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Systems and Development

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Development and Causality

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Abstract

This chapter presents an introduction to nonlinear dynamical systems theory, chaos theory, related models, and their application in psychology (see Fig. 27.1). The next chapter explores in more detail the more advanced topics of attractors and complexity. In the chapter, I provide a model of transition processes in terms of attractors and complexity that seem to underpin the transitions in the present model of steps in development. For detailed presentation of nonlinear dynamical systems theory, see Abraham and Gilgen (1995), Boom (2004), Gleick (1987), Guastello, Koopmans, and Pincus (2009), Heath (2000), Howe and Lewis (2005), Lewis and Granic (2000), Masterpasqua and Perna (1997), Robertson and Combs (1995), Thelen and Smith (1994, 2006), Vallacher, Read, and Nowak (2002), and Ward (2002). For an introduction to complexity theory, see Johnson (2007) and Mitchell (2009). For a recent application of nonlinear dynamical systems to gender development, see Martin and Ruble (2010), and for a recent application of complex adaptive systems to pain, see Brown (2009).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Glendon College, York University, 2275 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M4N 3M6

    Gerald Young

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  1. Gerald Young
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Young, G. (2011). Systems and Development. In: Development and Causality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9422-6_27

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