Gibson and Bronfenbrenner Analysis Essay

Gibson and Bronfenbrenner
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Gibson and Bronfenbrenner
Gibson and Bronfenbrenner are among the main proposers of ecological theory. The ecological theory states that environmental systems tend to influence the development of any individual. According to the theory, the environment contributes to the developmental stages of humans. The environment creates a relationship between the psychological, social, and physical changes (Rosa, & Tudge, 2013). This paper compares and contrasts Bronfenbrenner’s and Gibson’s ecological theories of development and analyses these two theorists' arguments.
Gibson was an experimental psychologist who had a keen interest in human perception and behavior. Gibson’s interest in human actions made him develop a perception theory in 1979. According to his theory, an individual can understand perception matters by looking at the perceiver and the perceived. This theory assumes that there are no mediated perception factors. The perceiver receives information without any distractions. According to Gibson, discernment is a result of the association between the surrounding and the individual. He illustrates that development comes from changes in an individual’s life when they interact with the environment. He continues to argue that an individual comprehends too much information in the course of their life. When an individual interacts with the environment, they get information through the subsets. According to Gibson, there are three concepts of ecological theory; information, affordance, and organism response to the environment; for people to understand perception, they also need to understand the perceiver and the relation between the environment and the individual (Pickett, Kolasa, & Jones, 2010). This theory proposes a link between action and perception; this relates to the concept of affordance. Affordance is the probability of action for an actor in the environment. The possibility of action is, therefore, the constraints of the environment and restraints of the actor.
On the other hand, Bronfenbrenner proposed a bio-ecological model. Bronfenbrenner defines the bio-ecological model continuity phenomenon and change in bio-psychological characteristics of individuals. The microsystem is the immediate and the smallest environment for children, and each child has a particular personality trait that is influenced by biological or genetic factors (Krishnan, 2010). According to Bronfenbrenner, humans have interfered with the course and nature of our developments with certain limits. This theory has four main concepts; person, time, process, and context. The process revolves around interaction forms between the environment and the organism. Processes tend to influence human development using the remote and immediate environmental contexts, different characteristics of a person, and the time in which these processes take place. The bio-ecological model has an integrative and interdisciplinary focus on childhood and adolescence periods and the pertinent programs that promote youth and family development. The four levels of Bronfenbrenner's ecological theory include microsystem, mesosystem, macrosystem, and exosystem. Bronfen...