Abstract:

The booms of scientific knowledge and technology experienced within the last century, and their effects on human life have caused significant developments in many scientific disciplines as well as behavioral sciences. The changes occurred in the environmental structure and the developmentsin behavioral sciences have emphasized the fact that human behavior cannot be explained solely by personal traits, and environmental factors, too, areinfluential in the formation of behavior at least asmuch as personal ones. Built upon this way of thinking ecological system approach takes the individual as a living being within the environmentwho is in a constant interaction with systems suchas family, friends, work life, social services, social policies, belief system, economy, education, etc.As putting an emphasis on the non-functional mutual processes of interaction between individualand her/his physical and social environment itcombines both treatment and reform in itself. Thekey concept of the approach is the “individual inhis/her environment”. In this study the following are going to be examined: how was the ecological system approach born within behavioral sciences? What are the key concepts of the approach? Which dynamics play adetermining role in the formation of human behavior?

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