Szu-Chia Chang
Department of Social Psychology Shih-Shin University
The emergence of systems theory engenders new philosophical and methodological perspectives for natural and social scientists in the 20th century. The systems perspective provides a new conceptual framework for the study of family, which results in the development and progress of family psychology and family therapy. In this paper, the author starts with the introduction of the major principles of general systems theory and the three components (the system components, the integrative component, and the process component) that are provided by W. M. Pinsof as the conceptual and methodological guidelines for family psychology. This is followed by a review of the marital adjustment studies that were conducted in Taiwan during the past thirty years. The review focuses on “systems perspective” as the paradigm underlying family research and investigates the implications of this framework for conceptualization and research in the marital adjustment area.
Keywords: systems perspective, general system theory, family psychology, integrative process systems perspectives, marital adjustment study