Premium
An Ecological Approach to the Study of International Relations
Author(s) -
North Robert C.
Publication year - 1977
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1977.tb01868.x
Subject(s) - affect (linguistics) , futures contract , interpersonal communication , power (physics) , interpersonal relationship , cognition , information processing , social psychology , psychology , sociology , business , cognitive psychology , communication , physics , finance , quantum mechanics , neuroscience
As living organisms, individual human beings can be viewed as dependent upon the continuing operation of two subsystems, one involving resource processing functions (food, water, air, and so forth) and the other concerned with information or signal processing (cognitions, affects, decision‐making, and the like). Something similar can be said of interpersonal systems such as the family, the community, or whole societies, which must be capable of acquiring, transforming or transmitting, processing, and allocating resources and information among their human components. The way a social system performs these functions will affect power relations and condition the behaviors of its human components, but it is also true that people — both as individuals and through their organizations — affect their encompassing social, economic, and political environments. In responding to events and maintaining themselves, people alter their surroundings in ways that then push their lives in directions that often were not anticipated. Thus, we all tend to influence our futures in ways that may be indirect, complex, and difficult to perceive or understand.