Based on field theory and topological psychology, this theory proposes that human development occurs through progressive mutual accommodation between individuals and their changing environments, conceptualized as nested systems: microsystems (immediate individual-individual settings like family, school, neighborhood), mesosystems (linkage between microsystems), exosystems (communities), and macrosystem (cultural patterns, ideologies, economic conditions). Each system is susceptible to influences and second-order effects — in which interactions in one setting (workplace problems) cascade through others (family distress). And more proximal systems exert more a more direct effect on a person than distal systems. Ecological transitions trigger developmental changes that reverberate through multiple systems simultaneously.
Provide an interesting interface between Financial stress and Macroeconomic financial stress.
Proposed by Urie Bronfenbrenner in 1977.