second order coupling

Description
In constructivism, complex organic systems that undergo continual structural change while preserving their weblike patterns of organization has been termed "second order coupling"- essentially an interplay between the surroundings and develop system that results in changing environmental structures, which in turn changes the system itself.

Piaget viewed the organism as a whole system a structure (such that emotional, cognitive, and physical development were indissociable), he proposed and demonstrated through much research that the mechanism promoting change in cognition was the same as that in evolution—namely, equilibration. (Fosnot. C, pg. 15)

Quotes
Biological forms and functions are not simply determined by a genetic blueprint, but are emergent properties of an entire epigenetic living network. These networks continually create, or re-create, themselves by transforming or replacing their components (Fosnot. C, p. 14)