Urie Bronfenbrenner
Dr. Urie Bronfenbrenner was a Russian-born American psychologist and academic best known for his ecological systems theory.
Professor Bronfenbrenner received a bachelor's degree in psychology and music from Cornell University in 1938.
He earned a master's in education from Harvard in 1940, and a doctorate in developmental psychology from the University of Michigan in 1942. He served as a psychologist in various military units during World War II. His daughter, Dr. Kate Bronfenbrenner, followed him into academia and is a well known labor relations scholar.
“Thus if we know a child has had sufficient opportunity to observe and acquire a behavioral sequence, and we know he is physically capable of performing the act but does not do so, then it is reasonable to assume that it is motivation which is lacking. The appropriate countermeasure then involves increasing the subjective value of the desired act relative to any competing response tendencies he might have, rather than having the model senselessly repeat an already redundant sequence of behavior.”
Urie Bronfenbrenner