ABSTRACT
Symposia at the University of Minnesota have been accurate barometers of thinking about the relation of general systems principles to development. The original Concept of Development Symposium organized by Dale Harris (1957) included general systems theory in the planning stage by issuing an invitation to Ludwig von Bertalanffy, but unfortunately he was unable to attend. It was not until 25 years later that general systems theory was formally acknowledged in the second Minnesota symposium with the theme of concepts of development (Sameroff, 1981). And now only 7 years later there is an entire symposium devoted to an assessment of systems and development. It seems that it is far easier for the field to accept technical advances than theoretical ones. The instantaneous adoptions of new assessment techniques (Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, & Wall, 1978; Brazelton, 1973) are in marked contrast to the decades necessary to adapt to new conceptual frameworks. Piaget’s ideas that had been published in the 1930s were understood only in the 1960s. General systems views of the same epoch are only now being treated seriously. Unfortunately it is unusual for a theory in psychology to be accepted on its own merit. It must be validated by some more “basic” discipline, if not in detail, then in metaphor. The active organism metaphor so clearly documented in embryological research (Waddington, 1957; Weiss, 1969) was used to justify Piagetian concepts. Cybernetic models documented in information science disciplines are now serving to accomplish the same end for general systems approaches (see Thelen, this volume).
