Introduction to Abnormal Child and Adolescent Psychology. Robert Weis
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psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner. According to Bronfenbrenner’s (1979, 2005) ecological systems theory, children’s environment can be viewed as a hierarchy of concentric systems with each smaller system nested inside the others like stacked cups (Figure 2.4).
The microsystem reflects children’s immediate surroundings and proximal influences on their development. Factors within the microsystem include children’s genetic inheritance, biological functioning, psychological processes, and interactions with parents and family. The microsystem also includes children’s relationships with teachers, coaches, and peers as well the various social roles they adopt (e.g., student, athlete, friend). The microsystem is the “primary engine of development,” and children’s interactions with caregivers and friends are believed to be the most important proximal determinants of their developmental outcomes (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998).
Figure 2.4 ■ Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory
Note: Development is shaped by proximal and distal factors over time. Adapted from Bronfenbrenner (1979, 2005).
The mesosystem refers to the connections between microsystems. For example, children’s relationships at home and school are important determinants of their overall functioning. However, the quality of interactions between home and school also influences children’s well-being. Children whose parents take an active role in their education, clubs, and sports will likely show different outcomes than children whose parents show less interest in their activities.
The exosystem reflects contextual influences that affect microsystems but do not affect children directly. For example, a father might be required to change work schedules or to work longer hours to keep his job. These work-related changes might influence the amount of time he is able to spend with his child. Similarly, the school board might decide to reduce funding for certain extracurricular activities, causing a child to give up a favorite sport or club. The parent’s change in work schedule and the school board’s change in funding can alter children’s daily experiences and, consequently, indirectly affect their development.
The macrosystem refers to broad social, economic, and cultural influences on children’s development. Chief among these factors are socioeconomic disadvantage, neighborhood quality, and media exposure. Other broad influences can include the family’s religious beliefs, cultural values, and history (Tolan, 2016).
Bronfenbrenner recognized that the effects of all four systems on development change over time. In fact, he considered time to be a fifth system in his model—the chronosystem. Time shapes development in two ways. First, the importance of various systems depends on children’s age and developmental level. For example, peers are more important to children’s developmental outcomes in later childhood and adolescence than they are during the preschool years. Second, different generations of children are exposed to different risks. For example, children born in the first half of the 20th century faced the dual threats of the Great Depression and World War II. Their children and grandchildren, in turn, lived through the Vietnam era and Cold War. Children today face new risks: domestic and international terrorism, environmental catastrophes, and serious illnesses like COVID-19. Each generation of children and adolescents must find ways to respond to stressors like these. A full understanding of child development depends on an appreciation for children’s interactions with these environmental systems and how these interactions vary across time (Shelton, 2019).
Review
Proximal risk factors directly affect children’s development. Distal risk factors include broader social and cultural influences that affect children indirectly through family, schools, neighborhoods, or society.
Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory views child development as occurring within a series of nested social systems ranging from the microsystem (e.g., immediate influences) to the macrosystem (e.g., indirect influences). Development must also be understood in the context of time.
Key Terms
Adaptive behavior:Thoughts, feelings, and actions that allow children to develop social, emotional, and behavioral competence over time and meet the changing demands of the environmentAlleles:Alternative forms of a gene that are inherited or arise by mutationAttachment:The affective bond between caregiver and child that serves to protect and reassure the child in times of danger or uncertaintyBasal ganglia:Brain regions located under the cortex; they help to control movement, filter incoming information, relay information to other regions, and regulate attention and emotionsBehavioral epigenetics:A scientific field of study that examines the ways environmental experiences can affect genetic expression and be passed from one generation to the nextBehavioral genetics:An area of scientific study that examines the relationship between genes and behavior; chiefly interested in determining the heritability of traits or disordersBrain stem:An evolutionarily old region of the brain responsible for many basic life-sustaining functions; consists of the medulla, pons, and midbrainCerebellum:A brain region located posteriorly (in the back); chiefly responsible for balance and coordinationCerebral cortex:The outermost layer of the brain, consisting of the frontal, parietal, occipital, and temporal lobesChromosomes:Threadlike strands of genes organized in 23 pairs in typically developing humansClassical conditioning:A type of learning in which two stimuli are paired together in time, and a previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit an automatic, unconditioned responseCognitive development:Changes in a person’s capacity for perception, thought, language, and problem-solvingConcordance:Used by behavioral geneticists to describe the probability that two people will both have a certain characteristic or disorder given that one has the characteristicDevelopmental pathways:Possible courses or trajectories of children’s behavioral, cognitive, or social–emotional development over time, ranging from adaptation to maladaptationDevelopmental psychopathology:A multidisciplinary approach to studying adaptive and maladaptive development across the lifespan. According to this perspective, development is shaped by the complex interaction of biological, psychological, and social–cultural factors over timeDevelopmental tasks:Behavioral, cognitive, or social–emotional challenges that children face at each age or developmental levelDiathesis –stress model:A broad theory that posits that a child will exhibit a disorder when she has both (1) an underlying genetic risk for the disorder and (2) an environmental experience or life event that triggers its onsetEcological systems theory:A theory of child development that consists of concentric nested systems, each progressively more distal from the child: microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystemEmotional development:The emergence and refinement of a person’s experience, expression, understanding, and regulation of feelingsEmotion regulation:The processes that people use to recognize, label, and control our feelings and our expression of these feelingsEquifinality:Describes the phenomenon in which children with different developmental histories show a similar developmental outcomeGene:Thousands of nucleotides that form part of a chromosome; they are transferred from parent to offspring and influence the characteristics of those offspringGene–environment correlation model:The idea that our environments are partially influenced by our genotypes; there are three types of correlations: (1) passive, (2) evocative, and (3) activeGenotype:The genetic code that we inherit from our parentsGoodness-of-fit:The compatibility of a child’s temperament with the features of his or her environment, especially parenting behaviorHeterotypic continuity:The phenomenon in which symptoms change over time, but their underlying pattern remains the same (e.g., a boy’s ADHD symptoms change from childhood to adulthood, but he still has underlying problems with inhibition)Histones:Proteins found in cells; they act as spools around which DNA winds; they regulate the expression of genes, turning