The view that the child is passively influenced by environmental forces is best described as:

• A. Environmental (Mechanistic)
• B. Organismic
• C. Nature
• D. Growth

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is that development is driven by external stimuli acting on a passive being, which is the environmental or mechanistic view. In this perspective, the child is seen as largely a recipient of environmental forces—behavior emerges primarily from conditioning and the responses triggered by what the environment provides. There’s little emphasis on the child’s own active exploration, goals, or internal maturation guiding change. By contrast, the organismic approach treats the child as an active agent with internal drives and developmental maturation shaping growth. The term nature points to inherited genetic factors, not to passive environmental influence, and growth describes overall development without specifying whether the child is passive or active.