Translational Issues in Psychological Science, Vol 8(2), Jun 2022, 185-196; doi:10.1037/tps0000315
Over time, varied ecological perspectives have evolved in the social and behavioral sciences to provide explanatory models for behavior in social, cultural, and historical context. The purpose of the present paper is to compare and contrast two such perspectives and their implications for translational science. The perspectives are the ecology of human development from developmental psychology (Bronfenbrenner) and the ecological metaphor from community psychology (Kelly and colleagues). Comparison of the two ecological perspectives highlight both similarities, such as an emphasis on systems theory, and differences in such fundamental areas as goals and philosophy of sciences. Implications for translational science include questions raised by ecological perspectives about potential factors affecting the generalizability of findings and the importance of creating feedback loops in translational research designs. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)