Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory Essay example

Think back to when you were younger, do you remember the different emotions you had? Did you know that you learned a lot of your emotions from your parents or caregivers? Infants and toddlers go through many different stages of emotional development. Starting at birth where they show little to no emotion, up through toddler-hood where their emotions become more defined is a critical stage in there development. Infants begin to develop basic emotions at birth such as happy, sad, fear and anger. As they get older to start to understand and respond to the emotions of others whether it is their parent’s or caregiver. Around toddler-hood children learn about self-conscious emotions and when it is appropriate to feel guilt, shame, pride and

Emotion regulation involves intrinsic and extrinsic processing of monitoring and modifying emotional reactions in both positive or negative situations (Martins, 2012). In order for individuals to have the ability to regulate emotions, they must beware of their emotions. Although infants are unaware and lack the ability to regulate their emotions, it then becomes the role of a primary carer to nurture the infant, thus acting as a model for regulating emotions. Evidently, infants grow to reflect the ways in which their carers control and modify their emotions as well as social boundaries. Furthermore, emotion regulation is considered an important aspect of an individuals life as it 'can moderate emotions and keep them in a manageable range

Lewis (2013) explains the ability to control your emotions does not begin until a child nears the age of six (as cited in Berger, 2014, p. 276). The need to maintain control of feelings and emotions remains important throughout adulthood. It would not be normal for a 38-year-old lawyer to throw a temper tantrum in the courtroom because they did not win a case. Not everyone is great at controlling their emotions, but there is always room for improvement (Berger, 2014). A child is not born with this control, nor can one learn it on their own. Morris et al. (2007) discussed the importance of parents, teachers and other adults that may be in a child?s life to instruct and inform children of appropriate ways to manage their feelings for them to learn or develop over time (as cited in Berger, 2014, p. 276). It is the same aspect as manners. A child does not come out of the womb saying ?please? and ?thank you,? but must be taught to use such mannerisms. Eric Erikson explained that children believe they can achieve any goal just as long as they keep trying because their view of their abilities is not yet within reason (Berger, 2014). A child may see a fish breath underwater and believe they too can breathe while swimming

In order to understand how Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory of human development applies to children of the European migrant crisis, it may be useful to start by explaining what the ecological systems theory is. This theory was published in 1979 and was developed by developmental psychologist, Urie Bronfenbrenner. It is an evolving theoretical system developed for the use of scientific study on the area of Human Development (Bronfenbrenner, 2005 as cited in Damon & Lerner, 2006, p. 793). Human Development describes the growth in humans throughout their lifespan (http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentecourse/f/dev_faq.htm). The bioecological model of human development is defined as the following; “The phenomenon of continuity and change in the biopsychological characteristics of human beings, both as individuals and as groups. The phenomenon extends over the life course, across successive generations, and through historical time, both past and future.” (Damon, M. & Lerner M. R, 2006, p.793)

Emotion is essential in order for individuals to respond to arousing stimuli. In part, managing the emotion is through a complex process called emotion regulation, which involves being aware of the relationship between emotion, cognition, and behavior (Shiota & Kalat, 2012). In addition, it involves modulating various factors such as the intensity, duration, and type of emotion, in order to assess one’s goals (Thompson, 1994). During development, one acquires the

Emotional development is a complex task that begins in infancy and continues into adulthood. The first emotions that can be recognised in babies include joy, anger, sadness and fear. Later, as children begin to develop a sense of self, more complex emotions like shyness, surprise, elation, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride and empathy emerge. Primary school children are still learning to identify emotions, to understand why they happen and how to manage them appropriately. As children develop, the things that provoke their emotional responses change, as do the strategies they use to manage them.

The perception of emotions is an important topic to study because the ability to discern emotions plays a critical role in an individual 's cognitive growth, their reasoning, behavior idiosyncrasies and the essential key of survival. Perception is the a central element to emotions, meaning that countless emotions that an individual faces occur directly upon the perception of intensely expressive to a certain stimuli. We are aware that our mood affects how we perceive the emotions of those in our surroundings and the environments we are in, but also age has a big impact as well.

1. Chapter 4 “The First Two Years: The Social World” section “Emotional Development” discusses the significance of variety of early emotions that humans have the experience in their life. The most common and basic forms of emotions that infants present as their age is pain and pleasure. Throughout their life, they develop mentally and physically, as well as learning more emotions that enable them to show expressions, reactions, and reasons that trigger those reactions (Berger, 130) During toddlerhood, between the ages of two and up, emotions are strengthened, for example, toddlers’ laughter and cries are more apparent and amplified. Together with their anger and fear becoming less frequent but directed towards experiences that are terrifying and infuriating. In addition, toddlers often have temper tantrums, “when something angers them, they might yell, scream, cry, hit, and throw themselves on the floor” (Berger, 130) Toddlers’ temper tantrums can even cause more tantrums or worsen the situation if a response from an adult or is negative, like out of anger or teasing the child.

Children who are rarely spoken to, who are left to cry without parent interacts has little opportunity to explore their environment. Also, children who experience frequent anger or boredom cannot fully develop their potential and stable personalities, despite their genetics, improvements from parent, interactions promote the health and development of vulnerable children. Not all children’s temperaments fall into the categories that are described. Children who share the same temperament trait might react quite differently in similar situations, or throughout different stages in their development. An example, of this is when children see someone they are not familiar with their reactions to their temperament will allow them to show their feelings and identify their temperament. When you understand your own temperament, traits help you understand the child’s perspective. This reflective process can help you become more attuned to the experience of each child This will help you determine what might be needed to create a better fit for each child. When talking about a child, you must ask the parents to help you understand their child’s activity level, and how their child response to new situations, and their child’s persistence, distractibility, adaptability, mood, intensity, sensitivity so that you can learn about their child’s temperament and the family’s cultural. It is important to listen to how the family feels about the temperament characteristics of their child. Therefore, it is important to understand that although a child’s basic temperament does not change over time, the intensity of temperamental trait can be affected by a family’s cultural values and parenting styles. For example, a family that values persistence the ability to stick to a task and keep trying may be more likely to praise and reward a child for “sticking with” a challenging task as building a tower with Lego’s.

Moreover, although consensus has generally agreed on the structure of self-regulation (Ursache et al., 2012), recent research has highlighted an intricate relation between executive functioning and another other aspect of emotion, emotionality (Ferrier et al., 2014). Emotionality, the combination of the expression and experience of emotion, is observable everywhere in a preschool classroom. Recall that emotion regulation, cognitive regulation (i.e., executive functioning), and behavioral regulation are all considered essential aspects of self-regulation (Jahromi & Stifter, 2008; Ursache, et al., 2012). Moreover, remember that behavioral regulation has been defined as the “execution and manifestation of cognitive processes in overt behavior” (Morrison et al., 2010, p. 204). In the same light, just as behavioral regulation is the expression of corresponding cognitive processes (i.e., cognitive regulation/ executive functioning), we propose that emotionality be conceptualized as the corresponding expression of emotional processes (i.e., emotion regulation). It is worth mentioning that the emotionality we refer to is conceptually distinct from the term emotionality used in temperament research to describe an innate emotional disposition (e.g., Blair et al.,

The development of emotional regulation begins during early infancy and we believe that children temperament, behaviours and attitude will carry through their life. When we look deeply about how the self-regulation develop and how it’s impact on the children emotional regulation. Studying of emotional regulation, especially on infancy and toddlers is to consider the process of their early brain development relevant to emotional regulation, the influence of the temperament, social development based on the peer relationship (Benson & Haith, 2009). Emotional regulation is concern of different emotional experience on the individual person, it is unique and can be change on the different purpose and situations. Emotional regulation also consists of self- controlling on the emotional behaviours, evaluating the personal feeling and strategies of modifying the other feeling. Emotional regulation is also the set of personal goal of managing the self-emotional feeling (Benson & Haith, 2009).

It is through the earliest interaction between an infant and the caregiver that an individual’s affect regulation begins to be generated. The mutual affect regulation displayed by the caregiver and the infant allows the infant to learn and internalize how to regulate intense emotions. An infant’s brain structure and function becomes implicitly embedded with the modes of early affect regulation through the neuronal structures that allows the individual to have appropriate modes of relating throughout life (Applegate & Shapiro, 2005). The goal of affect regulation is to increase the positive affects and decrease the negative affects.

Because self-esteem is influenced by so many different things (e.g. society, media, friends, etc…) it is very important that parents and caretakers take the proper steps in helping a child develop a strong sense of who they are (Nuttall, 1991). By the time a child reaches three years of age they have experienced a very wide range of emotions (Cluff, N.D.) Parents, teachers and caregivers will lay the foundation upon which a child emotionally develops (Cluff, N.D.). Positive emotional development is important for children because this will not only determine their ability to develop healthy relationships with their peers but also how to successfully deal with their own emotions (Cluff, N.D.). Many theorists agree that there is a connection between a child’s emotional levels and development; they also

In John Gottman’s, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, it is found that teaching children to regulate and understand their emotions is important in order to create an emotionally healthy generation. Emotional intelligence, which is referred to as an “IQ” of people and the world of feelings (Gottman 17), contributes to the success of life emotionally, socially, and mentally of oneself. According to Gottman, there are multiple contributing factors that influence a child’s emotional intelligence which are parents and their parenting style, parent’s emotional expression, a parent’s interest or relationship with the child specifically between father and child, and the influences of the parent’s relationship on the child. The

Human development transpires through “processes of progressively more complex reciprocal interactions” (Brofenbrenner, 1995, p. 620). For these interactions to be entirely effective, they must occur regularly over a period of time (Eamon, 2001). It is also evident that one’s biological and environmental experiences can shape their way of developing in the long run. In order to understand human development, it is essential to analyze various aspects. Through reading this text, you will better understand how developmental psychologist, Bronfenbrenner, and German psychologist, Baltes both conceptualized their views on the various effects on human development.