From parts to whole: Embracing systems science in community psychology.

Abstract

With our field's strong focus on context for understanding and acting on social problems, community psychologists have frequently elevated the importance of employing systems thinking and methods that help us to understand systems more effectively. As a result, community psychologists have adopted some methods from the interdisciplinary field of systems science. In this virtual special issue, we will compare how several of these approaches have been used in publications in the AJCP in the last 50 years. We identify differences in their popularity, implementation with communities, and how they create generative discussion in the field. We conclude by looking to the future to explore ways community psychology can deepen engagement with methods from systems science.