Emotion, Development, and Self-Organization: Dynamic Systems Approaches to Emotional Development

Presented here for the first time is the idea that emotional development is ＂self-organizing.＂ It replaces older ideas that genes or environments ＂control＂ the process of development. Self-organization is one aspect of a revolutionary approach to science that embraces ＂chaos theory＂ and the new ＂science of complexity.＂ Physicists, chemists, biologists, and other scientists see self-organization as a significant way of explaining patterns in nature.