Since its publication Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Social Systems Approach 6th edition (PDF), several generations of students have successfully used this classic textbook, which takes a social systems approach to human behavior. This systems approach is still widely accepted in the human services disciplines, including education, social work, psychology, nursing, and in human services programs themselves. Its ideas have become the organizing framework for curriculum, as well as fruitful sources for new applications of practice and theory. Among the advantages of the social systems approach is that it permits college students and practitioners to see connections between fields of practice, between methods, and across professional disciplines and bodies of different theory.
The ebook serves as a template of the concentric circles of human behavior, with chapters on fields of behavior, beginning with the person and ranging outward to society and culture. Abundant examples from practice and from behavioral patterns are drawn from the literature, topical events, social sciences, and many of the authors’ professional and personal experiences. This volume responds to the needs of psychology students and instructors as these have developed since the publication of the previous edition.