed the word Aufforderungscharakter, while Koffka preferred the term ‘demanding character’ ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 ; p. 130; E. J. Gibson, 1982 , p. 61). However, J. J. Gibson (1982 , p. 409) rejected an essential aspect of this idea: “[t]he crux of this theory is that the demand character, like the valence, was assumed to be in the phenomenal but not in the physical object.” He believed that this character was not subjectively imposed.

Phenomenology

Another tradition that has been influential for the development of J. J. Gibson’s approach is phenomenology ( Heft, 2001 , pp. 114–123). J. J. Gibson would have learned about phenomenology thanks to Langfeld, chairman of the psychology department at Princeton, who in turn studied in Berlin in 1903 under Carl Stumpf, an early advocate of phenomenology and student of Franz Brentano; also, J. J. Gibson was colleague of Fritz Heider and Kurt Koffka at Smith College, and both helped bring the phenomenological approach from Europe to the United States ( Heft, 2001 , p. 117). Phenomenology is a philosophical approach that aims to explain the structures that allow us to have experience of the world ( Käufer and Chemero, 2015 ); or, in other words, to offer “a direct description of our experience as it is without taking account of its psychological origin and the causal explanations which the scientist, the or the sociologist may be able to provide” ( Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012 , p. vii). Although J. J. Gibson developed a scientific approach, the idea of offering a non-reductive “direct description of our experience” goes in line with his views.

In particular, J. J. Gibson’s approach has been said to parallel the work of Merleau-Ponty ( Heft, 2001 , p. 93, footnote 17, p. 117; Glotzbach and Heft, 1982 ). Beyond the previously mentioned historical account, authors such as Mace (2014) claimed that J. J. Gibson wrote some notes in the early 1970s on Merleau-Ponty (1945/2012) Phenomenology of Perception ( Chemero and Käufer, 2016 , p. 67). According to those notes, Merleau-Ponty exerted considerable influence on Gibson, especially regarding the ideas of occlusion and depth.

However, besides those ideas, and after a careful reading of each author’s works, there is reason to believe that Merleau-Ponty’s notion of body schema was also influential for J. J. Gibson. Merleau-Ponty’s approach to phenomenology was quite unique at the time: he believed that the structures that allowed for cognition were not cultural or purely mental, but bodily structures. Perceiving is the primordial way of knowing, but in this view, perception is the result of comporting toward the surrounding objects in a meaningful sense ( Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012 ). Thus, in this view, dealing with the environment is an exploratory activity of the agent that is also guided by the environment, something quite similar to the action-perception loop of the organism in ecological psychology. This gives rise to the idea of the body schema, a central concept in Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology. It is the pre-conscious system that emerges by the combination of the bodily capacities of the agent and the complementing aspects of the environment ( Toadvine, 2016 ). As defined by Merleau-Ponty, “[t]he body schema is, in the end, a manner of expressing that my body is in and toward the world” ( Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012 , p. 103). Note the similarities with the idea of organism-environment mutuality: in both pictures there is a reciprocity of actions of the agent and elements of the environment that together make emerge a meaningful history of interactions. This Merleau-Ponty an configuration of our surrounding elements as connected to our capacities and actions is what provides experience with meaning ( Kelly, 2004 ), and this is in line with the idea of the ecological meaning of the environment for the agent. The exploratory capacities of the agent are of course active, “causing a thousand signs to appear there, as if by magic, guide action” ( Merleau-Ponty, 1945/2012 , p. 115). The environment also guides and constraints behavior in this approach through signs, and those signs are also partially generated by the active capacities of agents. This is clearly in line with the Gibsonian view by which the combination of action and environmental elements gives rise to the emergence of ecological information and affordances. Those signs are similar to affordances, because they are meaningful in an embodied way and guide the agent’s behavior. Besides, this body schema of actions and signs generates a network of attractions and repulsions similar to the way in which J. J. Gibson introduced the idea of positive and negative affordances. As we can see, there are many elements in the Gibsonian account that parallel the ideas of Merleau-Ponty.

The Establishment of the Ecological Account

The birth of the ecological account can be followed through the work of the Gibsons and their collaborators. J. J. Gibson’s joined the Air Force in the 1940s and his work on aviation studies lead him to publish The perception of the visual world (1950) ( Lombardo, 1987/2017 ). In this book, J. J. Gibson took the retinal image as the basic visual stimulus for perception, although his concept was not equivalent to a static picture, as it was conceived at that time. In the next decade, J. J. Gibson substituted the idea of retinal image with the optic array ( Lombardo, 1987/2017 ) (see section Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity). In the 1960s, he published The senses considered as perceptual systems , a book in which the traditional Aristotelian account of the senses changed to be defined as active “systems rather than channels” ( J. J. Gibson, 1966 , p. 47). In the same decade E. J. Gibson published Principles of perceptual learning and development (1969), where she proposed a working principle related to the concept of specificity: the principle of reduction of uncertainty. Her work delved into ontogeny and perceptual learning (as we will see in section Perceptual Learning) and on reading ( E. J. Gibson and Levin, 1975 ), while J. J. Gibson focused on perception. He published his most famous book, The ecological approach to visual perception ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 ), only a few months before his death. E. J. Gibson survived her husband for more than 20 years, publishing two more scientific books ( E. J. Gibson, 1991 ; E. J. Gibson and Pick, 2000 ) and one autobiography ( E. J. Gibson, 2002 ), among other things.

In this section, we have selected the main ideas that guided the development of this psychological tradition and its reception in the neogibsonian framework.

Perception-Action Loop and Perceptual Systems

The relationship between perception and action has been a major topic in the psychological literature before the birth of the ecological account. For example, Dewey (1896) argued against explaining behavior through sensory stimulus and motor responses. He proposed the sensorimotor coordination process for explaining experience. The ecological tradition agrees with Dewey’s idea that perception must be considered an active process in which the agents’ exploration, perception, and action are parts of the same activity. Although J. J. Gibson did not mention Dewey as an influence, E. J. Gibson cited Dewey and presented his work as an antecedent of the ecological approach ( E. J. Gibson, 1988 , p. 5):

“We don’t simply see, we look. The visual system is a motor system as well as a sensory one. When we seek information in an optic array, the head turns, the eyes tum to fixate, the lens accommodates to focus, and spectacles may be applied and even adjusted by head position for far or near looking. This is a point long emphasized by functional psychologists such as Dewey (1896) and Woodworth (1958) . It was developed in detail by Gibson – e.g., in his experiments on active touch (1962).”

One of the first works of J. J. Gibson that conceived perception as an active process is found in the experimental studies on driving that he performed during the 1930s. J. J. Gibson and Crooks (1938) realized that the analysis of driving behavior could be made as a variation of Lewin (1936) ideas on locomotion (1936) introducing dynamic concepts such as the visual field, a precursor of optic flow (see section Visual Control of Action and Tau Theory). On the one hand, this study is interesting because it is another example of the influence of Gestalt theory in J. J. Gibson. On the other hand, this early work considers perception beyond the static, contemplative process traditionally depicted during the 19th century. The active character of perception was fully accepted for J. J. Gibson in subsequent years and, finally, perception and action were presented as interdependent in J. J. Gibson (1966) book. In this book, he emphasized the exploratory activity, including head and eye movements for vision and hand movements for haptics, for example. Consistently, J. J. Gibson’s idea of perceptual systems implied that there is an intrinsic coordination of perception and action when one of these systems is functioning. Following J. J. Gibson (1966) contribution, sense modalities should not be understood as subpersonal systems in which specialized receptors (photoreceptors, for example) are stimulated by a sensory stimulus (photons) producing a sensory impression that is enriched or transformed to form a representation. According to J. J. Gibson, animals evolved not only to be sensitive to sensory stimuli, but also to detect ecological information. What is needed for this is not only the subpersonal neural pathways and systems, but also a range of behaviors that are instrumental in revealing and picking-up ecological information: these behaviors extend to the eye-brain connection and include movements in the eyes, head, and body that facilitate the detection of ecological information in the array. Thus, a sense modality is considered as a perceptual system when it includes this range of behaviors of the animal taken as a whole ( Glotzbach and Heft, 1982 , p. 112). One of the most interesting topics in this book is the haptic system, especially dynamic touching (1966, p. 127), the term that he proposed for the active touch that involves exploration, wielding, and manipulation of objects. It is also interesting to note that J. J. Gibson also advanced the importance of inertia for dynamic touch, a research field that still has a very important research agenda, as we will see in section Dynamic Touch.

Regarding the concept of perception-action loop, the ecological approach includes the active character of perception as one of its distinctive features. Richardson et al. (2008 , p. 174) clearly summarized the ecological viewpoint remarking that the perception-action cycle is not a merely reformulation of the interaction or influence of two processes, but the statement that “perception and action are of the same logical kind, and are mutual, reciprocal, and symmetrically constraining.” Thus, perceptual systems orient the perceptual organs and make adjustments in the exploration to resonate when ecological information is picked up. Its picking up is the reason why organism and environment are entangled in action-perception dynamics (see Warren, 2006 , for a comprehensive explanation of perception-action loops from a neogibsonian framework).

Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity

The organism-environment duality is probably the most important dichotomy that ecological psychology aimed to overcome. This traditional dichotomy has a broader scope than the mind-body problem, which has been extensively discussed in psychology ( Michaels and Carello, 1981 ), and its implications are even more relevant that the ones produced by the rejection of the perception-action dichotomy that we outlined in section Perception-Action Loop and Perceptual Systems. As Costall (2004) pointed out, the pragmatist tradition and its relation to Darwinian ideas directly influenced ecological psychology for rejecting the organism-environment dualism. If one follows the academic biography of J. J. Gibson, organism-environment mutuality is not present in his early work on psychophysics ( Lombardo, 1987/2017 ). However, his thought evolved to recognize an essential reciprocity between perceiver and environment, as he clearly stated it at the beginning of his last book ( J. J. Gibson , 1979/2015 , p. 4):

“(…) it is often neglected that the words animal and environment make an inseparable pair. Each term implies the other. No animal could exist without an environment surrounding it. Equally, although not so obvious, an environment implies an animal (or at least an organism) to be surrounded.”

On the one hand, it is an easy assumption that organisms live in an environment. The degree of reciprocity between organism and environment may vary among psychological traditions, but it seems impossible to propose an organism living in total emptiness. On the other hand, the difference between world and environment is key, because the world is the surroundings of the animals described in terms of physics, while the environment is the surroundings described in ecological terms: this is, taking them as related to the organism’s capacities. It is precisely the confusion between environment and physical world what reveals that a dualism is functioning ( Michaels and Carello, 1981 ), implicitly or explicitly. The Gibsonian description of the environment is not a physicalist account of the concept but an ecological one ( Lombardo, 1987/2017 ). This means that physical metrics are not useful to explain behavior as they do not relate to organisms ( Richardson et al., 2008 ). Instead, environmental realities (events, for example, that are related to the organism that perceive them) are the relevant realities for a psychological explanation because they are meaningful: they relate to their capacities. The neogibsonian framework provided a set of good examples of ecological metrics through the mathematical operationalization of affordances, as we will see in section Affordances.

But, how organisms deal with their environments? How can they perceive the affordances -that is, the possibilities for action? Agents need to detect potential damages and take advantage of resources in their environment. Thus, organisms need to detect meaningful information to behave properly. However, sensory stimulation is not sufficient for perception, because there can be sensory stimulation without perception as it happens, for example, in the case of a fog-filled room: light produces the excitement of the specialized photoreceptors, but the agent cannot perceive her surroundings because she cannot see the surfaces of the room ( Chemero, 2009 , p. 107). However, when the fog is removed, the light reflects differentially in the surfaces of the room, so it constitutes an ambient optic array with the features of the surfaces specified in the structure of the light array. The idea is summarized as follows:

Light originating from an energy source such as the sun is selectively absorbed and reflected by the surfaces of objects (which are the interfaces between the substances of which the objects are made and the medium – in this case, air). As reflected light reverberates off the surfaces, it fills the medium with ambient light. Since the surfaces of objects differ in their orientation to the light source, as well as in shape, texture, pigmentation, and motion, the ambient light takes on a corresponding (heterogeneous) structure ( Glotzbach and Heft, 1982 , p. 111).

This heterogeneous structure is the ambient optic array, and that is what shows the agent the different possibilities for acting in the environment – hence light is informative 2 about the environment The information in the array is not located in individual points of stimulation, but in the structure of the whole pattern; that is, in higher-order variables. This information is ecological because it shows the way in which the surroundings are disposed in relation to a perceiver’s point of observation. The ecological character is given not only by light itself as a physical energy, but also by the action of the agent. As Gibson claimed, “[a]n affordance, as I said, points two ways, to the environment and to the observer. So does the information to specify an affordance ” ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 , p. 132, emphasis added).

Ecological information is informative of the environment because it specifies the available affordances. ‘Specificity’ refers to the idea by which the presence of ecological information corresponds to the direct perception of affordances. Some authors interpret the meaning of specificity as in legal contracts: as a guarantee for the presence of certain elements (for example, a certain pattern of light guarantees a surface) ( Käufer and Chemero, 2015 , p. 157). Nevertheless, most authors understand specificity as based on natural law. For example, the ambient optic array specifies the environment because of the laws of optics, that is, because each object and surface reflect the light differentially. Specificity, then, can be conceived as the nexus between ecological information and environmental properties.

An important aspect of specificity is that it allows for the lawful character of ecological information. In this sense, “[e]cological information is lawful not in the Newtonian sense of being universal in space and time, but in an ecological sense of being regular within an ecological context of constraint” ( Warren, 2005 , pp. 342–343). When the agent explores the environment and encounters this ecological information, the agent uses that information for guiding its intentional behavior ( Reed, 1983 , p. 90). What follows from the detection or picking up is that there is no need to process and enrich the ecological information, since it is sufficiently informative of the affordances of the environment as for guiding the behavior of the agent by itself. In this sense, non-representationalism and the rejection of cognitive processing is a consequence of both the specificity and the picking up of ecological information. For this reason, the detection of ecological information implies the direct perception of affordances.

Ecological psychology focuses on the organism-environment coupling and not on what happens at the subpersonal, neural level. However, this does not mean that this level of description is not important for enabling the whole process of perception. As Travieso and Jacobs (2009 , p. 403) claimed: “Note, though, that one cannot reject the validity of studies with smaller or larger levels of analysis; that would be analogous, we think, to rejecting current neurobiology because subatomic particles are not taken into account.” In this sense, J. J. Gibson understood that at a neural level, the systems do not compute, transform, or enrich information, but that they “resonate” to ecological information ( J. J. Gibson, 1966 , p. 5), an idea that resembles current dynamic approaches to neuroscience ( Freeman, 2000 ; Raja, 2018 ).

The relation between the ecological approach and cognitive neuroscience can also be seen in the discussion on the two visual streams (ventral and dorsal) proposal by Goodale et al. (1991) ; Goodale and Milner (1992) ; and Milner and Goodale (1995) , and their linkage to computational and ecological theories, respectively ( Norman, 2002 ). Ecological psychologists question this proposal for two main reasons ( Michaels, 2000 ). The first one was that the so-called ventral system retained all the postulates that sustain the need of inferential and computational process in perception, which, in turn, gave rise to the ecological critique (i.e., the poverty of the stimulus, the passivity of the perceiver, etc.). Second, because the concept of action used to define the dorsal stream was restricted to performatory action, ignoring the exploratory actions in which perception is based according to the ecological approach. In other words, perception for action was described as a unidirectional function, in which perception guided action, not as a perception-action loop.

In addition, it is important to highlight that the “perception for action” functioning of the dorsal stream has been widely accepted by the cognitive neuroscience community. However, there is no computational description of its functioning (the “how”), being their evidences based on behavioral and clinical data. It is assumed, therefore, that the computational-representational level of analysis is not compulsory for describing a psychological function.

Affordances

‘Affordance’ is the ecological concept that has had a major diffusion since it was coined in the 1960s ( J. J. Gibson, 1966 , p. 285), although J. J. Gibson used some terms for affordances previously ( J. J. Gibson, 1950 , pp. 198–199). He proposed ‘affordance’ as an alternative for ‘value’ as it is used in philosophy. During the 1970s, J. J. Gibson (1977) refined the term while his colleagues started to spread it in their works (see, for example, Reed and Jones, 1977 ; E. J. Gibson et al., 1978 ). J. J. Gibson (1979/2015) argued that affordances are the main objects of perception in his theory: the possibilities for action that the environment allows for an organism ( Reed and Jones, 1982 ). For example, we do not perceive steps in centimeters, but whether or not we can step on them. Affordances are defined in the organism-environment level of analysis: an organism embedded in her system knows her environment because she perceives affordances.

Gibson claimed that perceiving affordances is perceiving ecological meaning ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 , pp. 131–132), which is perceiving how the surroundings are related to the agent’s capacities. The idea of affordance shows that an organism does not perceive an objective, value-free, physical world in which meaning is imposed, as in Gestalt theory (see section Gestalt Psychology). We do not create affordances when we perceive them ( Michaels, 2000 ), they already exist in the system as constant relations between organism and environment. The detection of information amounts to affordance perception, so affordances are meaningful objects of perception in an organism-environment system. In Richardson et al. (2008) words:

“[A]ffordances are perceived by detecting lawfully structured information (...) that invariantly specifies features (capabilities) of a particular perceiving-acting agent in relation to features of a particular substance, surface, object, or event. A water surface with adequate tension can afford locomotion for an insect but not a human.” ( Richardson et al., 2008 , p. 179).

Norman (1988) book originally named The psychology of everyday things , later named The design of everyday things (1988) is one of the works that popularized affordances. Although E. J. Gibson (2002) did not mention the episode in her biography, Norman (1999) wrote that J. J. Gibson and himself met and discussed the theory of affordances during the spring of 1979, when the Gibsons visited the Salk Institute in California. At the beginning, Norman disliked the theory of affordances, but he defended the importance of the term years later, even discussing the careless use of the concept:

“Far too often I hear graphic designers claim that they have added an affordance to the screen design when they have done nothing of the sort. Usually they mean that some graphical depiction suggests to the user that a certain action is possible. This is not affordance, either real or perceived. Honest, it isn’t. It is a symbolic communication, one that works only if it follows a convention understood by the user.” ( Norman, 1999 , p. 40).

Despite its centrality within ecological psychology, there is not a single definition shared by all ecological psychologists. We can differentiate between those authors who claim that affordances are properties of the environment that are complemented by aspects of organisms, while there are other authors claiming that affordances are properties of the organism-environment system.

In the first group, Turvey et al. (1981) and Turvey (1992) developed a dispositional theory of affordances, taken as properties of the environment that are complemented by effectivities of animals (causal propensities to effect a particular action, see section Effectivities). Affordances always actualize when both properties are together under the right circumstances ( Turvey, 1992 , p. 178). Stoffregen (2003) reacts against this view because the idea that affordances are complemented by effectivities implies that affordances are properties of the environment alone, and also thinks that affordances should be better understood as emergent properties of the organism-environment system ( Stoffregen, 2003 , p. 118). Another aspect of Turvey’s dispositional approach is that, while dispositions never fail to actualize, an animal may fail when is taking advantage of an affordance ( Chemero, 2009 , p. 145). In this sense, the actualization of an affordance is not as rigid as chemical or physical processes, because they are based on the performance of certain abilities. We think that this emphasis on the physicalist model is the reason behind Reed’s understanding of affordances as aspects of the environment that exert selection pressure ( Reed, 1996 , pp. 18, 31). Chemero considers that this view is equally problematic, because if animals should conform or adapt to the pressures of affordances, then it breaks the organism-environment mutuality or reciprocity ( Chemero, 2009 , p. 146). In addition, Chemero (2009 , pp. 120–121, 218) considers that affordances should be taken as normative relations of the organism-environment systems, and the set of all affordances for a given organism is its ecological niche. However, this approach is also problematic, since the introduction of normativity in the picture goes against the lawful definition of specificity (as we will see in Specificity) and, therefore, against direct perception.

One of the major advances on the empirical and mathematical study of affordances was made in the famous study of Warren (1984) on climbability. In this study, participants were separated into two groups depending on their height (short people vs. tall people) and they were asked to judge if they could climb on steps of different heights placed in front of them. As expected, tall participants judged as climbable higher steps than short participants. Warren analyzed at which point participants reached a critical step (i.e., a step that, when presented multiple times, in 50% of cases was judged as climbable and 50% of cases as non-climbable). He noticed that the critical step height was related to the body size of participants, and he proposed a biomechanical model that pointed out the importance of body measures: Rc = Leg + ULeg – Lleg , being Rc the critical step height, Leg the leg length, ULeg the upper leg length, and Lleg the lower leg length. When Warren divided the critical step height (that he empirically found for the two groups of participants) by their leg length, the significant differences between the two groups disappeared. Moreover, he claimed that a person estimates as climbable those steps that are less than 0.88 times her leg length. Thus, this mathematical formulation inaugurated a set of studies that tried to identify the possibilities for action allowed by a surface or object for a given organism in relation to its body measures. His methodology was promptly used for studying other affordances (e.g., Warren and Whang, 1987 ; van der Meer, 1997 ).

Perceptual Learning

Although perceptual learning is an area of research, not a concept or idea, we think it is necessary to delve into this topic to give a more complete view of the foundation and reception of ecological psychology. J. J. Gibson (1966 , preface) stated that since 1963 he focused on the development of a theory of perception, while his wife concentrated in perceptual learning. Thus, both branches of the ecological account were developed almost in parallel during the seventies ( Rader, 2018 ) and, therefore, there are subtle differences in their assumptions that might be important for a theory of perceptual learning and development, according to Read and Szokolszky (2018) . Before this task division, the Gibsons worked together in the rejection of what they called ‘enrichment theories’ ( J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson, 1955 ), as when they claimed: “We have no patience with the attempts to patch up the S-R formula with hypotheses of mediation” ( J. J. Gibson, 1967 , p. 132). Precisely, Gregory’s theory of indirect perception motivated the unique contribution co-authored by the Gibsons after the task division, due to their common interest in the rejection of enrichment theories ( E. J. Gibson and J. J. Gibson, 1972 ). These theories depart from the poverty and ambiguity of the stimulus and conceive perceptual learning as the process of inferentially disambiguate and enrich the stimulation with previous knowledge. On the other hand, differentiation theories account for a refinement (differentiation) of the stimulation, information, or impressions, and this include Gestalt psychology and the specificity theory (see E. J. Gibson and Pick, 2000 , for a more detailed classification of perceptual learning theories and their historical development). The ecological approach to perceptual learning aims to explain how perceivers take advantage of the specific and redundant information available in the ambient energy arrays ( E. J. Gibson, 1969 ; E. J. Gibson and Pick, 2000 ). This is, perceptual learning has to do with the processes of attunement and calibration. First, organisms must engage into an attunement process (to learn how to detect specific information for affordances); second, they need to adjust their behavior to an informational variable (a calibration process). The most important experimental paradigm for this line of research is known as “the visual cliff,” an experimental procedure developed by E. J. Gibson. It consists on a walkable or crawlable platform that includes an actual cliff covered with a transparent surface, which protects participants from falling, although they still have visual information of the cliff. This was firstly tested on animals, and later on crawling infants. E. J. Gibson and Walk (1960 ; see also Walk and E. J. Gibson, 1961 ) showed that, as soon as infants crawled, they perceived a cliff because infants avoid crossing even when their mothers called them from the other side of the cliff. However, it was very difficult to test their behavior before they could crawl (see Rader, 2018 , for a recent review on experiments that followed the “visual cliff”).

The reception of E. J. Gibson’s work on development and perceptual learning has been noticeable. Remarkable examples are the work of Adolph et al. (1997) and the direct learning theory detailed in section Development and Learning. In this same vein, a recent proposal reunites the outcomes of J. J. Gibson and E. J. Gibson together with certain developments in evolutionary biology and psychology for establishing a developmental ecological psychology ( Read and Szokolszky, 2018 ).

Relevant Developments

During the 1970s and 1980s, an increasing number of scholars engaged in the development of the ecological approach. Mace (2015) describes the first expansion of the program in 1970, when Shaw and Lee visited Cornell to study with the Gibsons at the Airport Lab. After this, Lee returned to Edinburgh, where he developed the tau theory described in section Visual Control of Action and Tau Theory, whereas Shaw joined Turvey at the University of Connecticut in 1975. Together with Mace, Carello, Michaels and others they formed what has been named by some authors as the Connecticut School. These scholars had an outstanding role in the foundation of the International Society for Ecological Psychology (ISEP), the journal Ecological Psychology , and the Center for the Ecological Study of Perception and Action (CESPA) at the University of Connecticut, the leading center in the deployment of the ecological psychology program. Since then, several developments on ecological psychology were published ( Mace, 2015 ), such as the work on tau theory by Lee, the main publications of the Connecticut school ( Turvey et al., 1978 , 1981 ; Michaels and Carello, 1981 ; Shaw et al., 1982 ), the work on body-scaled affordances by Warren, the first applications of the ecological theory to social aspects ( Heft, 1989 ; Costall, 1995 ), the work of Adolph, Eppler, and E. J. Gibson on developmental psychology and learning ( Adolph et al., 1993a , b ), the first books on J. J. Gibson by Lombardo (1987/2017) and Reed (1988) , and the introduction of the metaphor of the polar planimeter by Runeson (1977) .

To summarize these developments, first we will resume the studies on visual control of movement and the tau theory developed by Lee, and the work on specificity and effectivities developed by the Connecticut school. We will finish the section by introducing the first developments of several prominent research areas in ecological psychology.

Visual Control of Action and Tau Theory

Lee started to study the optic flow with the Gibsons ( Lee, 2009 ). After this, he developed his well-known studies with the “moving room” on visual kinesthesis ( Lee and Aronson, 1974 ; Lee and Lishman, 1975 ), where he showed the strong influence of visual information over non-visual proprioceptive information in the control of stance.

Lee also worked in a mathematical definition of a perceptual invariant capable of explaining the visual control and timing of collisions. He proposed a mathematical invariant specific to time-to-contact, tau (τ), defined as the rate of acceleration of optical expansion ( Lee, 1976 ). Originally, the work focused on collision avoidance, such as braking, but rapidly evolved to preparation for a contact ( Lee and Reddish, 1981 ). In his first study, Lee (1976) used the example of a car following another vehicle that suddenly brakes. How does the driver know how hard should be the brake? Lee realized that distance and speed were not needed for controlling braking and judging the possibility for colliding. Rather, monitoring the expansion in the visual angle of the object in the direction of motion is informative enough to help a driver controlling her action. Through the detection of this rate of expansion, a car following another vehicle can avoid collision thanks to the specification of the “time left until contact at the current speed.”

Tau theory is one of the best-known examples derived from experimental results in the ecological framework, and its applications rapidly expanded ( Lee et al., 1983 ; Craig et al., 2000 ; see also Lee, 2009 for a review of tau theory). Although the original tau index has been surpassed by later work ( Tresilian, 1999 ), it became a cornerstone that gave rise to an entirely novel approach to the study of the control of locomotion and interception tasks. Researchers have proposed other variables to control braking and movement when an environmental situation affords collision. For example, Zaal and Bootsma (1995) showed that a driver could also adjust deceleration using the rate of change of tau. Other authors have shown that other informational variables in the optic array can affect or be used to estimate the time-to-contact (e.g., Koenderink, 1986 ; Tresilian, 1999 ; Michaels et al., 2001 ).

Undoubtedly, the original work of Lee had a clear influence in the study of the prospective control of movement from a non-representational account, with crucial applications in sports ( Fajen et al., 2009 ), in the description of the information for interception tasks ( Michaels and Oudejans, 1992 ; Bootsma et al., 1997 ; Fajen and Warren, 2004 ; Jacobs and Michaels, 2006 ; Craig et al., 2009 ), prehension and graspability ( Bootsma and van Wieringen, 1992 ; Newell et al., 1993 ; van der Kamp et al., 1998 ); the control of passing through sliding doors ( Huet et al., 2009 ), landing maneuvers in flight simulation ( Huet et al., 2011 ) driving behavior ( Land and Lee, 1994 ), coordination dynamics ( Richardson et al., 2016 ; Akifumi et al., 2017 ; Nalepka et al., 2017 ), or human locomotion ( Lee and Lishman, 1977 ; Fajen and Warren, 2003 ).

The Connecticut School

Several authors ( Cutting, 1982 ; Chemero, 2009 ) have pointed to possible differences between the original formulations of J. J. Gibson and the claims of the Connecticut school, mainly because of the strong version of specificity that the latter defended. However, a reconstruction of the historical and philosophical development of ecological psychology, we think, requires the recognition of the position of the Connecticut school both for its epistemological and ontological consistency, and as responsible for the academic settling of the discipline.

In his autobiography (1967), J. J. Gibson recalled his work at the Psychology Unit of the United States air force during WWII, when in the recruitment process they were testing the candidates’ aptitudes for piloting aircrafts, and wrote:

“The so-called ‘spatial’ abilities extracted from existing tests still seem to me unintelligible. The fact is, I now think, that the spatial performances of men and animals are based on stimulus-information of a mathematical order that we did not even dream of in the 1940s (...). And the building of apparatus to simulate the stimulus-information in life situations is difficult when one does not know what the information is. ” ( J. J. Gibson, 1967 , p. 136, emphasis added).

Which are the principles proposed by Turvey et al. (1981) for knowing what the information is and how is it lawfully related to the affordances? The concepts of specificity and effectivity are central to explain their position.

Specificity

Turvey et al. (1981) proposed a strong version of specificity. That is, the perceptual system detects information that is specific to environmental properties relevant for the organism, the so-called 1:1 relations. There are, of course, redundant and not specific variables to which perceivers may be attuned. But, very much in the pragmatist tradition, those daily actions that are successfully performed, they argued, are based on specific information. The empirical research program of ecological psychology is the description of the ecological information, the specifying variables used in adapted behavior.

Concerning the deployment of the concept of specificity, they proposed a two stages analysis of an affordance: first, to isolate the environmental invariants related to the extension of the affordance; second, to describe the light patterned and to characterize the patterning as optic variables. Thus, by transitivity, the relation between environment and information and the relation between information and affordance allow us to directly perceive the affordance ( Turvey et al., 1981 , pp. 264–266). This has been characterized as a symmetrical law in which the environment specifies information and information specifies affordances, which leads to a 1:1:1: relation of these elements by specification or unique correspondence ( Chemero, 2009 , p. 111).

As Turvey et al. (1981) , acknowledged, probably the tau theory described in section Affordances constitutes the first empirical example of the accomplishments of this research program. Since this pioneering work of Lee (1976) and Lee and Reddish (1981) , several other informational variables of different perception-action systems were described. Among the outstanding ones are the invariants in the inertia tensor in dynamic touch that we will describe in section Other Developments.

Effectivities

The Connecticut School centered their efforts in developing the concept of effectivity to answer how behavior can be regular without being regulated ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 , p. 215). The concept of effectivity (a description of the behavioral capacities of the organism) is necessary for establishing the relevant properties of the environment. Then, a theory of action is needed. Turvey et al. (1978) enunciated the two main problems that such a theory had to face. First, the problem of degrees of freedom; second, the context-variability of motor control.

Previous theories of human movement (e.g., Luria, 1966 ; Turvey et al., 1978 ) conceived motor control as the central programming and execution of motor programs that specify each value or degree of freedom of all joints and muscles of the skeletomuscular system. However, as Turvey et al. stated:

“The executive problem in this case is analogous to that of finding the optimum of a function with many variables. Algorithms that theoretically allow the solution of such problem prove to be infeasible in practice” ( Turvey et al., 1978 , p. 559).

The second problem, context-variability, consists in that motor programs do not guarantee the intended movement. It refers to three main sources of variability: The first one is an anatomical source, by which muscles vary in the role they have in joint movement depending on the anatomical position. The second source of variability comes from mechanical forces, so that the relation of innervation and movement varies if the segment is, for example, already in movement, generating inertial forces. Finally, the third source of variability results from the physiology of the innervation system. That is, the modulation of the motoneurons varies so that the same activation may produce different effects depending on the state of the muscle.

They offered an alternative approach to face these problems by rejecting the idea of the control of individual variables: They proposed that motor control consists of a smaller number of “clusters” or collective variables whose control is internal and relatively autonomous from other clusters. A classic example of these collective variables is the relative phase of the swing of legs and arms when walking ( Turvey, 1990 ). Turvey et al. (1978) proposed an approach consisting in coordinative structures and coalitions. Coordinative structures refer to those collective variables, and they were defined as groups of muscles, often spanning several joints that are constrained to act as a unit. Whereas coalitions refer to the (hierarchical) relations between those structures and the mode of control.

Thus, Ecological psychology turned to the work of Bernstein (1967) on the problems of degrees of freedom ( Latash and Turvey, 1996 ), and to dynamical and complex systems approaches ( Kelso et al., 1980 ; Kugler et al., 1980 ; Kugler and Turvey, 1987 ; Beek, 1989 ; Beek and Turvey, 1992 ; Kelso, 1995 ) concerning autonomous control and self-organization. There are, at least, two aspects of dynamical systems that make them a useful tool within ecological psychology. First, a dynamical system is an ensemble of elements forming a unity that changes over time due to the interdependence of the elements that shape the system. Second, the changing behavior of the system is mathematically described and exhibit emergent and self-organized behavior ( Richardson and Chemero, 2014 ). The use of dynamic and complex systems has been especially fruitful in coordination dynamics (see, for example, Stoffregen and Riccio, 1988 ; Turvey, 1990 ; Riley et al., 1999 ).

Other Developments

Once we have sketched the first developments beyond the work of J. J. Gibson, in this section we try to introduce other areas of research. It is beyond the scope of this paper to give a detailed account of all the work performed in these areas, so we will focus on the studies that initiated and motivated those lines.

Dynamic Touch

Contrary to the psychophysical analysis of touch as the sensibility of the skin surface, J. J. Gibson (1962 , 1966 ) defended the active character of the haptic system, including dynamic touch and the prominent role of the exploratory movements of the hands. Thus, the seminal work of Solomon and Turvey (1988) on perception through hand-held objects showed a canonical example of the haptic system conceived as dynamic touching (see section Perception-Action Loop and Perceptual Systems). This work constituted a cornerstone in the study of touch, defining one experimental paradigm and opening a new research field. In his experiments, participants hold a rod from a single grip and had to estimate its length. They could neither see the rods, nor touch their ends. Experimenters found that participants accurately matched the length of the rods. How could they perceive the rod’s length wielding it from a single grip? Authors stated that rotational dynamics played a crucial role. Participants wielded the rod detecting its resistance to rotate (its moment of inertia) through the muscular effort, so they accessed the invariant information present in the inertia tensor of the rod. This tensor is a physical property directly related to the rod’s length that is only accessed when wielding the rods.

Dynamic touch studies rapidly increased the areas of inquiry, including the different movements (torques) needed to diagonalize the inertia tensor ( Solomon et al., 1989 ), how weight is perceived ( Amazeen and Turvey, 1996 ), or the perception of different forms by wielding ( Burton et al., 1990 ; Pagano and Turvey, 1992 ; Turvey et al., 1992 ). Moreover, several studies proposed that even proprioception (in particular, the position of the extremities) is specified through their inertia tensor ( Pagano and Turvey, 1992 ; Pagano et al., 1996 ). A detailed review on rotational dynamics and dynamic touch has been written by Carello and Turvey (2000) .

The mathematical operationalization of affordances started with the classic work of Warren (1984) on the perception of climbability (reviewed in section Affordances) and continued with the perception of passability ( Warren and Whang, 1987 ). This methodology has been applied to the study of several affordances. According to Fajen et al. (2009) , affordances can be divided in two groups: body-scaled affordances and action-scaled affordances. The first group refers to properties related to the body dimensions of organisms. This is because the goal-directed action needs specific dimensions of the environment to fit the action; for example, the grasping pattern of an object depends of the relation of object and hand sizes (e.g., Newell et al., 1993 ; Cesari and Newell, 2002 ). The second group of affordances are those properties related to the action-capabilities of the organism. That is, the affordances are environmental properties that allow action in relation to dynamic properties of the perceiver’s movement. Classic examples of this type are optic variables that specify the point of interception of a flying ball that is visually tracked by a moving observer (e.g., Oudejans et al., 1996 ).

After the publication of J. J. Gibson’s seminal work ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 ) the term has been continuously spreading among a wide variety of academic contexts, from architecture ( Maier et al., 2009 ; Rietveld and Rietveld, 2017 ) to robotics and artificial intelligence ( Effken and Shaw, 1992 ; Duchon et al., 1998 ; Chemero and Turvey, 2007 ; Rome and Dorffner, 2008 ). As an example, a Google Scholar’s search 3 for the term in the decade of 1980–1989 yielded 593 results, while in the current decade (2010–2018) yielded 23500 results. The most important problem related to this impressive growing is the variety of meanings for the same word ( Oliver, 2005 ). For example, several authors argued that affordances are some kind of mental representations (see for example, Vera and Simon, 1993 ; Millikan, 2005 ), which contradicts direct perception and the reciprocity of organism and environment. Important discussions on the concept of affordances within ecological psychology can be found in Chemero (2003) , Michaels (2003) , and Stoffregen (2003) . Reviews on the application of the concept of affordance can be found in different areas: learning and development studies ( Adolph et al., 1997 ), visual control of action ( Fajen, 2007 ) and sports ( Fajen et al., 2009 ).

Development and Learning

As we could see in section Perceptual Learning, E. J. Gibson defined development and learning as the process of using available information to adjust behavior. The work of Adolph followed this path studying how infants developed the perception of affordances for locomotion ( Adolph et al., 1993a , b ). Afterward, she extended her work to the study of the transition from crawling to walking. Adolph studied crawling longitudinally and systematically, describing the crawling behavior of infants over different slopes. Adolph showed that infants engaged in a circular behavior in which improvements in crawling produced better estimations of slope inclination, and, conversely, better estimation produced improvements in the crawling behavior. Furthermore, Adolph et al. (1997 , 1998 ) stated that no transfer of the slope estimations happens in the transition from crawling to walking, so infants had to learn new attunements.

One of the latest developments in perceptual learning is the theory of direct learning ( Jacobs and Michaels, 2007 ). This theory defines a perceptual task in an informational space. In such space, each point represents an informational variable and trajectories from point to point represent the learning process. The innovation of this approach lies in the mathematical apparatus that let us observe the direct character of learning represented by a path in the informational space. This path is constrained by the vector field which represents the discrepancies between judgments (actions) and feedback (outcomes). In other words, learning depends on the convergent information that (directly) pushes the agent to move from non-specific invariants to (more) specific invariants, and this explains improvements in performance. Thus, this theory states a direct learning hypothesis (e.g., Jacobs et al., 2009 ).

This approach has been successfully applied to describe perceptual learning in the form of change in variable use ( Runeson et al., 2000 ; Jacobs et al., 2001 ), and in calibration ( Bingham et al., 2000 ; Jacobs and Michaels, 2006 ). And it has been applied also to several perceptual tasks, like touch ( Michaels et al., 2008 ; Withagen and Van Wermeskerken, 2009 ), or landing maneuvers in flight simulators ( Huet et al., 2011 ).

Social Coordination

In section Effectivities we saw that ecological psychology approaches the problem of motor control through collective variables. A classic example of this is the coordinated swing of arms and legs, a field of study called coordination dynamics. Schmidt et al. (1990) showed that the patterns of interlimb coordination of the lower legs oscillations between two people produce similar coordination patterns to that of the two legs of a person, showing that the latter is not a pure mechanical event. This study started a research area relating coordination dynamics and social behavior called social coordination. Since the publications of these results, studies on social coordination has been an increasing field of research from an ecological dynamic framework (see Schmidt and Richardson, 2008 ; Marsh et al., 2009 ).

One of the related areas of applied research that has been greatly influenced by the concepts and research framework of ecological psychology is sports. Some of the most relevant studies in this field made use of outcomes achieved in the study of timing and interception tasks and applied it to ball sports (e.g., Bootsma and van Wieringen, 1990 ; Peper et al., 1994 ; Craig et al., 2000 ; Zaal and Michaels, 2003 ). Nonetheless, research on sports was not limited to the analysis of ecological information, but also to the dynamics of actions in sports ( Araújo et al., 2006 ). Representative publications summarizing research results and theoretical position on this area can be found in Araújo and Davids (2009) , Beek (2009) , and Fajen et al. (2009) .

How is ecological psychology related to current approaches to perception and action? Is neuroscience completely irrelevant to ecological psychology? We think that ecological psychology can be complemented by developments in other areas, as well as other approaches can benefit from the results of ecological psychology. For example, some approaches and disciplines are currently accommodating an analysis of affordances, a concept that has gained popularity in the recent years beyond the scope of ecological psychology. This object of study and the way it is analyzed by ecological psychology may illuminate the complementarity of different approaches in order to offer a wider picture of how psychological processes develop. For example, a subpersonal analysis of neural processes in the brain can be complemented by an upper-level analysis of which behavioral patterns are used by the organism to pick-up ecological variables in the environment. In this sense, neuroscience is not completely irrelevant to ecological psychology: an analysis of the brain based on neural dynamics complements the ecological approach since it offers an explanation of how ‘resonance’ works ( Raja, 2018 ), as it was suggested by J. J. Gibson (1966 , p. 5). In this sense, as the influence of ecological psychology grows beyond its own field of study, this very discipline can benefit from the outputs of other approaches, specially the ones related to neurodynamics ( Freeman, 2000 ).

In this paper, we have presented a sketch of the theoretical foundations and the historical development of ecological psychology as a discipline, as well as its main innovations and applied contributions for the philosophy of mind and the cognitive sciences. We have tried to show that ecological psychology offers one of the most powerful alternatives for developing a non-representational and non-dualistic psychology because of two reasons. First, because of the radical philosophical position developed mainly by J. J. Gibson that confronted the main weaknesses of the psychological theory, which are the organism-environment, perception-action and objective-subjective dichotomies. The second reason is that an increasing number of scholars have engaged in the ecological program, providing a growing empirical corpus. We hope that this paper helps illustrating the theoretical innovations and methodological contributions of ecological psychology.

Author Contributions

All authors have made an equally substantial contribution to the work.

This study was supported by a 2018 Leonardo Grant for Researchers and Cultural Creators, BBVA Foundation (the foundation accepts no responsibility for the opinions, statements and contents included in the project, and/or the results thereof, which are entirely the responsibility of the authors), the Projects PSI2013-43742 and FFI2016-80088-P funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and the FiloLab Group of Excellence, Spain funded by the Universidad de Granada, Spain.

Conflict of Interest Statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

  • ^ As J. J. Gibson (1967/1982) stated, the person that most influenced his views was his wife, E. J. Gibson, who made similar claims about her husband in her autobiography (2002). However, here we focus exclusively in the theories that influenced Ecological Psychology.
  • ^ Marr’s approach to vision differs substantially from J. J. Gibson’s, since the former proposed an information-processing view that was rejected by the latter. Marr (1982/2010 , pp. 29–31) analyzed the ecological approach and claimed that J. J. Gibson did a great job in answering how one can obtain constant perception on the basis of continually changing stimulation. Nevertheless, Marr rejected the ecological approach since he seriously underestimated the complexity of the information-processing problems in vision. The problem is that J. J. Gibson himself claimed that ecological information was not the kind of information as found in the information-processing approach, since he considered that this latter kind of information was based on Shannon’s mathematical theory of communication, and it implied a sender, a receiver, and a signal that transmitted a message that had to be reconstructed. This kind of information for communication is not the same as the one found in the ambient optic array. For this reason, “[t]he information that can be extracted from ambient light is not the kind of information that is transmitted over a channel. There is no sender outside the head and no receiver inside the head” ( J. J. Gibson, 1979/2015 , p. 57).
  • ^ Search performed on May 23, 2018.

Adolph, K. E., Bertenthal, B. I., Boker, S. M., Goldfield, E. C., and Gibson, E. J. (1997). Learning in the development of infant locomotion. Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 162, I–Iv, 1–58. doi: 10.2307/1166199

CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Adolph, K. E., Eppler, M. A., and Gibson, E. J. (1993a). Crawling versus walking infants’ perception of affordances for locomotion over sloping surfaces. Child Dev. 64, 1158–1174.

Google Scholar

Adolph, K. E., Eppler, M. A., and Gibson, E. J. (1993b). Development of perception of affordances. Adv. Infancy Res. 8, 51–98.

Adolph, K. E., Vereijken, B., and Denny, M. A. (1998). Learning to crawl. Child Dev. 69, 1299–1312. doi: 10.2307/1132267

Akifumi, K., Shima, H., Okumura, M., Yamamoto, Y., and Richardson, M. J. (2017). Effects of Agent-Environment Symmetry on the coordination dynamics of triadic jumping. Front. Cogn. Sci. 8:3. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00003

PubMed Abstract | CrossRef Full Text | Google Scholar

Amazeen, E. L., and Turvey, M. T. (1996). Weight perception and the haptic “size–weight illusion” are functions of the inertia tensor. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 22, 213–232. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.22.1.213

Araújo, D., and Davids, K. (2009). Ecological approaches to cognition and action in sport and exercise: ask not only what you do, but where you do it. Int. J. Sport Psychol. 40, 5–37.

Araújo, D., Davids, K., and Hristovski, R. (2006). The ecological dynamics of decision making in sport. Psychol. Sport Exerc. 7, 653–676. doi: 10.1016/j.psychsport.2006.07.002

Beek, P. J. (1989). Timing and phase locking in cascade juggling. Ecol. Psychol. 1, 55–96. doi: 10.1207/s15326969eco0101_4

Beek, P. J. (2009). Ecological approaches to sport psychology: prospects and challenges. Int. J. Sport Psychol. 40, 144–151.

Beek, P. J., and Turvey, M. T. (1992). Temporal patterning in cascade juggling. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 18, 934–947. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.18.4.934

Bernstein, N. (1967). The Co-Ordination and Regulation of Movements. London: Pergamon Press.

Bingham, G. P., Zaal, F., Robin, D., and Shull, J. A. (2000). Distortions in definite distance and shape perception as measured by reaching without and with haptic feedback. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 26, 1436–1460. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.26.4.1436

Bootsma, R. J., Fayt, V., Zaal, F. T., and Laurent, M. (1997). On the information-based regulation of movement: what Wann (1996) may want to consider. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 23, 1282–1289. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.23.4.1282

Bootsma, R. J., and van Wieringen, P. C. (1990). Timing an attacking forehand drive in table tennis. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 16, 21–29. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.16.1.21

Bootsma, R. J., and van Wieringen, P. C. (1992). Spatio-temporal organisation of natural prehension. Hum. Mov. Sci. 11, 205–215. doi: 10.1016/0167-9457(92)90061-F

Burton, G., Turvey, M. T., and Solomon, H. Y. (1990). Can shape be perceived by dynamic touch? Percept. Psychophys. 48, 477–487. doi: 10.3758/BF03211592

Carello, C. C., and Turvey, M. T. (2000). “Rotational dynamics and dynamic touch,” in Touch, Representation, and Blindness , ed. M. Heller (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 149–219.

Cesari, P., and Newell, K. M. (2002). Scaling the components of prehension. Motor Control 6, 347–365. doi: 10.1123/mcj.6.4.347

Chemero, A. (2003). An outline of a theory of affordances. Ecol. Psychol. 15, 181–195. doi: 10.1207/S15326969ECO1502_5

Chemero, A. (2009). Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.

Chemero, A., and Käufer, S. (2016). “Pragmatism, phenomenology, and extended cognition,” in Pragmatism and Embodied Cognitive Science: From Bodily Interaction to Symbolic Articulation , eds R. Madzia and M. Jung (Berlin: De Gruyer), 55–70.

Chemero, A., and Turvey, M. T. (2007). Gibsonian affordances for roboticists. Adapt. Behav. 15, 473–480. doi: 10.1177/1059712307085098

Costall, A. (1995). Socializing affordances. Theory Psychol. 5, 467–481. doi: 10.1177/0959354395054001

Costall, A. (2004). From Darwin to Watson (and Cognitivism) and back again: the principle of animal-environment mutuality. Behav. Philos. 32, 179–195.

Costall, A., and Morris, P. (2015). The “textbook Gibson”: the assimilation of dissidence. Hist. Psychol. 18, 1–14. doi: 10.1037/a0038398

Craig, C. M., Delay, D., Grealy, M. A., and Lee, D. N. (2000). Guiding the swing in golf putting. Nature 405, 295–296. doi: 10.1038/35012690

Craig, C. M., Goulon, C., Berton, E., Rao, G., Fernandez, L., and Bootsma, R. J. (2009). Optic variables used to judge future ball arrival position in expert and novice soccer players. Attent. Percept. Psychophys. 71, 515–522. doi: 10.3758/APP.71.3.515

Cutting, J. E. (1982). Two ecological perspectives: gibson vs. shaw and turvey. Am. J. Psychol. 95, 199–222. doi: 10.2307/1422466

Dewey, J. (1896). The reflex arc concept in psychology. Psychol. Rev. 3, 357–370. doi: 10.1037/h0070405

Duchon, A. P., Kaelbling, L. P., and Warren, W. H. (1998). Ecological robotics. Adapt. Behav. 6, 473–507. doi: 10.1177/105971239800600306

Effken, J. A., and Shaw, R. E. (1992). Ecological perspectives on the new artificial intelligence. Ecol. Psychol. 4, 247–270.

PubMed Abstract | Google Scholar

Fajen, B. R. (2007). Affordance-based control of visually guided action. Ecol. Psychol. 19, 383–410. doi: 10.1080/10407410701557877

Fajen, B. R., Riley, M. A., and Turvey, M. T. (2009). Information, affordances, and the control of action in sport. Int. J. Sport Psychol. 40, 79–107.

Fajen, B. R., and Warren, W. H. (2003). Behavioral dynamics of steering, obstacle avoidance, and route selection. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 29, 343–362. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.29.2.343

Fajen, B. R., and Warren, W. H. (2004). Visual guidance of intercepting a moving target on foot. Perception 33, 689–715. doi: 10.1068/p5236

Freeman, W. J. (2000). How Brains make up their Minds. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.

Gibson, E. J. (1969). Principles of Perceptual Learning and Development. East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Gibson, E. J. (1982). “The concept of affordances in development: the renascence of functionalism,” in The Concept of Development. The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology , Vol. 15, ed. W. A. Collins (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 55–82. doi: 10.4324/9780203781050

Gibson, E. J. (1988). Exploratory behavior in the development of perceiving, acting, and the acquiring of knowledge. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 39, 1–42. doi: 10.1146/annurev.ps.39.020188.000245

Gibson, E. J. (1991). An Odyssey in Learning and Perception. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Gibson, E. J. (2002). Perceiving the Affordances: A Portrait of Two Psychologists. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Gibson, E. J., and Gibson, J. J. (1972). The Senses as Information-Seeking Systems. London: The Times Literary Supplement, 711–712.

Gibson, E. J., and Levin, H. (1975). The Psychology of Reading. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Gibson, E. J., Owsley, C. J., and Johnston, J. (1978). Perception of invariants by five-month-old infants: differentiation of two types of motion. Dev. Psychol. 14, 407–415. doi: 10.1037/0012-1649.14.4.407

Gibson, E. J., and Pick, A. D. (2000). Perceptual Learning and Development: An Ecological Approach. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Gibson, E. J., and Walk, R. D. (1960). The “visual cliff”. Sci. Am. 202, 64–71. doi: 10.1038/scientificamerican0460-64

Gibson, J. J. (1929). The reproduction of visually perceived forms. J. Exp. Psychol. 12, 1–39. doi: 10.1037/h0072470

Gibson, J. J. (1950). The Perception of the Visual World. Oxford: Houghton Mifflin.

Gibson, J. J. (1962). Observations on active touch. Psychol. Rev. 69, 477–491. doi: 10.1037/h0046962

Gibson, J. J. (1966). The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems. Boston, MA: Houghton-Mifflin.

Gibson, J. J. (1967). “James J. Gibson and the psychology of perception,” in The Century Psychology Series. A History of Psychology in Autobiography , Vol. 5, eds E. G. Boring and G. Lindzey (East Norwalk, CT: Appleton-Century-Crofts), 127–143. doi: 10.1037/11579-000

Gibson, J. J. (1977). “The theory of affordances,” in Perceiving, Acting, and Knowing: Toward an Ecological Psychology , eds R. Shaw and J. Bransford (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum), 67–82.

Gibson, J. J. (1982). “Part V: the affordances of the environment,” in Reasons for Realism , eds E. Reed and R. Jones (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Gibson, J. J., and Crooks, L. E. (1938). A theoretical field-analysis of automobile-driving. Am. J. Psychol. 51, 453–471. doi: 10.2307/1416145

Gibson, J. J., and Gibson, E. J. (1955). Perceptual learning: differentiation or enrichment? Psychol. Rev. 62, 32–41. doi: 10.1037/h0048826

Gibson, J. J. (1967/1982). “Autobiography. Reprinted,” in Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson , eds E. Reed and R. Jones (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), 7–22.

Gibson, J. J. (1979/2015). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Glotzbach, P. A., and Heft, H. (1982). Ecological and phenomenological contributions to the psychology of perception. Noûs 16, 108–121. doi: 10.2307/2215421

Goodale, M. A., and Milner, A. D. (1992). Separate visual pathways for perception and action. Trends Neurosci. 15, 20–25. doi: 10.1016/0166-2236(92)90344-8

Goodale, M. A., Milner, A. D., Jakobson, L. S., and Carey, D. P. (1991). A neurological dissociation between perceiving objects and grasping them. Nature 349, 154–156. doi: 10.1038/349154a0

Heft, H. (1989). Affordances and the body: an intentional analysis of Gibson’s ecological approach to visual perception. J. Theory Soc. Behav. 19, 1–30. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-5914.1989.tb00133.x

Heft, H. (2001). Ecological Psychology in Context: James Gibson, Roger Barker, and the Legacy of William James’s Radical Empiricism. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Heft, H., and Richardson, M. (2013). “Ecological psychology,” in Oxford Bibliographies in Psychology , ed. S. S. Dunn (Oxford: Oxford University Press), doi: 10.1093/OBO/9780199828340-0072

Hochberg, J. (1994). James Jerome Gibson: A Biographical Memoir by Julian Hochberg. Washington DC: National Academy of Sciences.

Holt, E. B. (1914). The Concept of Consciousness. New York, NY: Macmillan.

Huet, M., Camachon, C., Fernandez, L., Jacobs, D. M., and Montagne, G. (2009). Self-controlled concurrent feedback and the education of attention towards perceptual invariants. Hum. Mov. Sci. 28, 450–467. doi: 10.1016/j.humov.2008.12.004

Huet, M., Jacobs, D. M., Camachon, C., Missenard, O., Gray, R., and Montagne, G. (2011). The education of attention as explanation of variability of practice effects: learning the final approach phase in a flight simulator. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 37, 1841–1854. doi: 10.1037/a0024386

Hull, C. L. (1929). A functional interpretation of the conditioned reflex. Psychol. Rev. 36, 498–511. doi: 10.1037/h0075368

Jacobs, D. M., and Michaels, C. F. (2006). Lateral interception I: operative optical variables, attunement, and calibration. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 32, 443–458. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.32.2.443

Jacobs, D. M., and Michaels, C. F. (2007). Direct learning. Ecol. Psychol. 19, 321–349. doi: 10.1080/10407410701432337

Jacobs, D. M., Runeson, S., and Michaels, C. F. (2001). Learning to visually perceive the relative mass of colliding balls in globally and locally constrained task ecologies. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 27, 1019–1038. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.27.5.1019

Jacobs, D. M., Silva, P. L., and Calvo, J. (2009). An empirical illustration and formalization of the theory of direct learning: the muscle-based perception of kinetic properties. Ecol. Psychol. 21, 245–289. doi: 10.1080/10407410903058302

James, W. (1895). The knowing of things together. Psychol. Rev. 2, 105–124. doi: 10.1037/h0073221

Jenkins, H. S. (2008). Gibson’s “affordances”: evolution of a pivotal concept. J. Sci. Psychol. 12, 34–45.

Käufer, S., and Chemero, A. (2015). Phenomenology: An Introduction. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Kelly, S. (2004). “Seeing things in Merleau-Ponty,” in The Cambridge Companion to Merleau-Ponty , eds T. Carman and M. B. N. Hansen (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 74–110. doi: 10.1017/CCOL0521809894.004

Kelso, J. S. (1995). Dynamic Patterns: The Self-Organization of Brain and Behavior. Cambridge, MA: MIT press.

Kelso, J. S., Holt, K. G., Kugler, P. N., and Turvey, M. T. (1980). “On the concept of coordinative structures as dissipative structures: II. empirical lines of convergence,” in Advances in Psychology , Vol. 1, eds G. E. Stelmach and J. Requin (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company), 49–70.

Koenderink, J. J. (1986). Optic flow. Vis. Res. 26, 161–179. doi: 10.1016/0042-6989(86)90078-7

Kugler, E. N., and Turvey, M. T. (1987). Information, Natural Law, and the Self-Assembly of Rhythmic Movement. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Kugler, P. N., Kelso, J. S., and Turvey, M. T. (1980). “On the concept of coordinative structures as dissipative structures: I. theoretical lines of convergence,” in Advances in Psychology , Vol. 1, eds G. E. Stelmach and J. Requin (Amsterdam: North-Holland Publishing Company), 3–47.

Land, M. F., and Lee, D. N. (1994). Where we look when we steer. Nature 369, 742–744. doi: 10.1038/369742a0

Langfeld, H. S. (1946). Edwin bissell holt, 1873-1946. Psychol. Rev. 53, 251–258. doi: 10.1037/h0060596

Latash, M. L., and Turvey, M. T. (1996). Dexterity and its Development. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Lee, D. N. (1976). A theory of visual control of braking based on information about time-to-collision. Perception 5, 437–459. doi: 10.1068/p050437

Lee, D. N. (2009). General Tau theory: evolution to date. Perception 38, 837–850.

Lee, D. N., and Aronson, E. (1974). Visual proprioceptive control of standing in human infants. Percept. Psychophys. 15, 529–532. doi: 10.3758/BF03199297

Lee, D. N., and Lishman, J. R. (1975). Visual proprioceptive control of stance. J. Hum. Mov. Stud. 1, 87–95.

Lee, D. N., and Lishman, R. (1977). Visual control of locomotion. Scand. J. Psychol. 18, 224–230. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1977.tb00281.x

Lee, D. N., and Reddish, P. E. (1981). Plummeting gannets: a paradigm of ecological optics. Nature 293, 293–294. doi: 10.1038/293293a0

Lee, D. N., Young, D. S., Reddish, P. E., Lough, S., and Clayton, T. M. H. (1983). Visual timing in hitting an accelerating ball. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. 35, 333–346. doi: 10.1080/14640748308402138

Lewin, K. (1936). Principles of Topological Psychology. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. doi: 10.1037/10019-000

Lombardo, T. J. (1987/2017). The Reciprocity of Perceiver and Environment: The Evolution of James J. Gibson’s Ecological Psychology. New York, NY: Routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315514413

Luria, A. R. (1966). Higher Cortical Functions in Man. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Mace, W. (2014). “Gibson in context,” in Paper Presented at the North American Meeting of the International Society for Ecological Psychology , Oxford, OH.

Mace, W. M. (2015). Introduction to Classic Edition in J. J. Gibson (1979/2015). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New York, NY: PsychologyPress.

Maier, J. R. A., Fadel, G. M., and Battisto, D. G. (2009). An affordance-based approach to architectural theory, design, and practice. Des. Stud. 30, 393–414. doi: 10.1016/j.destud.2009.01.002

Marr, D. (1982/2010). Vision: A Computational Investigation into the Human Representation and Processing of Visual Information. Cambridge: The MIT Press.

Marsh, K. L., Richardson, M. J., and Schmidt, R. C. (2009). Social connection through joint action and interpersonal coordination. Top. Cogn. Sci. 1, 320–339. doi: 10.1111/j.1756-8765.2009.01022.x

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2012). Phenomenology of Perception. Abingdon: Routledge.

Michaels, C. F. (2000). Information, perception, and action: what should ecological psychologists learn from Milner and Goodale (1995)? Ecol. Psychol. 12, 241–258. doi: 10.1207/S15326969ECO1203_4

Michaels, C. F. (2003). Affordances: four points of debate. Ecol. Psychol. 15, 135–148. doi: 10.1207/S15326969ECO1502_3

Michaels, C. F., Arzamarski, R., Isenhower, R. W., and Jacobs, D. M. (2008). Direct learning in dynamic touch. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 34, 944–957. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.34.4.944

Michaels, C. F., and Carello, C. (1981). Direct Perception. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Michaels, C. F., and Oudejans, R. R. (1992). The optics and actions of catching fly balls: zeroing out optical acceleration. Ecol. Psychol. 4, 199–222. doi: 10.1207/s15326969eco0404_1

Michaels, C. F., Zeinstra, E. B., and Oudejans, R. R. (2001). Information and action in punching a falling ball. Q. J. Exp. Psychol. A Hum. Exp. Psychol. 54, 69–93. doi: 10.1080/02724980042000039

Millikan, R. G. (2005). Language: A Biological Model. Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi: 10.1093/0199284768.001.0001

Milner, A. D., and Goodale, M. A. (1995). The Visual Brain in Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Nalepka, P., Kallen, R. W., Chemero, A., Saltzman, E., and Richardson, M. J. (2017). Herd Those Sheep: emergent multiagent coordination and behavioral mode switching. Psychol. Sci. 28, 630–650. doi: 10.1177/0956797617692107

Newell, K. M., McDonald, P. V., and Baillargeon, R. (1993). Body scale and infant grip configurations. Dev. Psychobiol. 26, 195–205. doi: 10.1002/dev.420260403

Norman, D. A. (1988). The Design of Everyday Things. New York, NY: Basic Books.

Norman, D. A. (1999). Affordance, conventions, and design. Interactions 6, 38–43. doi: 10.1145/301153.301168

Norman, J. (2002). Two visual systems and two theories of perception: an attempt to reconcile the constructivist and ecological approaches. Behav. Brain Sci. 25, 73–96.

Oliver, M. (2005). The problem with affordance. E Learn. Digit. Media 2, 402–413. doi: 10.2304/elea.2005.2.4.402

Oudejans, R. R. D., Michaels, C. F., Bakker, F. C., and Dolné, M. A. (1996). The relevance of action in perceiving affordances: perception of catchableness of fly balls. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 22, 879–891. doi: 10.1037//0096-1523.22.4.879

Pagano, C. C., Garrett, S. R., and Turvey, M. T. (1996). Is limb proprioception a function of the limbs’ inertial eigenvectors? Ecol. Psychol. 8, 43–69. doi: 10.1207/s15326969eco0801_3

Pagano, C. C., and Turvey, M. T. (1992). Eigenvectors of the inertia tensor and perceiving the orientation of a hand-held object by dynamic touch. Percept. Psychophys. 52, 617–624.

Peper, L., Bootsma, R. J., Mestre, D. R., and Bakker, F. C. (1994). Catching balls: how to get the hand to the right place at the right time. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 20, 591–612. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.20.3.591

Rader, N. D. V. (2018). Uniting Jimmy and Jackie: foundation for a research program in developmental ecological psychology. Ecol. Psychol. 30, 129–145. doi: 10.1080/10407413.2018.1439110

Raja, V. (2018). A theory of resonance: towards an ecological cognitive architecture. Minds Mach. 28, 29–51. doi: 10.1007/s11023-017-9431-8

Read, C., and Szokolszky, A. (2018). An emerging developmental ecological psychology: future directions and potentials. Ecol. Psychol. 30, 174–194. doi: 10.1080/10407413.2018.1439141

Reed, E. S. (1983). Two theories of the intentionality of perceiving. Synthese 54, 85–94. doi: 10.1007/BF00869464

Reed, E. S. (1988). James J. Gibson and the Psychology of Perception. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Reed, E. S. (1991). “James Gibson’s ecological approach to cognition,” in Against Cognitivism: Alternative Foundations for Cognitive Psychology , eds A. Still and A. Costall (New York, NY: St. Martin’s Press), 142–173.

Reed, E. S. (1996). Encountering the World. Toward an Ecological Psychology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, doi: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195073010.001.0001

Reed, E. S., and Jones, R. (eds). (1982). Reasons for Realism: Selected Essays of James J. Gibson. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Reed, E. S., and Jones, R. K. (1977). Towards a definition of living systems: a theory of ecological support for behavior. Acta Biotheor. 26, 153–163. doi: 10.1007/BF00048424

Richards, W. (2012). Marr, gibson, and gestalt: a challenge. Perception 41, 1024–1026. doi: 10.1068/p7295

Richardson, M., and Chemero, A. (2014). “Complex dynamical Systems and embodiment,” in The Routledge Handbook of Embodied Cognition , ed. L. Shapiro (New York, NY: Routledge), 39–50.

Richardson, M. J., Shockley, K., Fajen, B. R., Riley, M. A., and Turvey, M. T. (2008). “Ecological psychology: six principles for an embodied–embedded approach to behavior,” in Handbook of Cognitive Science: An Embodied Approach , eds P. Calvo and T. Gomila (Amsterdam: Elsevier), 161–187.

Richardson, M. J., Washburn, A., Kallen, R. W., and Harrison, S. J. (2016). “Symmetry and the behavioral dynamics of social coordination,” in Interpersonal Coordination and Performance in Social Systems , eds P. Passos and K. Davis (Abingdon: Routledge), 65–81.

Rietveld, E., and Rietveld, R. (2017). Hardcore heritage: imagination for preservation. Front. Psychol. 8:1995. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01995

Riley, M. A., Balasubramaniam, R., and Turvey, M. T. (1999). Recurrence quantification analysis of postural fluctuations. Gait Posture 9, 65–78. doi: 10.1016/S0966-6362(98)00044-7

Rome, E., and Dorffner, G. (2008). Towards Affordance-Based Robot Control. Berlin: Springer-Verlag. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-77915-5

Runeson, S. (1977). On the possibility of “smart” perceptual mechanisms. Scand. J. Psychol. 18, 172–179. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1977.tb00274.x

Runeson, S., Juslin, P., and Olsson, H. (2000). Visual perception of dynamic properties: cue heuristics versus direct-perceptual competence. Psychol. Rev. 107, 525–555. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.107.3.525

Schmidt, R. C., Carello, C., and Turvey, M. T. (1990). Phase transitions and critical fluctuations in the visual coordination of rhythmic movements between people. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 16, 227–247. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.16.2.227

Schmidt, R. C., and Richardson, M. J. (2008). Dynamics of Interpersonal Coordination. In Coordination: Neural, Behavioral and Social Dynamics. Berlin: Springer, 281–308. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-74479-5_14

Shaw, R. E., Turvey, M. T., and Mace, W. M. (1982). “Ecological psychology. The consequence of a commitment to realism,” in Cognition and the Symbolic Processes II , eds W. Weimer and D. Palermo (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum), 159–226.

Solomon, H. Y., and Turvey, M. T. (1988). Haptically perceiving the distances reachable with hand-held objects. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 14, 404–427. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.14.3.404

Solomon, H. Y., Turvey, M. T., and Burton, G. (1989). Perceiving extents of rods by wielding: haptic diagonalization and decomposition of the inertia tensor. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 15, 58–68. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.15.1.58

Stoffregen, T. A. (2003). Affordances as properties of the animal-environment system. Ecol. Psychol. 15, 115–134. doi: 10.1207/S15326969ECO1502_2

Stoffregen, T. A., and Riccio, G. E. (1988). An ecological theory of orientation and the vestibular system. Psychol. Rev. 95, 3–14. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.95.1.3

Toadvine, T. (2016). Maurice Merleau-Ponty , ed. E. N. Zalta. Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/merleau-ponty/

Tolman, E. C. (1932). Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men. New York, NY: Century.

Travieso, D., and Jacobs, D. M. (2009). The ecological level of analysis: can neogibsonian principles be applied beyond perception and action? Integr. Psychol. Behav. Sci. 43, 393–405. doi: 10.1007/s12124-009-9098-7

Tresilian, J. R. (1999). Visually timed action: time-out for “Tau”? Trends Cogn. Sci. 3, 301–310. doi: 10.1016/S1364-6613(99)01352-2

Turvey, M. T. (1990). Coordination. Am. Psychol. 45, 938–953. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.45.8.938

Turvey, M. T. (1992). Affordances and prospective control: an outline of the ontology. Ecol. Psychol. 4, 173–187. doi: 10.1207/s15326969eco0403_3

Turvey, M. T., Burton, G., Pagano, C. C., Solomon, H. Y., and Runeson, S. (1992). Role of the inertia tensor in perceiving object orientation by dynamic touch. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 18, 714–727. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.18.3.714

Turvey, M. T., Shaw, R. E., and Mace, W. (1978). “Issues in the theory of action: degrees of freedom, coordinative structures and coaliations,” in Attention and Performance , ed. J. Requin (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum), 557–595.

Turvey, M. T., Shaw, R. E., Reed, E. S., and Mace, W. M. (1981). Ecological laws of perceiving and acting: in reply to Fodor and Pylyshyn (1981). Cognition 9, 237–304. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(81)90002-0

van der Kamp, J., Savelsbergh, G. J., and Davis, W. E. (1998). Body-scaled ratio as a control parameter for prehension in 5-to 9-year-old children. Dev. Psychobiol. 33, 351–361. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1098-2302(199812)33:4<351::AID-DEV6>3.0.CO;2-P

van der Meer, A. L. H. (1997). Visual guidance of passing under a barrier. Early Dev. Parent. 6, 149–158. doi: 10.1002/(SICI)1099-0917(199709/12)6:3/4<149::AID-EDP154>3.0.CO;2-2

Vera, A. H., and Simon, H. A. (1993). Situated action: a symbolic interpretation. Cogn. Sci. 17, 7–48. doi: 10.1207/s15516709cog1701_2

Walk, R. D., and Gibson, E. J. (1961). A comparative and analytical study of visual depth perception. Psychol. Monogr. Gen. Appl. 75, 1–44. doi: 10.1037/h0093827

Warren, W. H. (1984). Perceiving affordances: visual guidance of stair climbing. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 10, 683–703. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.10.5.683

Warren, W. H. (2005). Direct perception: the view from here. Philos. Top. 33, 335–361. doi: 10.5840/philtopics200533113

Warren, W. H. (2006). The dynamics of perception and action. Psychol. Rev. 113, 358–389. doi: 10.1037/0033-295X.113.2.358

Warren, W. H. J., and Whang, S. (1987). Visual guidance of walking through apertures: body-scaled information for affordances. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 13, 371–383. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.13.3.371

Withagen, R., and Van Wermeskerken, M. (2009). Individual differences in learning to perceive length by dynamic touch: evidence for variation in perceptual learning capacities. Percept. Psychophys. 71, 64–75. doi: 10.3758/APP.71.1.64

Woodworth, R. S. (1958). Dynamics of Behavior. New York, NY: Henry Holt & Co.

Zaal, F. T., and Bootsma, R. J. (1995). The topology of limb deceleration in prehension tasks. J. Mot. Behav. 27, 193–207. doi: 10.1080/00222895.1995.9941710

Zaal, F. T., and Michaels, C. F. (2003). The information for catching fly balls: judging and intercepting virtual balls in a CAVE. J. Exp. Psychol. Hum. Percept. Perform. 29, 537–555. doi: 10.1037/0096-1523.29.3.537

Keywords : ecological psychology, Gibson, perception-action, affordances, specificity, perceptual learning, pragmatism

Citation: Lobo L, Heras-Escribano M and Travieso D (2018) The History and Philosophy of Ecological Psychology. Front. Psychol. 9:2228. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02228

Received: 01 June 2018; Accepted: 29 October 2018; Published: 27 November 2018.

Reviewed by:

Copyright © 2018 Lobo, Heras-Escribano and Travieso. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) . The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

*Correspondence: Manuel Heras-Escribano, [email protected]

Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.

  • Subject List
  • Take a Tour
  • For Authors
  • Subscriber Services
  • Publications
  • African American Studies
  • African Studies
  • American Literature
  • Anthropology
  • Architecture Planning and Preservation
  • Art History
  • Atlantic History
  • Biblical Studies
  • British and Irish Literature
  • Childhood Studies
  • Chinese Studies
  • Cinema and Media Studies
  • Communication
  • Criminology
  • Environmental Science
  • Evolutionary Biology
  • International Law
  • International Relations
  • Islamic Studies
  • Jewish Studies
  • Latin American Studies
  • Latino Studies
  • Linguistics
  • Literary and Critical Theory
  • Medieval Studies
  • Military History
  • Political Science

Public Health

  • Renaissance and Reformation
  • Social Work
  • Urban Studies
  • Victorian Literature
  • Browse All Subjects

How to Subscribe

  • Free Trials

In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Ecological Approaches

Introduction.

  • General Overviews
  • Theoretical Development
  • Child and Adolescent Health and Safety
  • Adolescent Sexuality
  • Health Issues of Older Adults
  • Chronic Disease
  • Tobacco Control
  • Community Interventions
  • Research and Measurement
  • Linkages to Systems Perspectives

Related Articles Expand or collapse the "related articles" section about

About related articles close popup.

Lorem Ipsum Sit Dolor Amet

Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aliquam ligula odio, euismod ut aliquam et, vestibulum nec risus. Nulla viverra, arcu et iaculis consequat, justo diam ornare tellus, semper ultrices tellus nunc eu tellus.

  • Health Disparities
  • Nanotechnology
  • Radiation Emergencies and Public Health: Impacts, Preparedness, Response
  • Social Determinants of Health

Other Subject Areas

Forthcoming articles expand or collapse the "forthcoming articles" section.

  • Housing as a Determinant of Health
  • Quackery as a Public Health Problem
  • Social Vulnerability in Public Health
  • Find more forthcoming articles...
  • Export Citations
  • Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Ecological Approaches by Monica L. Wendel , Whitney R. Garney , Kenneth R. McLeroy LAST REVIEWED: 30 November 2015 LAST MODIFIED: 30 November 2015 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756797-0037

Social ecology provides a framework for understanding how individuals and their social environments mutually affect each other across the lifespan. Drawing from the ideas of Kurt Lewin’s A Dynamic Theory of Personality: Selected Papers (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1935), which conceptualized this relationship as an equation that yielded behavior, Urie Bronfenbrenner’s The Ecology of Human Development ( Bronfenbrenner 1979 , cited under History ) extended the social ecological perspective to account for the complexity of individuals developing within embedded systems. Bronfenbrenner specified micro-, meso-, exo-, and macro- subsystems, which constitute the settings and life space within which an individual develops. In this model, each of the subsystems influences the individual and the other subsystems. Moreover, Bronfenbrenner viewed the individual as moving through time and being influenced by his or her developmental and life course experiences (ontogenic development). McLeroy, et al. 1988 (cited under History ), which appeared in Health Education Quarterly as “An Ecological Perspective on Health Promotion Programs,” further defined the social ecological model for health promotion to depict interrelated systems at the intrapersonal, interpersonal, organizational, community, and policy levels, illustrated as concentric circles. The authors subsequently add other levels of analysis, including the physical environment and culture. The social ecological model provides a framework for understanding the factors that produce and maintain health and health-related issues, allowing identification of promising points of intervention and understanding how social problems are produced and sustained within and across the various subsystems. However, the model has also yielded a growing acknowledgment of the complexity of these systems, highlighting the need for more sophisticated intervention and research methods. Social ecological concepts are now widely used within the field of public health and are included in: (1) core competencies for public health developed by the Association of Schools and Programs of Public Health that serve as the basis for the public health certification examination; (2) a framework for several of the leading volumes on theory and practice in the field; (3) curricular frameworks for a number of the schools and programs for public health; and (4) other, related frameworks, such as the model proposed for the National Institutes of Health population disparities centers.

Much of the research at the foundation of current thinking in social ecology stems from human development, and ecological, community, and health psychology. The works in this section provide a glimpse of the conceptual underpinnings of the social ecological perspective in public health. Bronfenbrenner 1979 extends previous ideas about the interrelation between individuals and their environments, applying an ecological framework to human development. Here, the author lays out the embedded systems in which human behaviors occur: the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macro-systems, and the 2005 volume extends Bronfenbrenner’s ecological framework to include a greater emphasis on systems thinking and systems ideas. The history of the social ecological perspective in public health stems from synthesis of ideas from other disciplines including the author’s early works on human development. McLeroy, et al. 1988 is often cited as one of the initial articles specifically applying an ecological model to public health and health promotion. Winett, et al. 1989 provides an ecological perspective on health psychology and public health with a particular focus on several problem areas, including adolescent pregnancy, dietary change, mental health, and others. Moos 1979 focuses increased attention on the role of the physical environment, environmental psychology, and the influences on human behavior of the natural and constructed environment. Susser and Susser 1996 describes the application of a social ecological perspective to the discipline of epidemiology, likening the multiple levels to nested Chinese boxes. Bronfenbrenner 2005 extends the author’s social ecological model to a bioecological theory of human development and explicates its fit with systems theory.

Bronfenbrenner, Urie. 1979. The ecology of human development . Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press.

A thorough explication of the rationale for the systems model in human development with an emphasis on the connection between person and setting (environment). Although historical, when presented, Bronfenbrenner’s theoretical perspective was new in its application. Provides easily understood examples for each theoretical step.

Bronfenbrenner, Urie, ed. 2005. Making human beings human: Biological perspectives on human development . Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Several chapters in this volume discuss the conceptual foundations of social ecology, its application in human development, and its fit with systems theory. Suitable for undergraduate and graduate students.

McLeroy, Kenneth, Daniel Bibeau, Allan Steckler, and Karen Glanz. 1988. An ecological perspective on health promotion programs. Health Education and Behavior 15.4: 351–377.

DOI: 10.1177/109019818801500401

Directs attention to specific circumstances in public health that created demand for a new framework that addresses the complex factors that produce health beyond solely individual behavior. Available online for purchase or by subscription. Also see Theoretical Development .

Moos, R. H. 1979. Social-ecological perspectives on health. In Health psychology—A handbook: Theories, applications, and challenges of a psychological approach to the health care system . Edited by George C. Stone, Frances Cohen, and Nancy E. Adler, 523–547. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Provides insight to emergency of ecological thinking in psychology and its early application to health issues.

Susser, Mervyn, and Ezra Susser. 1996. Choosing a future for epidemiology: II. From black box to Chinese boxes and eco-epidemiology . American Journal of Public Health 86.5: 674–677.

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.86.5.674

A brief discussion historical paradigms and paradigm shifts in epidemiology, highlighting the need to attend to social processes that influence this distribution of disease. Provides a rationale for an ecological perspective as a systematic rather than universalistic paradigm. Presents a concise table of eras in epidemiology with their preventive and analytic approaches.

Winett, Richard A., Abby C. King, and David G. Altman. 1989. Health psychology and public health: An integrative approach . New York: Pergamon.

This volume provides a rapprochement of health psychology and public health through an ecological perspective and applies an ecological perspective to HIV, community health promotion, mental health, teen pregnancy, diet, health in the workplace, environmental health, and aging. Well written and a valuable resource for the application of social ecological concepts.

back to top

Users without a subscription are not able to see the full content on this page. Please subscribe or login .

Oxford Bibliographies Online is available by subscription and perpetual access to institutions. For more information or to contact an Oxford Sales Representative click here .

  • About Public Health »
  • Meet the Editorial Board »
  • Access to Health Care
  • Action Research
  • Active Aging
  • Active Living
  • Adolescent Health, Socioeconomic Inequalities in
  • Adolescent Risk-Taking Behavior in the United States
  • Advocacy, Public Health
  • Agricultural Safety and Public Health
  • Air Quality: Health Effects
  • Air Quality: Indoor Health Effects
  • Alcohol Availability and Violence
  • Alternative Research Designs
  • Ambient Air Quality Standards and Guidelines
  • American Perspectives on Chronic Disease and Control
  • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
  • Arts in Health
  • Asthma in Children
  • Asthma, Work-Related
  • Attachment as a Health Determinant
  • Behavior Change Theory in Health Education and Promotion
  • Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance
  • Bicycling and Cycling Safety
  • Birth and Death Registration
  • Birth Cohort Studies
  • Board of Health
  • Breastfeeding
  • Built Environment and Health, The
  • Business and Corporate Practices
  • Cancer Communication Strategies in North America
  • Cancer Prevention
  • Cancer Screening
  • Capacity Building
  • Capacity Building for NCDs in LMICs
  • Capacity-Building for Applied Public Health in LMIC: A US ...
  • Cardiovascular Health and Disease
  • Child Labor
  • Child Maltreatment
  • Children, Air Pollution and
  • Children, Injury Risk-Taking Behaviors in
  • Children, Obesity in
  • Citizen Advisory Boards
  • Climate Change and Human Health
  • Climate Change: Institutional Response
  • Clinical Preventive Medicine
  • Community Air Pollution
  • Community Development
  • Community Gardens
  • Community Health Assessment
  • Community Health Interventions
  • Community Partnerships and Coalitions
  • Community-Based Participatory Research
  • Complexity and Systems Theory
  • Critical Health Literacy
  • Cultural Capital and Health
  • Cultural Safety
  • Culture and Public Health
  • Definition of Health
  • Dental Public Health
  • Design and Health
  • Dietary Guidelines
  • Directions in Global Public Health Graduate Education
  • Driving and Public Health
  • Ecological Approaches
  • Enabling Factors
  • Environmental Health, Pediatric
  • Environmental Laws
  • Environmental Protection Agency
  • Ethics of Public Health
  • Evidence-Based Pediatric Dentistry
  • Evidence-Based Public Health Practice
  • Family Planning Services and Birth Control
  • Food Safety
  • Food Security and Food Banks
  • Food Systems
  • Frail Elderly
  • Functional Literacy
  • Genomics, Public Health
  • Geographic Information Systems
  • Geography and Health
  • Global Health
  • Global Health Diplomacy
  • Global Health Promotion
  • Global Health Security
  • Guide to Community Preventive Services, The
  • Health Administration
  • Health Communication
  • Health Education
  • Health Impact Assessment
  • Health in All Policies
  • Health in All Policies in European Countries
  • Health Literacy
  • Health Literacy and Noncommunicable Diseases
  • Health Measurement Scales
  • Health Planning
  • Health Promoting Hospitals
  • Health Promotion
  • Health Promotion Foundations
  • Health Promotion Workforce Capacity
  • Health Systems of Low and Middle-Income Countries, The
  • Healthy People Initiative
  • Healthy Public Policy
  • Hepatitis C
  • High Risk Prevention Strategies
  • Homelessness
  • Human Rights, Health and
  • Human Sexuality and Sexual Health: A Western Perspective
  • IANPHI and National Public Health Institutes
  • Immigrant Populations
  • Immunization and Pneumococcal Infection
  • Immunization in Pregnancy
  • Indigenous Peoples, Public Health and
  • Indigenous Populations of North America, Australasia, and ...
  • Indoor Air Quality Guidelines
  • Infant Mortality
  • Internet Applications in Promoting Health Behavior
  • Intersectoral Action
  • Intersectoral Strategies in Low - Middle Income Countries ...
  • Justice, Social
  • Knowledge Translation and Exchange
  • Knowledge Utilization and Exchange
  • Law of Public Health in the United States
  • Media Advocacy
  • Mental Health
  • Mental Health Promotion
  • Migrant Health
  • Migrant Worker Health
  • Motor Vehicle Injury Prevention
  • Multi-Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis
  • National Association of Local Boards of Health
  • National Public Health Institutions
  • Needs Assessment
  • Needs Assessments in International Disasters and Emergenci...
  • Obesity Prevention
  • Occupational Cancers
  • Occupational Exposure to Benzene
  • Occupational Exposure to Erionite
  • Occupational Safety and Health
  • Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)
  • Oral Health Equity for Minority Populations in the United ...
  • Ottawa Charter
  • Parenting and Work
  • Parenting Skills and Capacity
  • Participatory Action Research
  • Patient Decision Making
  • Pesticide Exposure and Pesticide Health Effects
  • Physical Activity and Exercise
  • Physical Activity Promotion
  • Pneumoconiosis
  • Polio Eradication in Pakistan
  • Population Aging
  • Population Determinants of Unhealthy Foods and Beverages
  • Population Health Objectives and Targets
  • Precautionary Principle
  • Prenatal Health
  • Preparedness
  • Program Evaluation in American Health Education
  • Program Planning and Evaluation
  • Public Health, History of
  • Public Health Surveillance
  • Public-Private Partnerships in Public Health Research and ...
  • Public-Private Partnerships to Prevent and Manage Obesity ...
  • Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment
  • Racism as a Structural Determinant of Health
  • Radiation Emergencies and Public Health: Impacts, Prepared...
  • Randomized Controlled Trials
  • Real World Evaluation Strategies
  • Reducing Obesity-Related Health Disparities in Hispanic an...
  • Research Integrity in Public Health
  • Resilient Health Systems
  • Rural Health in the United States
  • Safety, Patient
  • School Health Programs in the Pacific Region
  • Sex Education in HIV/AIDS Prevention
  • Skin Cancer Prevention
  • Smoking Cessation
  • Social Epidemiology
  • Social Marketing
  • Statistics in Public Health
  • STI Networks, Patterns, and Control Strategies
  • Stillbirths
  • Sustainable Development Goals
  • Systems in the United States, Public Health
  • Systems Modeling and Big Data for Non-Communicable Disease...
  • Systems Theory in Public Health
  • Traditional, Complementary, Alternative, and Integrative M...
  • Translation of Science to Practice and Policy
  • Traumatic Stress and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
  • Tuberculosis among Adults and the Determinants of Health
  • UK Public Health Systems
  • Unintentional Injury Prevention
  • Urban Health
  • Vaccination, Mandatory
  • Vaccine Hesitancy
  • Vermiculite
  • Violence Prevention
  • Vulnerability, Intersectionality and Health in Migration
  • Water Quality
  • Water Quality and Water-Related Disease
  • Weight Management in US Occupational Settings
  • Welfare States, Public Health and Health Inequalities
  • Worksite Health Promotion
  • World Health Organization (WHO)
  • Privacy Policy
  • Cookie Policy
  • Legal Notice
  • Accessibility

Powered by:

  • [185.126.86.119]
  • 185.126.86.119

Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Eco Criticism › Ecocriticism: An Essay

Ecocriticism: An Essay

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on November 27, 2016 • ( 3 )

Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation. Ecocriticism was officially heralded by the publication of two seminal works, both published in the mid-1990s: The Ecocriticism Reader , edited by Cheryll Glotfelty and Harold Fromm , and The Environmental Imagination, by Lawrence Buell.

7c2fe5a54d85fb7e2bb42a0cf8705e7e

Ecocriticism investigates the relation between humans and the natural world in literature. It deals with how environmental issues, cultural issues concerning the environment and attitudes towards nature are presented and analyzed. One of the main goals in ecocriticism is to study how individuals in society behave and react in relation to nature and ecological aspects. This form of criticism has gained a lot of attention during recent years due to higher social emphasis on environmental destruction and increased technology. It is hence a fresh way of analyzing and interpreting literary texts, which brings new dimensions to the field of literary and theoritical studies. Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including “green (cultural) studies”, “ecopoetics”, and “environmental literary criticism.”

Western thought has often held a more or less utilitarian attitude to nature —nature is for serving human needs. However, after the eighteenth century, there emerged many voices that demanded a revaluation of the relationship between man and environment, and man’s view of nature. Arne Naess , a Norwegian philosopher, developed the notion of “Deep Ecology” which emphasizes the basic interconnectedness of all life forms and natural features, and presents a symbiotic and holistic world-view rather than an anthropocentric one.

41u36-smjbl-_uy250_

Earlier theories in literary and cultural studies focussed on issue of class, race, gender, region are criteria and “subjects”of critical analysis. The late twentieth century has woken up to a new threat: ecological disaster. The most important environmental problems that humankind faces as a whole are: nuclear war, depletion of valuable natural resources, population explosion, proliferation of exploitative technologies, conquest of space preliminary to using it as a garbage dump, pollution, extinction of species (though not a human problem) among others. In such a context, literary and cultural theory has begun to address the issue as a part of academic discourse. Numerous green movements have sprung up all over the world, and some have even gained representations in the governments.

51y-qdmk9cl-_sx331_bo1204203200_

Large scale debates over “dumping,” North versus South environmentalism (the necessary differences between the en-vironmentalism of the developed and technologically advanced richer nations—the North, and the poorer, subsistence environmentalism of the developing or “Third World”—the South). Donald Worster ‘s Nature’s Economy (1977) became a textbook for the study of ecological thought down the ages. The historian Arnold Toynbee recorded the effect of human civilisation upon the land and nature in his monumental, Mankind and Mother Earth (1976). Environmental issues and landscape use were also the concern of the Annales School of historians , especially Braudel and Febvre. The work of environmental historians has been pathbreaking too. Rich-ard Grove et al’s massive Nature and the Orient (1998), David Arnold and Ramachandra Guha’s Nature, Culture, Imperialism (1995) have been significant work in the environmental history of India and Southeast Asia. Ramachandra Guha is of course the most important environmental historian writing from India today.

51tnvf8zwbl-_sx296_bo1204203200_

Various versions of environmentalism developed.Deep ecology and ecofeminism were two important developments. These new ideas questioned the notion of “development” and “modernity,” and argued that all Western notions in science, philosophy, politics were “anthropocentric” (human-centred) and “androcentric”(Man/male-centred). Technology, medical science with its animal testing, the cosmetic and fashion industry all came in for scrutiny from environmentalists. Deep ecology, for instance, stressed on a “biocentric” view (as seen in the name of the environmentalist group, “ Earth First! !”).

Ecocriticism is the result of this new consciousness: that very soon, there will be nothing beautiful (or safe) in nature to discourse about, unless we are very careful.

Ecocritics ask questions such as: (1) How is nature represented in the novel/poem/play ? (2) What role does the physical-geographical setting play in the structure of the novel? (3) How do our metaphors of the land influence the way we treat it? That is, what is the link between pedagogic or creative practice and actual political, sociocultural and ethical behaviour towards the land and other non-human life forms? (4) How is science —in the form of genetic engineering, technologies of reproduction, sexualities—open to critical scrutiny terms of the effects of science upon the land?

The essential assumptions, ideas and methods of ecocritics may be summed up as follows. (1) Ecocritics believe that human culture is related to the physical world. (2) Ecocriticism assumes that all life forms are interlinked. Ecocriticism expands the notion of “the world” to include the entire ecosphere. (3) Moreover, there is a definite link between nature and culture, where the literary treatment, representation and “thematisation” of land and nature influence actions on the land. (4) Joseph Meeker in an early work, The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology (1972) used the term “literary ecology” to refer to “the study of biological themes and relationships which appear in literary works. It is simultaneously an attempt to discover what roles have been played by literature in the ecology of the human species.” (5) William Rueckert is believed to have coined the term “ecocriticism” in 1978, which he defines as “the application of ecology and ecological concepts to the study of literature.”

Source: Literary Theory Today,Pramod K Nair

Share this:

Categories: Eco Criticism

Tags: Annales School , Arne Naess , Arnold Toynbee , Cheryll Glotfelty , Deep Ecology , Earth First! , Ecocriticism , green studies , Harold Fromm , Literary Theory , Mankind and Mother Earth , Nature and the Orient , Nature's Economy , The Comedy of Survival: Studies in Literary Ecology , The Ecocriticism Reader , The Environmental Imagination

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Human Ecology

Human Ecology

A theoretical essay.

Amos H. Hawley

176 pages | 5.5 x 8.5 | © 1986

Sociology: General Sociology

  • Table of contents
  • Author Events
  • Related Titles

Table of Contents

Be the first to know.

Get the latest updates on new releases, special offers, and media highlights when you subscribe to our email lists!

Sign up here for updates about the Press

  • - Google Chrome

Intended for healthcare professionals

  • My email alerts
  • BMA member login
  • Username * Password * Forgot your log in details? Need to activate BMA Member Log In Log in via OpenAthens Log in via your institution

Home

Search form

  • Advanced search
  • Search responses
  • Search blogs
  • News & Views
  • Ecological public...

Ecological public health: the 21st century’s big idea? An essay by Tim Lang and Geof Rayner

  • Related content
  • Peer review
  • Tim Lang , professor of food policy 1 ,
  • Geof Rayner , honorary research fellow 1
  • 1 Centre for Food Policy, City University London, Northampton Square, London EC1V 0HB, UK
  • Correspondence to Tim Lang t.lang{at}city.ac.uk

Public health thinking requires an overhaul. Tim Lang and Geof Rayner outline five models and traditions, and argue that ecological public health—which integrates the material, biological, social, and cultural aspects of public health—is the way forward for the 21st century

It seems to be the fate of public health as concept, movement, and reality to veer between political sensitivity and the obscure margins. Only occasionally does it gain what policy analysts often refer to as traction. Partly this is because public health tends to be about the big picture of society, and thus threatens vested interests. Also, public health proponents have allowed themselves to be corralled into the narrow policy language of individualism and choice. These notions have extensively framed public discussion about health, as though they are not tempered by other values in the real world. As a result, the public health field suffers from poor articulation, image, and understanding. The connection between evidence, policy, and practice is often hesitant, not helped by the fact that public health can often be a matter of political action—a willingness to risk societal change to create a better fit between human bodies and the conditions in which they live.

We have reviewed how public health theory and practice have evolved over the last two or three centuries, and looked at the challenges present and ahead, and we conclude a rethink is in order. In difficult economic times, public health too easily falls down the political agenda. It is judged worthy but not a political priority. Yet there is strong evidence that health is societally determined, 1 that public health is high in the public’s notion of what a good society is, 2 and that health underpins economics. 3 4

What we’ve forgotten with public health

Today, as financial crises continue—banking failures, debt bubbles, slowing economic growth, nervous but …

Log in using your username and password

BMA Member Log In

If you have a subscription to The BMJ, log in:

  • Need to activate
  • Log in via institution
  • Log in via OpenAthens

Log in through your institution

Subscribe from £184 *.

Subscribe and get access to all BMJ articles, and much more.

* For online subscription

Access this article for 1 day for: £33 / $40 / €36 ( excludes VAT )

You can download a PDF version for your personal record.

Buy this article

essay on ecological approach

Bronfenbrenner’s Bioecological System Theory Essay

  • To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
  • As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
  • As a template for you assignment

Introduction

Microsystem, macrosystem.

Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory postulates that human development is the sum of factors of bioecological systems that are in an environment that one lives. The theory elucidates how bioecological systems influence human development throughout one’s lifespan, as it is extensively applicable in developmental psychology. Developmental psychology majorly entails the study of children’s behavior under strange circumstances and their interaction with adults. The theory views human development in the context of relationships that exist in bioecological systems of one’s environment. Bronfenbrenner (1994) argues that, human development occurs progressively through complex and reciprocal interactions between an individual and people, and objects and symbols that are in a given immediate environment (p.37). For interactions to be effective, they must be enduring and should occur in the immediate environment to form proximal processes that significantly influence human development. The proximal process exists in bioecological systems made of five spheres, namely microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. This essay describes four spheres of bioecological systems viz. microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem, and analyzes the past and present biopsychosocial factors that influence human development.

Microsystem is the closest bioecological environment that directly influences human development. Microsystem consists of structures such as family, childcare, neighborhood, school, and workplace, which mainly form part of immediate bioecological environment. In microsystem, an individual experience regular interactions through relationships, routine activities, and social roles that elicit progressive and sustained interactions, which bring about human development. According to Bronfenbrenner (1994), proximal processes operate optimally in microsystem because it forms an immediate environment that elicit and sustain human development (p.39). Under microsystem level, family is a dominant structure that does not only influence child development but also development in adults. At microsystem level, relationships have a reciprocal influence that shape development of individuals in a given social structure. For instance, parents have the capacity to influence beliefs, behavior, and values of a child, and vice versa. Bioecological systems theory states that, reciprocal interactions are strongest at microsystem level, and they have the greatest impact on human development due to the proximity of bioecological factors.

Family, as a social structure, significantly influenced my development during childhood because family members advised me on how to go about in life and become a successful person. For example, my mother loved me immensely in that she used to advise me regularly on how to have a decent discipline and work hard in my studies. Since I perceived that she loved me and wanted the best of me, I became determined not to let my mother down and thus I obeyed her advices to the letter. Then, I became an exceptionally courteous and industrious student in my class, which earned me warm reputation not only at school but also at home. Our relationship with my mother strengthened to the extent that, she would not deny me anything that I asked and on my part, I was so afraid to do anything that would disgrace her. Thus, reciprocal interaction between my mother and I significantly influenced my beliefs, values and behavior.

Present interaction with my spouse has tremendously influenced my social skills since I have learned that different individuals have diverse beliefs, values, and behaviors that complicate formation of relationships. When I first met my spouse, we differed in most aspects of social interest, but with time, through effective interactions, we managed to make numerous compromises to accommodate our differences. From experiences of disagreements, I learned that an individual is an entity with unique values, beliefs, and behavior that need tolerance for a healthy relationship that would stand the test to develop. Thus, my interaction with my spouse has shaped my perception of individuals as unique members of society who have different interests and, therefore, they need tolerance and forbearance from their interacting partners.

Mesosystem comprises interaction of various microsystems that are in bioecological environment where one lives. For instance, interaction of microsystem structures such as family, childcare, neighborhood, school and workplace, determines overall human development in the society. Mesosystem has increased societal forces that influence human development, unlike microsystem that only depends on individual interaction. Johnson (2008) argues that, interaction between family and school is particularly crucial in shaping the development of elementary school pupils because it provides a platform for teachers and parents to interact effectively in educating the pupils (p.3). Therefore, it implies that interactions of microsystems enhance concerted efforts of societal forces that are crucial in shaping human development. Thus, the more the interacting microsystems, the significant are the societal forces that influence an individual.

Family and school are social structures that significantly influenced my development during my childhood. Both structures influenced my behavior because they taught me to be a hardworking and discipline student so that I could achieve extraordinary dreams. For example, during my childhood, my mother and my teacher were friends, for they interacted more often. Since my mother wanted the best out of me, she constantly consulted the teacher to hear about my progress and in turn sought advices on how to enhance my academic performance. With time, I realized that my teacher cared so much like my mother in that she would always ensure that I have done my assignments and encouraged me to work hard lest I disgraced my mother. Hence, relationships between my mother and my teacher compelled me to work hard in my studies because I had no way of evading my duties because both school and family constantly monitored my progress.

Currently, interaction between my mother and my spouse has significantly shaped relationships in my family. Before I got married, my mother has been advising me on how to become a responsible father in a family so that when time comes I assume my responsibility well. Throughout my life, I have liked the way my mother treated us as a family, and I terribly longed to marry a spouse with qualities that resembled those of my mother. At first, we differed on many issues with my spouse, but when she interacted with my mother, she changed appreciably and we lived happily. Current interaction of my mother and my spouse has saved my family a fantastic deal of conflicts that usually did arise due to poor relationships.

Exosystem consists of interaction of diverse microsystems with at least one social structure that has indirect influence on an individual. At exosystem level, social structures that do not exist in microsystem sphere of an individual have indirect influence on human development, for they contribute to direct influences from immediate social structures. For example, interaction of family and parent’s workplace or school and neighborhood influence development of children in the society. Boyd, Bee, and Johnson (2008) argue that, although children in the family may not have direct contact with social structures workplace and neighborhood, they experience both negative and positive impacts from remote interactions that influence their own microsystem (p.52). Three microsystems, family, school and peer group, which form part of exosystem, indirectly affect development of children in the society.

During my childhood, my parents used to spent a considerable deal of time in their workplaces leaving us alone as children to stay alone. My father would come home rarely, for he worked in a different state from where we lived. Although my mother worked within the state where we lived, she would usually leave early in the morning and arrive late in the evening. Thus, their constant absence in the family made me take responsibility of taking care of my siblings as I learned that my parents were busy working hard in their respective workplaces so that they could provide for us. Therefore, interaction of our family with workplaces through my parents taught me to take responsibility in the family, which has made me develop leadership qualities.

Currently, since children are susceptible to various diseases, I have been taking my children to hospital for treatment and medical checkup quite often. Since my family interacts with hospital quite often, I have been able to learn a lot from Canadian health care system regarding prevention, treatment, and management of common infections that affect children and other family members, as well. If it were not for my children, I would not have bothered to learn health issues that affect families; thus, my children interaction with hospital gave me an insight of not only Canadian health care system but understanding of general human health.

Macrosystem is a complex of social structures such as microsystem, mesosystem, and exosystem, which are under the influence of customs, norms, values, and laws that govern societal culture. According to Johnson (2008), macrosystem is the outermost sphere that has a cascading effect on development of children through interaction of various spheres, which consequently determines values, beliefs, norms, customs and laws that influence children’s microsystem (p.3). Biopsychosocial factors that exist in the community, society, and culture interact with diverse microsystems, mesosystems, and exosystems, thus forming a complex of macrosystem, which entirely determines human development in the society. It means that macrosystem is the blueprint of societal culture since it consists of diverse beliefs, values, norms, laws, and customs that dominate society and thus significantly influence human development.

During my childhood, Canadian customs and values significantly influenced me to adopt British and French culture since I attended a school, which had both British and French students. History shows that Canadian culture emanated from interaction of British and French culture; therefore, it enabled me to interact effectively with other students while at school. Since Canadian culture had elements of British and French culture, I developed interests in learning music and literature, which enabled me to adopt and develop their culture during my childhood. Hence, Canadian customs and values made me appreciate and learn other cultures at school for I perceived that we had common elements in our different cultures.

Currently, government policies have dictated my career development as a nurse. Government polices stipulate that I must undergo a recommendable nursing course for me to qualify and obtain practicing license. Furthermore, government polices do not only dictate that I must have certain qualification, but also expect that I must comply with nursing codes of ethics so that I can practice nursing. Hence, government policies have influenced my nursing course, schooling years and ultimately my career development. For one to qualify as a nurse, it depends on compliance with government policies and laws that govern nursing profession. In my case, since government regard nurses by paying them well, I opted to choose nursing as my career.

Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological systems theory has taught me that human development occurs due to interplay of many factors in bioecological environment, which act in hierarchical levels of life; microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem and macrosystem. These hierarchical levels of systems have proximal processes that directly or indirectly affect human development in a complex society. As a nurse, I have learned that educating people on health issues requires one to target the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, and macrosystem spheres to have comprehensive impact on population.

Boyd, D., Bee, H., & Johnson, P. (2008). Lifespan Development, Third Canadian Edition. Canada: Pearson Education.

Bronfenbrenner, U. (1994). Ecological Models of Human Development. In International Encyclopedia of Education , 3, 2nd. Ed. Oxford: Elsevier.

Reprinted in: Guavain, M., & Cole, M. (Eds.). (1993). Readings on the Development of Children (2nd Ed.) New York: Freeman.

Johnson, E. (2008). Ecological Systems and Complexity Theory: Toward an Alternative Model of Accountability in Education. An International Journal of Complexity and Education , 6, 1-10.

  • Urie Bronfenbrenner, a Psychological Researcher
  • Children's Disposition to Bullying and Influential Factors
  • The Cross-cultural Construct of Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems
  • Pygmy-Possum Burramys Parvus: The Effects of Climate Change
  • Measurement of the Rate of Glycolysis Using Saccharomyces Cerevisae
  • Recovery Plan For Manorina Melanotis — Black-Eared Miner
  • Physiological Differences Between Males and Females
  • Sex Determination in Amphibians
  • Chicago (A-D)
  • Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2022, March 28). Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bronfenbrenners-bioecological-system-theory/

"Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory." IvyPanda , 28 Mar. 2022, ivypanda.com/essays/bronfenbrenners-bioecological-system-theory/.

IvyPanda . (2022) 'Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory'. 28 March.

IvyPanda . 2022. "Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory." March 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bronfenbrenners-bioecological-system-theory/.

1. IvyPanda . "Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory." March 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bronfenbrenners-bioecological-system-theory/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory." March 28, 2022. https://ivypanda.com/essays/bronfenbrenners-bioecological-system-theory/.

24/7 writing help on your phone

To install StudyMoose App tap and then “Add to Home Screen”

The Ecological Systems Theory

Save to my list

Remove from my list

WriterBelle

The Ecological Systems Theory. (2016, Dec 05). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay

"The Ecological Systems Theory." StudyMoose , 5 Dec 2016, https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay

StudyMoose. (2016). The Ecological Systems Theory . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay [Accessed: 15 Jun. 2024]

"The Ecological Systems Theory." StudyMoose, Dec 05, 2016. Accessed June 15, 2024. https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay

"The Ecological Systems Theory," StudyMoose , 05-Dec-2016. [Online]. Available: https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay. [Accessed: 15-Jun-2024]

StudyMoose. (2016). The Ecological Systems Theory . [Online]. Available at: https://studymoose.com/the-ecological-systems-theory-essay [Accessed: 15-Jun-2024]

  • Ecological Systems Theory and Constructivist Theory Pages: 3 (893 words)
  • Ecological Systems Theory in The Glass Castle Book Pages: 5 (1484 words)
  • Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory of Child Development Pages: 3 (863 words)
  • Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Sociological Theory of Human Development Pages: 8 (2242 words)
  • An Ecological Theory Applied to Aging Pages: 5 (1410 words)
  • Social learning theory social learning theory is the theory that peoples Pages: 5 (1444 words)
  • A Comparative Analysis Of The Dependency Theory, Modernization Theory And The World System Theory Pages: 2 (432 words)
  • Initially ecological morals is that the act of human cooperation Pages: 5 (1354 words)
  • The ecological aspects In The Old Man and the Sea Pages: 8 (2143 words)
  • Ecological Chronotopes in Gloria Naylor’s Mama Day Pages: 9 (2612 words)

The Ecological Systems Theory essay

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

  • Aims and Background
  • What is the Great Transition?
  • Why a Great Transition?
  • Global Scenarios
  • Publications

Great Transition Initiative

John Bellamy Foster

Socialist thought is re-emerging at the forefront of the movement for global ecological and social change. In the face of the planetary emergency, theorists have unearthed a powerful ecological critique of capitalism at the foundations of Marx’s materialist conception of history. This has led to a more comprehensive conception of socialism rooted in Marx’s analysis of the rift in “the universal metabolism of nature” and his vision of sustainable human development. This work resonates with other approaches for understanding and advancing a Great Transition. Such a social and ecological transformation will require a two-step strategy. First, we must mount struggles for radical reforms in the present that challenge the destructive logic of capital. Second, we must build the broad movement to carry out the long revolutionary transition essential for humanity’s continued development and survival.

Introduction | Socialism and the Origins of Systems Ecology | Marxism's Great Divide and the Ecological Problem | Marxism and Ecological Economics | Marxian Rift Analysis and Planetary Boundaries | The Great Convergence | Endnotes

Introduction

To link Marxism and ecological transition may seem at first like trying to bridge two entirely different movements and discourses, each with its own history and logic: one having mainly to do with class relations, and the other, the relation between humans and the environment. Historically, however, socialism has influenced the development of ecological thought and practice, while ecology has informed socialist thought and practice. Since the nineteenth century, the relationship between the two has been complex, interdependent, and dialectical.

Marxian approaches to the planetary ecological crisis and the socio-ecological transformation necessary for its resolution have evolved rapidly in recent decades. This has created the basis for a much more powerful, collective struggle for a Great Transition, in which values of “consumerism, individualism, and domination of nature” are replaced with “a new triad: quality of life, human solidarity, and ecological sensibility.” 1 The demands for a society dedicated to need rather than profit and to human equality and solidarity have long been associated with socialism. More recently, socialist thinkers have given equal importance to ecological sustainability, building on Karl Marx’s environmental critique of capitalism and his pioneering vision of sustainable human development. 2

This essay unearths the deep ecological roots of Marx’s thought, showing how he brought an environmental perspective to bear on the overarching question of social transformation. From there, it traces the evolution of Marxian ecology, illuminating its profound, formative link to modern ecological economics and systems ecology. It concludes by discussing the wider project of building a social movement broad and deep enough to halt and reverse ecological and social destruction.

For the first time in human history, our species faces a dire existential choice. We can continue on the path of business as usual and risk catastrophic Earth-system change (what Frederick Engels metaphorically referred to as “the revenge” of nature”), or we can take the transformative route of social-system change aimed at egalitarian human development in coevolution with the vital parameters of the earth. 3 This constitutes the epochal challenge of our time: to advance radical reform measures that oppose the logic of capital in the historical present while coalescing with a long revolution to construct a new social and ecological formation that promotes sustainable human development.

Socialism and the Origins of Systems Ecology

Ecology as understood today came into its own only with the rise of systems ecology and the concept of ecosystem. Although Ernst Haeckel, who promoted and popularized Charles Darwin’s work in Germany, coined the word ecology in 1866, the term was originally used merely as an equivalent for Darwin’s loose concept of the “economy of nature.” 4 This view of ecology would later gain currency as a way to address complex plant communities in botanical studies in the early twentieth century.

Yet ecology had other roots, closer to our current conception, in early work on nutrient cycling and the extension of the concept of metabolism to ecological system processes. A key figure in this respect, the great German chemist Justus von Liebig, launched a major ecological critique of British industrial agriculture in the late 1850s and early 1860s. 5 Liebig accused the British of developing a robbery culture, systematically leaching the soil of nutrients and thereby requiring that bones be imported from the Napoleonic battlefields and catacombs of Europe (and guano from Peru) to replenish English fields. Liebig’s analysis itself was a product of revolutions then taking place in nineteenth-century physics and chemistry. In 1845, Julius Robert von Mayer, one of the co-discoverers of the conservation of energy, had described the metabolism of organisms in thermodynamic terms. The new physiochemical thinking stressed the interrelationship between the inorganic and organic (abiotic and biotic), providing the initial basis for what was eventually to become a wider ecological systems theory. 6

Drawing on the work of Liebig, and that of the socialist physician Roland Daniels, Karl Marx introduced the concept of “social metabolism,” which from the late 1850s occupied a central place in all his economic works. 7 Marx defined the labor process itself as a way in which “man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature.” Human production operated within what he called “the universal metabolism of nature.” On this basis, he developed his theory of ecological crisis proper, now known as the theory of metabolic rift, pointing to the “irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself.” 8 As economist Ravi Bhandari has recently written, Marxism was “the first systems theory.” 9 This is true not only in political-economic terms, but also in terms of the incorporation of thermodynamics and the wider metabolic relationship between nature and society into its analysis.

These two strands of ecological analysis—Haeckel’s notion of “ecology” and Liebig and Marx’s concept of a metabolic relationship between society and nature—evolved during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beginning in the 1880s, the leading British zoologist E. Ray Lankester (Charles Darwin and Thomas Huxley’s protégé and Marx’s close friend) put forward a strong ecological critique of capitalism and the Victorian concept of progress. 10 Botanist Arthur George Tansley, Lankester’s student and—like him—a Fabian-type socialist, founded the British Ecological Society. He introduced the ecosystem concept in 1935 in a theoretical polemic against the racist ecological “holism” of General Jan Smuts and his followers in South Africa. In the process, he developed a broad, materialist approach to ecology that incorporated both inorganic and organic processes. 11

Ecology as we know it today thus represents the triumph of a materialist systems theory. Tansley’s ecosystem concept focused on natural complexes in a state of dynamic equilibrium. Ecosystems were seen as relatively stable (resilient) complexes that were nonetheless vulnerable and subject to change. In developing this analysis, he drew on the systems perspective of the British Marxist mathematician and physicist Hyman Levy. In Tansley’s framework, humanity was viewed as an “exceptionally powerful biotic factor” that disrupted and transformed natural ecosystems. 12 Correspondingly, ecology in our time is increasingly centered on the human disruption of ecosystems from the local to the global.

Related developments occurred in the Soviet Union. In his 1926 work The Biosphere , V. I. Vernadsky argued that life existed on the thin surface of a self-contained planetary sphere, was itself a geological force affecting the earth as a whole, and had an impact on the planet that grew more extensive over time. 13 These insights induced Nikolai Bukharin, a leading figure in the Russian Revolution and Marxian theory, to reframe historical materialism as the problem of “man in the biosphere.” 14 Despite the purge under Stalin of Bukharin and other ecologically oriented thinkers, Vernadsky’s work remained central to Soviet ecology, and later helped inspire the development of modern Earth system analysis.

With the rise of systems ecology, Marx’s concepts of the “universal metabolism of nature,” the “social metabolism,” and the metabolic rift have proven invaluable for modeling the complex relation between social-productive systems, particularly capitalism, and the larger ecological systems in which they are embedded. This approach to the human-social relation to nature, deeply interwoven with Marx’s critique of capitalist class society, gives historical materialism a unique perspective on the contemporary ecological crisis and the challenge of transition. Marx wrote of a rift in the soil metabolism caused by industrialized agriculture. Essential soil nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium contained in food or fiber were shipped for hundreds, even thousands, of miles to densely populated cities, where they ended up as waste, exacerbating urban pollution while being lost to the soil. He went on to emphasize the need for rational regulation of the metabolism between human beings and nature as fundamental to creating a rational society beyond capitalism. Socialism was defined in ecological terms, requiring that “socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism of nature in a rational way…accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature.” The earth or land constituted “the inalienable condition for the existence and reproduction of the chain of human generations.” As he declared in Capital , “Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, it beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations as boni patres familias [good heads of the household].” 15

Marxism’s Great Divide and the Ecological Problem

Yet, if classical historical materialism embodied a powerful ecological critique, why was this forgotten for so long within the main body of Marxist thought? One partial answer can be found in the observation of the early twentieth century revolutionary socialist Rosa Luxemburg that many aspects of Marx’s vast theoretical framework extending beyond the immediate needs of the working-class movement would be discovered and incorporated much later, as the socialist movement matured and new historical challenges arose. 16 A more direct explanation, however, is the fact that Marx’s ecological ideas fell victim to the great split that opened in the 1930s between Western Marxism and Soviet Marxism.

Intellectually, the schism within Marxism centered on the applicability of dialectics to the natural realm, and the position on this of Marx and Engels. The concept of the “dialectics of nature” was more closely identified with Engels than Marx. Engels argued that dialectical reasoning—focusing on the contingent character of reality, contradictory (or incompatible) developments within the same relation, the interpenetration of opposites, quantitative change giving rise to qualitative transformation, and processes of historical transcendence—was essential to our understanding of the complexity and dynamism of the physical world. This, however, raised deep philosophical problems (both ontological and epistemological) within Marxian discourse.

Soviet thinkers continued to see complex, historical, interconnected views of development, associated with dialectical reasoning, as essential to the understanding of nature and science. Yet, while Marxism in the Soviet Union continued to embrace natural science, its analysis often assumed a dogmatic character, combined with an exaggerated technological optimism. This rigidity was reinforced by Lysenkoism, which criticized Darwinian natural selection and Mendelian genetics, and took on a politically repressive role during the purges of the scientific community in the Stalin period. 17

In contrast, the philosophical tradition known as Western Marxism dissociated Marxism and the dialectic from questions of nature and science, claiming that dialectical reasoning, given its reflexive character, applied to human consciousness (and human society) only and could not be applied to the external natural world. 18 Hence, Western Marxists, as represented most notably in this respect by the Frankfurt School, developed ecological critiques that were largely philosophical and abstract, closely related to ethical concerns that were later to dominate Green philosophy, but distant from ecological science and issues of materialism. Neglect of natural-scientific developments and a strong anti-technology bent placed sharp limits on the contributions of most Western Marxists to an ecological dialogue.

From the 1950s to 1970s, when the modern environmental movement first developed, some pioneering environmental thinkers, such as radical ecological economist K. William Kapp and socialist biologist Barry Commoner, reached back to Marx’s idea of metabolic rift in explaining ecological contradictions. 19 However, in the 1980s, a distinct tradition of ecosocialism arose in the work of major New Left figures, including British sociologist Ted Benton and French social philosopher André Gorz. These important, early ecosocialist thinkers employed the new ecologism of Green theory to criticize Marx for allegedly failing to address questions of sustainability. In Benton’s view, Marx, in his critique of Thomas Malthus, had thrown the baby out with the bathwater, downplaying and even denying natural limits. 20 The response these thinkers offered was to graft the general assumptions of mainstream Green thought (including Malthusian notions) onto Marxian class analysis. The journal Capitalism Nature Socialism , founded by Marxian economist James O’Connor in the late 1980s, generally denied any meaningful relation to ecology in Marx’s work itself, insisting that prevailing ecological concepts should simply be joined, in a centaur-like fashion, with Marxian class-based perspectives—a position known today as “first-stage ecosocialism.” 21

The hybrid approach changed in the late 1990s when others, most notably Paul Burkett, demonstrated the deep ecological context in which Marx’s original critique had been constructed. The new analysis included the systematic reconstruction of Marx’s argument on social metabolism. The result was the development of important Marxian ecological concepts, together with a reunification of Marxian theory. Hence, “second-stage ecosocialists,” or ecological Marxists, like Burkett have reincorporated Engels’s major contributions to ecological thought, associated with his explorations of the dialectics of nature, into the core of Marxian theory, seeing Marx and Engels’s work as complementary. 22

More recently, the importance of late Soviet ecology has come to light. Despite its tortuous history, Soviet science, particularly in the post-Stalin period, continued to give rise to a dialectical understanding of interdependent natural and historical processes. A key innovation was the concept of biogeocoenosis (equivalent to ecosystem but emerging from the Vernadsky tradition of the impact of life on the earth), developed in the early 1940s by the botanist and silviculturalist Nikolaevich Sukachev. Another critical systemic insight was Soviet climatologist Michael Budyko’s discovery in the early 1960s of the albedo-ice feedback, which made climate change a pressing issue for the first time. By the 1970s, recognition of “global ecology” as a distinct problem related to the Earth system grew in the Soviet Union—in some respects, ahead of the West. It is not by chance that the word “Anthropocene” first appeared in English in the early 1970s in The Great Soviet Encyclopedia . 23

Marxism and Ecological Economics

By the dawn of the twenty-first century, awareness of Marx’s ecological analysis inspired a radical reappraisal of Marxism in line with classical foundations of historical materialism and its underlying ecological framework. For a long time, Marxian thinkers, particularly in the West, had lamented that Marx had wasted much time and energy on what then seemed to be esoteric topics related to science and unrelated to the presumed narrow social-scientific bases of his own theory. Marx attended with great interest some of the lectures on solar energy by British physicist John Tyndall, over the course of which Tyndall reported on his experiments demonstrating for the first time that carbon dioxide emissions contributed to the greenhouse effect. Marx also took detailed notes on how the shifting isotherms on the earth’s surface due to climate change led to species extinction over the course of earth history. He noted how anthropogenic regional climate change in the form of desertification contributed to the fall of ancient civilizations, and considered the way this would likely play out within capitalism. 24 Today, the rise of socialist ecology in response to changing conditions has led to a growing appreciation—as Luxemburg anticipated—of such wider aspects of Marx’s science and their essential role in his system of thought.

Marx’s (and Engels’s) approach to ecological economics took shape from a critique of production, and particularly capitalist commodity production. All commodities were conceived as having the dual forms of use value and exchange value, related respectively to natural-material conditions and monetary-exchange valuations. Marx saw the antagonistic tension between use value and exchange value as key to both the internal contradictions of capitalism and its conflict with its external natural environment. He insisted that nature and labor together constituted the dual sources of all wealth. By incorporating only labor (or human services) into economic value calculations, capitalism ensured that the ecological and social costs of production would be excluded from the bottom line. Indeed, classical liberal political economy, Marx argued, treated the natural conditions of production (raw materials, energy, the fertility of the soil, etc.) as “free gifts of nature” to capital. He based the critique on an open-system thermodynamics, in which production is constrained by a solar budget and by limited supplies of fossil fuels—referred to by Engels as “past solar heat”—that was being systematically “squandered.” 25

In Marx’s critique, the social metabolism, i.e., the labor-and-production process, necessarily drew its energy and resources from the larger universal metabolism of nature. However, the antagonistic form of capitalist production—treating natural boundaries as mere barriers to be surmounted—led inexorably to a metabolic rift, systematically undermining the ecological foundations of human existence. “By destroying the circumstances of this metabolism” related to “the eternal natural condition” governing human production, this same process, Marx wrote, “compels its systematic restoration as a regulative law of social production, and in a form adequate to the human race”—albeit in a future society transcending capitalist commodity production. 26

Central to the destructive dynamic was capital’s inherent drive to accumulate on an ever greater scale. Capital as a system was intrinsically geared to the maximum possible accumulation and throughput of matter and energy, regardless of human needs or natural limits. 27 In Marx’s understanding of the capitalist economy, the correlation of material flows (related to use value) and labor-value flows (related to exchange value) leads to an intensifying contradiction between the imperatives of environmental resilience and economic growth.

Burkett delineates two different sources of such imbalance underpinning ecological crisis theory in Marx. One of these takes the form of economic crises associated with resource scarcities and the concomitant increases in costs on the supply side, which squeeze profit margins. Ecological crises of this kind have a negative effect on accumulation, and naturally lead to responses on the part of capital, e.g., energy conservation as an economizing measure.

The other type, the ecological crisis proper, is quite different, and is most fully developed in Marx’s conception of the metabolic rift. It concerns the interplay between the degradation of the environment and human development in ways not accounted for in standard economic metrics like GDP. For example, the extinction of species or the destruction of whole ecosystems is logically compatible with the expansion of capitalist production and economic growth. Such negative ecological impacts are designated as “externalities” since nature is treated as a free gift. As a result, no direct feedback mechanism intrinsic to the capitalist system prevents environmental degradation on a planetary scale.

A distinctive characteristic of Marxian ecological theory has been an emphasis on unequal ecological exchange, or ecological imperialism, in which it is understood that one country can ecologically exploit another. This can be seen in Marx’s famous reference to how, for more than a century, England had “indirectly exported the soil of Ireland,” undermining the long-term fertility of Irish agriculture. In recent years, Marxian theorists have extended this analysis of ecological imperialism, coming to see it as integral to all attempts to address the ecological problem. 28

Marxian Rift Analysis and Planetary Boundaries

As described above, Marx’s theory of metabolic rift grew out of a response to this nineteenth century crisis of soil fertility. The problems of accelerated tempo, increasing scale, and spatial disjuncture (separation of town and country) in capitalist production were already systematically stressed by Marx in the mid-nineteenth century. In recent years, Marxian theorists have built on this perspective to explore the global rift in the carbon metabolism and a host of other sustainability issues. 29 For several decades, socialist ecologists have argued that capitalism has generated an acceleration of the human transformation of the Earth system, occurring in two major phases: (1) the industrial revolution beginning at the end of the eighteenth century and (2) the rise of monopoly capitalism, particularly in its mature stage following the Second World War—including the post-war scientific-technical revolution marked by the development of nuclear power and widespread commercial use of synthetic chemicals. 30

Thus, socialist ecological theorists were quick to embrace the explanatory power of the Anthropocene, which highlights the epoch-making emergence of modern human society as the major planetary geological force governing changes in the Earth system. Closely related to this rich insight, leading Earth System scientists introduced the planetary boundaries framework in 2009 to delineate a safe space for humanity defined by nine planetary boundaries, most of which are currently in the process of being crossed. In our 2010 book The Ecological Rift , Brett Clark, Richard York, and I integrated the Marxian metabolic rift analysis with the planetary-boundaries framework, describing it as rifts in the Earth system. In this view, today’s planetary emergency could be called “the global ecological rift,” encapsulating the disruption and destabilization of the human relationship to nature on a planetary scale which arises from the process of capital accumulation without end. 31

The Great Convergence

The integrative concept of “the global ecological rift” represents a growing convergence of Marxian ecological analysis with Earth system theory and the Great Transition perspective, which share a complex, interconnected evolution. Marxian ecologists today start with the critique of economic growth (in its more abstract characterization) or capital accumulation (viewed more concretely). Continued exponential economic growth cannot occur without expanding rifts in the Earth system. Therefore, society, particularly in rich countries, must move towards a stationary state or steady-state economy, which requires a shift to an economy without net capital formation, one that stays within the solar budget. Development, particularly in the rich economies, must assume a new form: qualitative, collective, and cultural—emphasizing sustainable human development in harmony with Marx’s original view of socialism. As Lewis Mumford argued, a stationary state, promoting ecological ends, requires for its fulfillment the egalitarian conditions of “basic communism,” with production determined “according to need, not according to ability or productive contribution.” 32 Such a shift away from capital accumulation and towards a system of meeting collective needs based on the principle of enough is obviously impossible in any meaningful sense under the regime of capital accumulation. What is required, then, is an ecological and social revolution that will facilitate a society of ecological sustainability and substantive equality.

If the objective necessity of such an ecological revolution is now clear, the more difficult question of how to carry out the necessary social transformations remains. The ecosocialist movement has adopted the slogan System Change Not Climate Change, but a capitalist system deeply entrenched worldwide infuses the current omnipresent reality. The dominance of the capitalist mode of production means that revolutionary change on the scale needed to confront the planetary environmental emergency remains beyond the immediate social horizon.

However, we need to take seriously the nonlinear, contingent relation of everything related to human development. The conservative nineteenth-century cultural theorist Jacob Burckhardt used the term “historical crisis” to refer to situations in which “a crisis in the whole state of things is produced, involving whole epochs and all or many peoples of the same civilization.” He explained, “The historical process is suddenly accelerated in terrifying fashion. Developments which otherwise take centuries seem to flit by like phantoms in months or weeks, and are fulfilled.” 33 That revolutionary accelerations of the historical process have occurred in the past around the organization of human society itself is not to be doubted. We can point not only to the great political revolutions, but also beyond, to such fundamental transformations in production as the original Agricultural Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. Today, we need an Ecological Revolution equivalent in depth and scope to these earlier transformations.

The obvious difficulty is the speed—and, in some respects, irreversibility—of encroaching environmental havoc. The concomitant acceleration of the historical process to address the crisis must therefore start now. Underestimating the scale of the problem will prove fatal. In order to avoid hitting the trillionth cumulative tonne of combusted carbon, equivalent to a 2° C increase in global temperature, carbon emissions must fall by a rate of around 3 percent per annum globally. This would require rich nations to cut their emissions by more than twice that rate, a truly daunting challenge. As always, we must act with the tools we have, and remember that no mere technical fix can solve a problem based in the systematic maximization of exponential economic growth ad infinitum . Hence, “a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large,” altering the system of social-metabolic reproduction, provides the only alternative to the impending “common ruin of the contending classes.” 34

For Marxist ecological thinkers, this dire state of affairs has led to the development of a two-stage strategy for ecological and social revolution. The first stage focuses on “What Can Be Done Now?”—that is, on what is realistic in the short term under present-day conditions, while necessarily going against the logic of capital accumulation. This could be considered the ecodemocratic phase in the worldwide ecological revolution. Under prevailing conditions, a wide array of drastic changes needs to be fought for within a broad-based radical movement. 35 Such an effort would need to include measures like the following: a carbon-fee-and-dividend system, with 100 percent of the revenue being redistributed back to the population on a per capita basis; a ban on coal fired plants and unconventional fossil fuels (such as tar sands oil); a vast shift to solar and wind power and other sustainable energy alternatives, such as energy efficiency, financed by cutbacks in military spending; a moratorium on economic growth in the rich economies in order to reduce carbon emissions, coupled with radical redistribution (and measures to protect the less well-off); and a new international climate negotiation process modeled on the egalitarian and ecocentric principles of the Peoples’ Agreement of the World Peoples’ Conference on Climate Change in Bolivia in 2010. 36

These emergency measures all run against the prevailing logic of capital accumulation, but nevertheless can conceivably be advanced under present conditions. Along with a wide array of similar initiatives, such measures constitute the rational and realistic starting point for an ecological and social revolution, and a means with which to mobilize the general public. We cannot replace the whole system overnight. The battle must start in the present and extend into the future, accelerating in the mid-term and ending with a new social metabolism geared to sustainable human development.

The long term goal of systemic transformation raises the issue of a second stage of ecological revolution, or the ecosocialist phase . The primary question, of course, is the historical conditions under which this change can come about. Marx referred to the environmental pressures of his day as an “unconscious socialist tendency,” which would require associated producers to regulate the social metabolism with nature in a rational way. 37 This tendency, however, can only be realized as the result of a revolution carried out by the greater part of humanity, establishing more egalitarian conditions and processes for governing global society, including the requisite ecological, social, and economic planning.

In the not-too-distant future, an “environmental proletariat”—signs of which are already present—will almost inevitably emerge from the combination of ecological degradation and economic hardship, particularly at the bottom of society. In these circumstances, the material crises affecting people’s lives will become increasingly indistinguishable in their manifold ecological and economic effects (e.g., food crises). Such conditions will compel the working population of the earth to revolt against the system. What we often misleadingly call the “middle class”—those above the working poor but with little vested interest in the system—will doubtless be drawn into this struggle too. As in all revolutionary situations, some of the more enlightened elements of the ruling class will surely abandon their class interests in favor of humanity and the earth. Since the challenge of maintaining a resilient earth will face the younger generations the most, we can expect that youth will become disenchanted and radicalized as the material conditions of existence deteriorate. Historically, women have been especially concerned with issues of natural and social reproduction and will undoubtedly be at the forefront of the struggle for a more ecologically oriented global society as well.

In this Great Transition, I believe socialists will play the leading role, even as the meaning of socialism evolves, taking on a wider connotation in the course of the struggle. The great artist, writer, and socialist William Morris famously declared, “Men fight and lose the battle, and the thing they fought for comes about in spite of their defeat, and when it comes turns out not to be what they meant, and other men have to fight for what they meant under another name.” 38 Today, the age-old struggle for human freedom and meaning has reached an endgame. In the new epoch before us, our task is clear: to fight for equitable and sustainable human development in lasting accord with the earth.

1. Paul Raskin, The Great Transition Today: A Report from the Future (Boston: Tellus Institute, 2006), http://www.greattransition.org/archives/papers/The_Great_Transition_Today.pdf 2. See Paul Burkett, “Marx’s Vision of Sustainable Human Development,” Monthly Review 57, no. 5 (October 2005): 34-62. 3. Frederick Engels, The Dialectics of Nature , in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works , vol. 25 ([1873-1882]; New York: International Publishers, 1975), 460-461. 4. Frank Benjamin Golley, A History of the Ecosystem Concept in Ecology (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 2, 207. 5. On Liebig’s ecological critique, see John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000), 149-154. 6. Julius von Mayer, “The Motions of Organisms and Their Relation to Metabolism,” in Julius Robert Mayer: Prophet of Energy , ed. Robert B. Lindsey ([1845]; New York: Pergamon Press, 1973), 75-145. 7. Roland Daniels, Mikrokosmos ([1851]; New York: Verlag Peter Lang, 1988), 49. 8. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 3 ([1863-1865]; London: Penguin, 1981), 949; Karl Marx, Economic Manuscript of 1861-1863 , in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Collected Works , vol. 30 ([1861-1863]; New York: International Publishers, 1975), 54-66. 9. Ravi Bhandari, “Marxian Economics: The Oldest Systems Theory is New Again (or Always)?” Institute for New Economics, April 9, 2015, https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/marxian-economics-the-oldest-systems-theory-is-new-again-or-always . 10. E. Ray Lankester, Science from an Easy Chair (New York: Henry Holt & Co., 1913), 365-379; Joseph Lester, E. Ray Lankester and the Making of Modern British Biology (Oxford: British Society for the History of Science, 1995). 11. Arthur G. Tansley, “The Use and Abuse of Vegetational Concepts and Terms,” Ecology 16, no. 3 (July 1935): 284-307; Peder Anker, Imperial Ecology: Environmental Order in the British Empire , 1895-1945 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001). 12. Tansley, “Use and Abuse,” 303-304; Hyman Levy, The Universe of Science (London: Watts & Co., 1932). 13. Lynn Margulis, et. al., “Foreword,” in Vladimir I. Vernadsky, The Biosphere , trans. D.B. Langmuir ([1926]; New York: Springer-Verlag, 1998), 15. 14. Nikolai Bukharin, “Theory and Practice from the Standpoint of Dialectical Materialism,” in Bukharin, et. al, Science at the Crossroads: Papers Presented to the International Congress of the History of Science and technology Held in London from June 29th to July 3rd, 1931 by the delegates of the U.S.S.R (London: Frank Cass & Co., 1931), 17. 15. Karl Marx, Capital , vol. 1 ([1867]; London: Penguin, 1976), 637; Capital , vol. 3, 754, 911, 949, 959. 16. Rosa Luxemburg, “Stagnation and Progress of Marxism,” in Luxemburg, Rosa Luxemburg Speaks ([1903]; New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970), 111. 17. For an informed and balanced discussion of Lysenkoism, see Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1985), 163-196. 18. See Russell Jacoby, “Western Marxism,” in A Dictionary of Marxist Thought , ed. Tom Bottomore (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1983), 523-526. 19. K. William Kapp, The Social Costs of Private Enterprise (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1950), 35-36; Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle: Nature, Man, and Technology (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971), 280. 20. Ted Benton, “Marxism and Natural Limits,” New Left Review no. 178 (December 1989): 51-86; André Gorz, Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology (London: Verso, 1994). 21. See John Bellamy Foster, “Foreword,” in Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999; Chicago: Haymarket, 2014), vii-xiii. 22. Burkett, Marx and Nature . 23. John Bellamy Foster, “Late Soviet Ecology,” Monthly Review 67, no. 2 (June 2015): 20; M.I. Budyko, Global Ecology ([1977]; Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1980); E.V. Shantser, “The Anthropogenic System (Period),” Great Soviet Encyclopedia , vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1973; translation of third edition), 140. 24. On these aspects of Marx’s thought, see John Bellamy Foster, “Capitalism and the Accumulation of Catastrophe,” Monthly Review 63, no. 7 (December 2011): 1-17. 25. Frederick Engels, “Engels to Marx, December 19, 1882,” in Marx and Engels, Collected Works , vol. 46, 411; John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010), 61-64. 26. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, 637-638; Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Outlines of the Critique of Political Economy ([1857-1858]; London: Penguin, 1973), 334-335. 27. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, 742; Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift , 207-11. 28. Marx, Capital , vol. 1, 860; Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift , 345-72; John Bellamy Foster and Hannah Holleman, “The Theory of Unequal Ecological Exchange: A Marx-Odum Dialectic,” The Journal of Peasant Studies 41, no. 1-2 (March 2014): 199-233. 29. See, for example, Stefano Longo, Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark, The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2015). See also Ryan Wishart, Jamil Jonna, and Jordan Besek, “The Metabolic Rift: A Select Bibliography,” Monthly Review , October 16, 2013, http://monthlyreview.org/commentary/metabolic-rift . 30. See Ian Angus, “When Did the Anthropocene Begin…and Why Does It Matter?” Monthly Review 67, no. 4 (September 2015): 1-11; John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), 108. 31. Foster, Clark, and York, The Ecological Rift , 14-15, 18; Johan Rockström, et. al., “A Safe Operating Space for Humanity,” Nature 461, no. 24 (September 2009): 472-475. 32. Lewis Mumford, The Condition of Man (1944; New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973), 411. Mumford, interestingly, was drawing here on both Mill’s Principles of Political Economy (1848) and Marx’s Critique of the Gotha Programme (1875). 33. Jacob Burckhardt, Reflections on History ([1869]; Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1979, 214. 34. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto (London, 1848; New York: Monthly Review Press, 1964), 2. On the concept of socio-metabolic reproduction, see István Mészáros, Beyond Capital: Toward a Theory of Transition (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1995), 170-187. 35. These and other proposals are developed in Fred Magdoff and John Bellamy Foster, What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism: A Citizen’s Guide to Capitalism and the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2011), 124-33. 36. Ibid. 37. Karl Marx, “Marx to Engels, March 25, 1868,” in Marx and Engels, Collected Works , vol. 42, 558-59. 38. William Morris, A Dream of John Ball in Morris, Three Works ([1888]; London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986), 53.

John Bellamy Foster

Cite as John Bellamy Foster, "Marxism and Ecology: Common Fonts of a Great Transition," Great Transition Initiative (October 2015), http://www.greattransition.org/publication/marxism-and-ecology.

As an initiative for collectively understanding and shaping the global future, GTI welcomes diverse ideas. Thus, the opinions expressed in our publications do not necessarily reflect the views of GTI or the Tellus Institute.

facebook

Ecological Approach Essays

Ecological approach in social work, popular essay topics.

  • American Dream
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Black Lives Matter
  • Bullying Essay
  • Career Goals Essay
  • Causes of the Civil War
  • Child Abusing
  • Civil Rights Movement
  • Community Service
  • Cultural Identity
  • Cyber Bullying
  • Death Penalty
  • Depression Essay
  • Domestic Violence
  • Freedom of Speech
  • Global Warming
  • Gun Control
  • Human Trafficking
  • I Believe Essay
  • Immigration
  • Importance of Education
  • Israel and Palestine Conflict
  • Leadership Essay
  • Legalizing Marijuanas
  • Mental Health
  • National Honor Society
  • Police Brutality
  • Pollution Essay
  • Racism Essay
  • Romeo and Juliet
  • Same Sex Marriages
  • Social Media
  • The Great Gatsby
  • The Yellow Wallpaper
  • Time Management
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Violent Video Games
  • What Makes You Unique
  • Why I Want to Be a Nurse
  • Send us an e-mail

Home — Essay Samples — Environment — Environmental Ethics — An Analysis of Ernest Callenbach’s Ecotopia

test_template

An Analysis of Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia

  • Categories: Environmental Ethics

About this sample

close

Words: 610 |

Published: Jun 13, 2024

Words: 610 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Introduction

Body paragraph.

Image of Alex Wood

Cite this Essay

Let us write you an essay from scratch

  • 450+ experts on 30 subjects ready to help
  • Custom essay delivered in as few as 3 hours

Get high-quality help

author

Dr Jacklynne

Verified writer

  • Expert in: Environment

writer

+ 120 experts online

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy . We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

No need to pay just yet!

Related Essays

2 pages / 942 words

1 pages / 518 words

1 pages / 540 words

3 pages / 1670 words

Remember! This is just a sample.

You can get your custom paper by one of our expert writers.

121 writers online

Still can’t find what you need?

Browse our vast selection of original essay samples, each expertly formatted and styled

Related Essays on Environmental Ethics

Exotic animals have fascinated humans for centuries. From the majestic beauty of a Bengal tiger to the graceful movement of a python, these creatures can captivate our imagination and inspire a sense of wonder and awe. However, [...]

Harmonie Water is a company that has recently come under scrutiny due to allegations of mismanagement and unethical business practices. This case study seeks to analyze the various aspects of the Harmonie Water case, including [...]

Aldo Leopold’s “Land Ethic” is a foundational text in the field of environmental ethics. In this essay, Leopold argues that humans should expand their ethical considerations to include the land and its non-human inhabitants. He [...]

De La Cruz, R. A. 'Ecological and Interspecies Ethics'.Regan, T. (1983). The Case for Animal Rights. University of California Press.

The ecological footprint, a concept developed to measure an individual's or a population's impact on the environment, has become increasingly relevant in today's world as concerns about climate change and [...]

Environmental ethics may refer to morals and perceptions of the human race towards maintaining the well-being of the natural biodiversity and making life generally admirable for survival. These notions should be enhanced and [...]

Related Topics

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Where do you want us to send this sample?

By clicking “Continue”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy.

Be careful. This essay is not unique

This essay was donated by a student and is likely to have been used and submitted before

Download this Sample

Free samples may contain mistakes and not unique parts

Sorry, we could not paraphrase this essay. Our professional writers can rewrite it and get you a unique paper.

Please check your inbox.

We can write you a custom essay that will follow your exact instructions and meet the deadlines. Let's fix your grades together!

Get Your Personalized Essay in 3 Hours or Less!

We use cookies to personalyze your web-site experience. By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .

  • Instructions Followed To The Letter
  • Deadlines Met At Every Stage
  • Unique And Plagiarism Free

essay on ecological approach

  • Share full article

Blurry overhead of a highway with streams of white and yellow light.

Colorado’s Bold New Approach to Highways — Not Building Them

The state has made it harder to widen highways, and transportation officials are turning their eyes to transit.

Credit... Elliot Ross for The New York Times

Supported by

By Megan Kimble

  • May 31, 2024

When Interstate 25 was constructed through Denver, highway engineers moved a river.

It was the 1950s, and nothing was going to get in the way of building a national highway system. Colorado’s governor and other dignitaries, including the chief engineer of the state highway department, acknowledged the moment by posing for a photo standing on bulldozer tracks, next to the trench that would become Interstate 25.

Today, state highway departments have rebranded as transportation agencies, but building, fixing and expanding highways is still mostly what they do.

So it was notable when, in 2022, the head of Colorado’s Department of Transportation called off a long planned widening of Interstate 25. The decision to do nothing was arguably more consequential than the alternative. By not expanding the highway, the agency offered a new vision for the future of transportation planning.

In Colorado, that new vision was catalyzed by climate change. In 2019, Gov. Jared Polis signed a law that required the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent within 30 years. As the state tried to figure out how it would get there, it zeroed in on drivers. Transportation is the largest single contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, accounting for about 30 percent of the total; 60 percent of that comes from cars and trucks. To reduce emissions, Coloradans would have to drive less.

An effective bit of bureaucracy drove that message home. After sustained lobbying from climate and environmental justice activists, the Transportation Commission of Colorado adopted a formal rule that makes the state transportation agency, along with Colorado’s five metropolitan planning organizations, demonstrate how new projects, including highways, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. If they don’t, they could lose funding.

Eight framed portraits form a grid on an  wall with a round office table and two black chairs in front of them.

Should transportation planners stop prioritizing highway construction?

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

Advertisement

Call for Papers: 2024 Lauren Berlant 3CT Graduate Student Conference

Click above to share

dark purple, green, and orange texture overlaid with white text

Capitalism and Its Outside: Profit, Expansion, and the Necessary Excess

Lauren berlant 3ct graduate student conference may 10–11, 2024 keynote speaker: jodi dean, deadline for paper submissions: thursday, february 15, 2024.

Capitalism, endowed with remarkable elasticity and propagandistic power, is a mode of production whose drive aims to devour the planet, subsuming all other forms of life under its logic. It tolerates no antagonistic other alongside itself. However, it is also the first economic form that is unable to stand alone, without a non-capitalist outside as its necessary lifeline: surplus populations, speculative non-market spheres, unpaid labor, the precariat, economies of waste, carceral extraction, money markets, and technoeconomic platforms are only a few illustrative realms.

As Rosa Luxemburg argued more than a century ago, the uneven relation between capitalist and non-capitalist formations is not merely a prerequisite for capital’s genesis but an essential condition for its ongoing accumulation and maturation. Capital draws life from the erosion of its very sine qua non . As it rides varying vectors and velocities, one fraction of capital might undermine the endurance of another, if not interrupt its own conditions of possibility altogether (Gidwani, 2008; Wark, 2019). Capitalism, thus, finds itself in chronic exertion against entropy.

From the viewpoint of such contradictions and excesses, as matters of inner determination (Mészáros, 2012; Saito, 2022) and systematic necessity, how has capitalism’s outside been reconfigured, and what has it come to extrude in the world today? How does it bear upon twenty-first-century capitalist logic, social relations of production, and attendant ideological workings? Given especially shifts in the labor market, ecological rifts on massive scale, phenomena like “cloud capital” (Varoufakis, 2023) and “bullshit jobs” (Graeber, 2018), how can the various manifestations and pressures of capital’s necessary excesses be theorized? Has capitalism perfected its modus operandi, managing so well its own fallout, that it has begun to morph beyond itself? Are we amid fundamental shifts in capitalist regimes of value and their profit-driven logic? Or is this yet another stage of an ever-aging capitalism?

We invite contributions from graduate students from a wide range of disciplines including, but not limited to, history, anthropology, political theory, philosophy, sociology, and economics. Travel support will be available for a limited number of presenters without access to institutional funding.

The deadline for submissions has now passed .

We are especially interested in papers related to the following topics:

  • Empire, colonialism, settler-colonialism
  • War and militarism
  • Agrarian economies, ecological rifts
  • Questions of scarcity and affluence
  • Conceptions and economies of waste
  • Energy extraction and exploration
  • Environmental toxicity and atmospheric emissions
  • Financial capital and money markets
  • The role of the state, central banks, and financial institutions
  • Information economies, algorithms, and digital platforms
  • Class struggle and social differentiation (gender, race, caste, etc.)
  • Surplus populations, the industrial reserve army of labor
  • Demography and family planning
  • Political economy of technoscience and experimentality
  • Capitalist metamorphoses and neo-feudal formations
  • Regimes of debt, loan, money printing, and aid industries
  • Theories, traditions, and praxes of commoning and degrowth

Questions may be directed to the student organizers, Arwa Awan and Hadeel Badarni .

Related events

Date Speaker Event Title Categories
171529920005/10/24
168203520004/21/23
164998080004/15/22
161429760002/26/21

Related Series

essay on ecological approach

Newsletter Sign Up

Main Navigation

  • Contact NeurIPS
  • Code of Ethics
  • Code of Conduct
  • Create Profile
  • Journal To Conference Track
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Proceedings
  • Future Meetings
  • Exhibitor Information
  • Privacy Policy

NeurIPS 2024

Conference Dates: (In person) 9 December - 15 December, 2024

Homepage: https://neurips.cc/Conferences/2024/

Call For Papers 

Abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2024

Full paper submission deadline, including technical appendices and supplemental material (all authors must have an OpenReview profile when submitting): May 22, 2024

Author notification: Sep 25, 2024

Camera-ready, poster, and video submission: Oct 30, 2024 AOE

Submit at: https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2024/Conference  

The site will start accepting submissions on Apr 22, 2024 

Subscribe to these and other dates on the 2024 dates page .

The Thirty-Eighth Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS 2024) is an interdisciplinary conference that brings together researchers in machine learning, neuroscience, statistics, optimization, computer vision, natural language processing, life sciences, natural sciences, social sciences, and other adjacent fields. We invite submissions presenting new and original research on topics including but not limited to the following:

  • Applications (e.g., vision, language, speech and audio, Creative AI)
  • Deep learning (e.g., architectures, generative models, optimization for deep networks, foundation models, LLMs)
  • Evaluation (e.g., methodology, meta studies, replicability and validity, human-in-the-loop)
  • General machine learning (supervised, unsupervised, online, active, etc.)
  • Infrastructure (e.g., libraries, improved implementation and scalability, distributed solutions)
  • Machine learning for sciences (e.g. climate, health, life sciences, physics, social sciences)
  • Neuroscience and cognitive science (e.g., neural coding, brain-computer interfaces)
  • Optimization (e.g., convex and non-convex, stochastic, robust)
  • Probabilistic methods (e.g., variational inference, causal inference, Gaussian processes)
  • Reinforcement learning (e.g., decision and control, planning, hierarchical RL, robotics)
  • Social and economic aspects of machine learning (e.g., fairness, interpretability, human-AI interaction, privacy, safety, strategic behavior)
  • Theory (e.g., control theory, learning theory, algorithmic game theory)

Machine learning is a rapidly evolving field, and so we welcome interdisciplinary submissions that do not fit neatly into existing categories.

Authors are asked to confirm that their submissions accord with the NeurIPS code of conduct .

Formatting instructions:   All submissions must be in PDF format, and in a single PDF file include, in this order:

  • The submitted paper
  • Technical appendices that support the paper with additional proofs, derivations, or results 
  • The NeurIPS paper checklist  

Other supplementary materials such as data and code can be uploaded as a ZIP file

The main text of a submitted paper is limited to nine content pages , including all figures and tables. Additional pages containing references don’t count as content pages. If your submission is accepted, you will be allowed an additional content page for the camera-ready version.

The main text and references may be followed by technical appendices, for which there is no page limit.

The maximum file size for a full submission, which includes technical appendices, is 50MB.

Authors are encouraged to submit a separate ZIP file that contains further supplementary material like data or source code, when applicable.

You must format your submission using the NeurIPS 2024 LaTeX style file which includes a “preprint” option for non-anonymous preprints posted online. Submissions that violate the NeurIPS style (e.g., by decreasing margins or font sizes) or page limits may be rejected without further review. Papers may be rejected without consideration of their merits if they fail to meet the submission requirements, as described in this document. 

Paper checklist: In order to improve the rigor and transparency of research submitted to and published at NeurIPS, authors are required to complete a paper checklist . The paper checklist is intended to help authors reflect on a wide variety of issues relating to responsible machine learning research, including reproducibility, transparency, research ethics, and societal impact. The checklist forms part of the paper submission, but does not count towards the page limit.

Please join the NeurIPS 2024 Checklist Assistant Study that will provide you with free verification of your checklist performed by an LLM here . Please see details in our  blog

Supplementary material: While all technical appendices should be included as part of the main paper submission PDF, authors may submit up to 100MB of supplementary material, such as data, or source code in a ZIP format. Supplementary material should be material created by the authors that directly supports the submission content. Like submissions, supplementary material must be anonymized. Looking at supplementary material is at the discretion of the reviewers.

We encourage authors to upload their code and data as part of their supplementary material in order to help reviewers assess the quality of the work. Check the policy as well as code submission guidelines and templates for further details.

Use of Large Language Models (LLMs): We welcome authors to use any tool that is suitable for preparing high-quality papers and research. However, we ask authors to keep in mind two important criteria. First, we expect papers to fully describe their methodology, and any tool that is important to that methodology, including the use of LLMs, should be described also. For example, authors should mention tools (including LLMs) that were used for data processing or filtering, visualization, facilitating or running experiments, and proving theorems. It may also be advisable to describe the use of LLMs in implementing the method (if this corresponds to an important, original, or non-standard component of the approach). Second, authors are responsible for the entire content of the paper, including all text and figures, so while authors are welcome to use any tool they wish for writing the paper, they must ensure that all text is correct and original.

Double-blind reviewing:   All submissions must be anonymized and may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy.  This policy applies to any supplementary or linked material as well, including code.  If you are including links to any external material, it is your responsibility to guarantee anonymous browsing.  Please do not include acknowledgements at submission time. If you need to cite one of your own papers, you should do so with adequate anonymization to preserve double-blind reviewing.  For instance, write “In the previous work of Smith et al. [1]…” rather than “In our previous work [1]...”). If you need to cite one of your own papers that is in submission to NeurIPS and not available as a non-anonymous preprint, then include a copy of the cited anonymized submission in the supplementary material and write “Anonymous et al. [1] concurrently show...”). Any papers found to be violating this policy will be rejected.

OpenReview: We are using OpenReview to manage submissions. The reviews and author responses will not be public initially (but may be made public later, see below). As in previous years, submissions under review will be visible only to their assigned program committee. We will not be soliciting comments from the general public during the reviewing process. Anyone who plans to submit a paper as an author or a co-author will need to create (or update) their OpenReview profile by the full paper submission deadline. Your OpenReview profile can be edited by logging in and clicking on your name in https://openreview.net/ . This takes you to a URL "https://openreview.net/profile?id=~[Firstname]_[Lastname][n]" where the last part is your profile name, e.g., ~Wei_Zhang1. The OpenReview profiles must be up to date, with all publications by the authors, and their current affiliations. The easiest way to import publications is through DBLP but it is not required, see FAQ . Submissions without updated OpenReview profiles will be desk rejected. The information entered in the profile is critical for ensuring that conflicts of interest and reviewer matching are handled properly. Because of the rapid growth of NeurIPS, we request that all authors help with reviewing papers, if asked to do so. We need everyone’s help in maintaining the high scientific quality of NeurIPS.  

Please be aware that OpenReview has a moderation policy for newly created profiles: New profiles created without an institutional email will go through a moderation process that can take up to two weeks. New profiles created with an institutional email will be activated automatically.

Venue home page: https://openreview.net/group?id=NeurIPS.cc/2024/Conference

If you have any questions, please refer to the FAQ: https://openreview.net/faq

Abstract Submission: There is a mandatory abstract submission deadline on May 15, 2024, six days before full paper submissions are due. While it will be possible to edit the title and abstract until the full paper submission deadline, submissions with “placeholder” abstracts that are rewritten for the full submission risk being removed without consideration. This includes titles and abstracts that either provide little or no semantic information (e.g., "We provide a new semi-supervised learning method.") or describe a substantively different claimed contribution.  The author list cannot be changed after the abstract deadline. After that, authors may be reordered, but any additions or removals must be justified in writing and approved on a case-by-case basis by the program chairs only in exceptional circumstances. 

Ethics review: Reviewers and ACs may flag submissions for ethics review . Flagged submissions will be sent to an ethics review committee for comments. Comments from ethics reviewers will be considered by the primary reviewers and AC as part of their deliberation. They will also be visible to authors, who will have an opportunity to respond.  Ethics reviewers do not have the authority to reject papers, but in extreme cases papers may be rejected by the program chairs on ethical grounds, regardless of scientific quality or contribution.  

Preprints: The existence of non-anonymous preprints (on arXiv or other online repositories, personal websites, social media) will not result in rejection. If you choose to use the NeurIPS style for the preprint version, you must use the “preprint” option rather than the “final” option. Reviewers will be instructed not to actively look for such preprints, but encountering them will not constitute a conflict of interest. Authors may submit anonymized work to NeurIPS that is already available as a preprint (e.g., on arXiv) without citing it. Note that public versions of the submission should not say "Under review at NeurIPS" or similar.

Dual submissions: Submissions that are substantially similar to papers that the authors have previously published or submitted in parallel to other peer-reviewed venues with proceedings or journals may not be submitted to NeurIPS. Papers previously presented at workshops are permitted, so long as they did not appear in a conference proceedings (e.g., CVPRW proceedings), a journal or a book.  NeurIPS coordinates with other conferences to identify dual submissions.  The NeurIPS policy on dual submissions applies for the entire duration of the reviewing process.  Slicing contributions too thinly is discouraged.  The reviewing process will treat any other submission by an overlapping set of authors as prior work. If publishing one would render the other too incremental, both may be rejected.

Anti-collusion: NeurIPS does not tolerate any collusion whereby authors secretly cooperate with reviewers, ACs or SACs to obtain favorable reviews. 

Author responses:   Authors will have one week to view and respond to initial reviews. Author responses may not contain any identifying information that may violate the double-blind reviewing policy. Authors may not submit revisions of their paper or supplemental material, but may post their responses as a discussion in OpenReview. This is to reduce the burden on authors to have to revise their paper in a rush during the short rebuttal period.

After the initial response period, authors will be able to respond to any further reviewer/AC questions and comments by posting on the submission’s forum page. The program chairs reserve the right to solicit additional reviews after the initial author response period.  These reviews will become visible to the authors as they are added to OpenReview, and authors will have a chance to respond to them.

After the notification deadline, accepted and opted-in rejected papers will be made public and open for non-anonymous public commenting. Their anonymous reviews, meta-reviews, author responses and reviewer responses will also be made public. Authors of rejected papers will have two weeks after the notification deadline to opt in to make their deanonymized rejected papers public in OpenReview.  These papers are not counted as NeurIPS publications and will be shown as rejected in OpenReview.

Publication of accepted submissions:   Reviews, meta-reviews, and any discussion with the authors will be made public for accepted papers (but reviewer, area chair, and senior area chair identities will remain anonymous). Camera-ready papers will be due in advance of the conference. All camera-ready papers must include a funding disclosure . We strongly encourage accompanying code and data to be submitted with accepted papers when appropriate, as per the code submission policy . Authors will be allowed to make minor changes for a short period of time after the conference.

Contemporaneous Work: For the purpose of the reviewing process, papers that appeared online within two months of a submission will generally be considered "contemporaneous" in the sense that the submission will not be rejected on the basis of the comparison to contemporaneous work. Authors are still expected to cite and discuss contemporaneous work and perform empirical comparisons to the degree feasible. Any paper that influenced the submission is considered prior work and must be cited and discussed as such. Submissions that are very similar to contemporaneous work will undergo additional scrutiny to prevent cases of plagiarism and missing credit to prior work.

Plagiarism is prohibited by the NeurIPS Code of Conduct .

Other Tracks: Similarly to earlier years, we will host multiple tracks, such as datasets, competitions, tutorials as well as workshops, in addition to the main track for which this call for papers is intended. See the conference homepage for updates and calls for participation in these tracks. 

Experiments: As in past years, the program chairs will be measuring the quality and effectiveness of the review process via randomized controlled experiments. All experiments are independently reviewed and approved by an Institutional Review Board (IRB).

Financial Aid: Each paper may designate up to one (1) NeurIPS.cc account email address of a corresponding student author who confirms that they would need the support to attend the conference, and agrees to volunteer if they get selected. To be considered for Financial the student will also need to fill out the Financial Aid application when it becomes available.

NeurIPS uses cookies to remember that you are logged in. By using our websites, you agree to the placement of cookies.

IMAGES

  1. Unocini, an Ecological Approach Essay Example

    essay on ecological approach

  2. 🌷 Ecological problems of today essay. 📚 Ecological Issues in This Free

    essay on ecological approach

  3. write essay on ecosystem restoration

    essay on ecological approach

  4. Role of Man-Maintaining Ecological Balance Free Essay Example

    essay on ecological approach

  5. The Ecological Approach and Social Disorientation Essay

    essay on ecological approach

  6. Assessing The Usefulness Of An Ecological Approach Social Work Essay

    essay on ecological approach

VIDEO

  1. Ecological Dynamics for BJJ

  2. LECTURE 39

  3. Ecological Approach in Public Administration

  4. Essay on Environmental Pollution

  5. Ecological Dynamics for BJJ

  6. Ecological Dynamics for BJJ

COMMENTS

  1. Ecological Theory: Bronfenbrenner's Five Systems

    The five levels of ecological theory are the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. 1. Microsystem. The microsystem refers to the immediate environments where individuals directly interact, such as family, school, peer groups, and religious institutions. These settings have a profound impact on a person's ...

  2. Ecological Perspective Theory and Practice Essay

    Introduction. Ecology as a study of the interrelation of beings and their environment has taken a broader concept, influencing other disciplines from a wide variety of fields. The ecological perspective can be seen as an approach in which the focus is on the interactions and the transactions between people and their environment (Greene, 2008).

  3. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory

    Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Systems Theory posits that an individual's development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems, ranging from the immediate surroundings (e.g., family) to broad societal structures (e.g., culture). These systems include the Microsystem, Mesosystem, Exosystem, Macrosystem, and Chronosystem, each representing different levels of environmental ...

  4. (PDF) Ecological Systems Theory: Exploring the Development of the

    The Ecological Systems theory represents a convergence of biological, psychological, and social sciences. Through the study of the ecology of human development, social scientists seek to explain ...

  5. Ecological Perspective: Definition and Examples (2024)

    An ecological perspective is an important approach in sociology, psychology, and the social sciences as it underscores the role of environmental context in shaping individual thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. This approach highlights how both internal and external factors interact dynamically to form human development (Lobo et al., 2018).

  6. Urie Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Model

    Bronfenbrenner's theory of child development is the belief that human development is shaped by the interaction of an individual and their environment. At the core of Bronfenbrenner's ecological ...

  7. Bronfenbrenner's Ecological Theory

    The most substantial application of ecological systems theory is the American national Head Start Program that Bronfenbrenner co-founded with psychologists Mamie Clark and Edward Zigler in 1965 [].Serving more than 900,000 preschool-age children with a budget over 6.8 billion dollars in 2007, the Head Start Program aims to help disadvantaged children to attain optimal levels of cognitive and ...

  8. Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory of development Essay (Critical Writing)

    Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory of development. This theory comprises five environmental systems ranging from the fine-grained inputs of immediate association with social elements, to the broad-based inputs of culture. These five systems in the theory are the mesosytem, microsystem, chronosystem, macrosystem, and exosystem.

  9. Frontiers

    Ecological psychology is an embodied, situated, and non-representationalist approach to cognition pioneered by J. J. Gibson (1904-1979) in the field of perception and by E. J. Gibson (1910-2002) in the field of developmental psychology. Ecological psychology, in its very origins, aimed to offer an innovative perspective for understanding ...

  10. Some directions in ecological theory

    Increasing Biological Generality for Ecological Theory. In an influential essay published nearly one-half century ago, Levins (1966) suggested that we cannot have all three of generality, realism, and precision in a "manageable" model, which leads naturally to three strategies. The first, sacrificing generality, is evidenced today in ...

  11. Ecological Approaches

    In Health psychology—A handbook: Theories, applications, and challenges of a psychological approach to the health care system. Edited by George C. Stone, Frances Cohen, and Nancy E. Adler, 523-547. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Provides insight to emergency of ecological thinking in psychology and its early application to health issues.

  12. Ecocriticism: An Essay

    Ecocriticism is an intentionally broad approach that is known by a number of other designations, including "green (cultural) studies", "ecopoetics", and "environmental literary criticism.". Western thought has often held a more or less utilitarian attitude to nature —nature is for serving human needs. However, after the eighteenth ...

  13. The Importance of an Ecological Approach in Community Psychology

    One particular perspective is the ecological approach which allows the community psychologist to understand how the intricate ways of different parts of the community affect oneanother. Understanding the interdependence that each system has, and how each part of the system affects the other, can serve as a guide in determining practices and ...

  14. Human Ecology: A Theoretical Essay, Hawley

    The essay underscores the critical importance of transportation and communication technology to the shaping of the human ecological system. Human Ecology brings concision and elegance to this holistic perspective and will serve as a point of reference and orientation for anyone interested in the powers and scope of the ecological approach.

  15. Bronfenbrenners Ecological Theory Of Development Psychology Essay

    Urie Bronfenbrenner developed the ecological theory of development. He introduced 5 key systems in developing the individual throughout the life. He recognized the importance of the environment in shaping the individual. The 5 key systems are microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. Each of the key system has own roles ...

  16. Ecological public health: the 21st century's big idea? An essay by Tim

    Public health thinking requires an overhaul. Tim Lang and Geof Rayner outline five models and traditions, and argue that ecological public health—which integrates the material, biological, social, and cultural aspects of public health—is the way forward for the 21st century It seems to be the fate of public health as concept, movement, and reality to veer between political sensitivity and ...

  17. Bronfenbrenner's Bioecological System Theory Essay

    Introduction. Bronfenbrenner's bioecological systems theory postulates that human development is the sum of factors of bioecological systems that are in an environment that one lives. The theory elucidates how bioecological systems influence human development throughout one's lifespan, as it is extensively applicable in developmental ...

  18. Ecological approaches to cognition: Essays in honor of Ulric Neisser

    Ecological approaches to cognition: Essays in honor of Ulric Neisser. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers. Abstract. In November 1996, a conference was held at Emory University to celebrate Ulric (Dick) Neisser's career in psychology. This book reflects the breadth and richness of Neisser's theoretical and empirical contributions to the ...

  19. The Ecological Systems Theory Free Essay Example

    The last two levels of the ecological systems theory are the macrosystem and the chronosystem. The macrosystem consists of cultures, values, and laws. The macrosystem "describes the culture in which individuals live" (Santrock, 2007). The macrosystem has much to do with what is going on in society and how it affects the child.

  20. Marxism and Ecology: Common Fonts of a Great Transition

    This essay unearths the deep ecological roots of Marx's thought, showing how he brought an environmental perspective to bear on the overarching question of social transformation. From there, it traces the evolution of Marxian ecology, illuminating its profound, formative link to modern ecological economics and systems ecology.

  21. Ecological Model Essay

    1125 Words5 Pages. ECOLOGICAL MODEL/PERSPECTIVEu000b WHAT IS ECOLOGICAL MODEL?u000b. A general approach for systematically examining the reciprocal relationships between organisms and their environment. (Norlin,2003 ). A perspective that provides an understanding of person in their environment at various systems level. (Greene, 2007).

  22. Ecological Approach in Social Work

    Order it today. Ecological approach in social work helps identify challenges and opportunities within a community and helps create a balance between the community and prevailing factors. There are three social work levels, namely micro, mezzo, and macro level issues. All three categories aim to better individuals' living standards, but the ...

  23. Ecological Approach Essay Examples

    Ecological Approach Essays. Ecological Approach in Social Work. Ecological approach in social work helps identify challenges and opportunities within a community and helps create a balance between the community and prevailing factors. There are three social work levels, namely micro, mezzo, and macro level issues. All three categories aim to ...

  24. Approaches and methods used to bring together Indigenous and

    Ecological Solutions and Evidence is an open access journal covering all areas of applied ecology that communicate key findings ... Approaches and methods used to bring together Indigenous and Environmental science Knowledge in environmental research: A systematic map protocol ... What approaches and methods do peer-reviewed papers in the field ...

  25. An Analysis of Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia

    In conclusion, Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia remains a seminal work in the realm of environmental literature, offering a bold vision of a sustainable and just society. While the novel's idealism may invite skepticism, its core message—that ecological sustainability and social justice are inextricably linked—resonates powerfully in today's context of environmental crises and social inequalities.

  26. Ecological Indicators

    Integrating Sciences for Monitoring, Assessment and Management. The ultimate aim of Ecological Indicators is to integrate the monitoring and assessment of ecological and environmental indicators with management practices. The journal provides a forum for the discussion of the applied scientific development and review of traditional indicator applications as well as for theoretical, modelling ...

  27. Browse journals and books

    Browse Calls for Papers. Browse 5,060 journals and 35,600 books. A; A Review on Diverse Neurological Disorders. Pathophysiology, Molecular Mechanisms, and Therapeutics. Book ... A Conversation on New Approaches to Teaching and Learning in the post-COVID World. Book • 2022. ACC Current Journal Review. Journal • Contains open access.

  28. Colorado's Bold New Approach to Highways

    By Megan Kimble. May 31, 2024. When Interstate 25 was constructed through Denver, highway engineers moved a river. It was the 1950s, and nothing was going to get in the way of building a national ...

  29. Call for Papers: 2024 Lauren Berlant 3CT Graduate Student Conference

    We are especially interested in papers related to the following topics: Empire, colonialism, settler-colonialism; War and militarism; Agrarian economies, ecological rifts; Questions of scarcity and affluence; Conceptions and economies of waste; Energy extraction and exploration; Environmental toxicity and atmospheric emissions; Financial ...

  30. NeurIPS 2024 Call for Papers

    Call For Papers. Abstract submission deadline: May 15, 2024. Full paper submission deadline, including technical appendices and supplemental material (all authors must have an OpenReview profile when submitting): May 22, 2024. Author notification: Sep 25, 2024. Camera-ready, poster, and video submission: Oct 30, 2024 AOE.