Beyond the behavior setting

Journal of Environmental Psychology (1986) 6, 359-369

BOOK REVIEWS

B E Y O N D THE B E H A V I O R SETTING URS F U H R E R Program in Social Ecology, University o f California, Irvine, California 92717, U.S.A. Ordnung and Variabilitiit im Alltagsgeschehen (Order and Variability in Everyday Happenings). Edited by Gerhard Kaminski. G6ttingen, Toronto: Dr. C. J. Hogrefe, 1986, 279 pp. Gerhard Kam&ski studied psychology at the Free University of Berlin and in 1968, took a Chair in Cognitive and Ecological Psychology at the University of Tiibingen. His main areas of research interest are sports psychology, the psychology, the psychology of social action, and environmental psychology. Urs Fuhrer studied psychology at the Universities of Berne (Switzerland) and Tiibingen (West Germany). He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Berne in 1982 and worked then as an Assistant Professor at the University of Basel (Switzerland). He is working currently as a postdoctoral research fellow at the Program in Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine. His main areas of research interest are cognitive psychology, the psychology of social action, ecological psychology, and theoretical psychology.

If one shares the assessments of both Kaminski (1983) and Wicker (1985) of Roger G. Barker's ecological psychology, as an 'enigmatic' and a 'maverick' discipline, then this approach will need some serious efforts to support it. Ecological psychology still lacks widespread acceptance although it offers an almost unique theoretical conceptualization of the proximal environment of human actions; actions which are by no means uniformly or randomly distributed over the landscape but are clustered in a more or less standardized way within certain small places (cf. Barker et al., 1978). Within those places human action is concentrated in bounded regions, 'smallscale social systems' (Wicker, 1981, p. 25). These places are 'behavior settings', the fundamental environmental unit that forms the proximal environment of many molar actions (cf. Barker, 1978). Their 'discovery' was based on extensive observations of children's streams of behavior within their natural 'habitat'. As conceived by Barker (1968), a behavior setting refers to a common set of interrelated socio-cultural and temporal boundaries of a particular place in which particular individuals share specific recurring patterns of behavior to carry out the setting's essential functions, i.e. the setting program. For example, a public library is a behavior setting. Its program includes such routines as the staff's informing users how to borrow a particular book, the replacement of returned books to the shelf, and collecting fees for late returns. To facilitate the program, behaviors of people and arrangements of physical objects within the boundaries of the setting are highly coordinated. The boundaries of a behavior setting are both physical (the walls of the library) and temporal (its opening hours). In addition to these basic components behavior settings have many other characteristics (see Barker, 1968; Barker and Assoc., 1978; Wicker, 1983a). The behavior setting concept represents the crucial cornerstone of ecological psychology

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or eco-behavioral science, as the discipline was later called (cf. Barker et al., 1978). Eco-behavioral science evolved to explain behavior of people in terms of behavior settings and not in individual psychological terms as ecological psychology does. The theory and methodology of behavior settings represent innovative and fundamental contributions to modern psychology. This literature is probably the first and certainly the most ambitious attempt to develop an ecological perspective within psychology (cf. Ittelson et al., 1974; Stokols, 1985). Nevertheless, its acceptance within psychology in general, and even in environmental psychology, is scattered (cf. Kaminski, 1983; Wicker, 1985). Kaminski (1983) has used this discrepancy as an opportunity to describe ecological psychology as 'enigmatic'. Recently, this view is even shared within the Barker school itself (cf. Wicker, 1985; Barker, in press). Kaminski (1983), in reviewing three books from the Barker group, sees the reasons for the enigmatic situation in both the isolation of the Barker approach from mainstream psychology and the 'coarseness' of concepts which stems from the holistic, aggregated, and encompassing naturalistic claim of ecological psychology. Psychologists and other social scientists have also criticized Barker's tendency toward environmental determinism (e.g. Lave et al., 1984) evidenced by use of such concepts as environmental or social 'forces', which are said to regulate the behavior of setting inhabitants. What has not been mentioned by the critics is that conformity between environment and behavior is primarily observed on molar actions a n d that conformity is more frequently observed over long than short segments of the behavior stream (cf. Barker et al., 1978). Furthermore, socio-physical factors of the behavior setting, mentioned as 'forces', and based on the field-theoretical approach of Barker's mentor, Kurt Lewin, are primarily mediated by 'psychological forces' in addition to goals and needs of inhabitants. Barker would certainly agree that people have some degrees of freedom (actualized whenever the person's own goals and motives determine behavior), however, that does not by any means portray persons as independent of their proximal environment (cf. Barker, 1960). Nevertheless, Kaminski's article (1983) was the trigger to a lively discussion within and beyond the Barker group. Moos (1983), sees the most crippling limitation of behavior setting theory as its lack of attention to the psychology of the individual. Barker (1983) and Gump (1983) argue against the 'psychologizing' of behavior settings to maintain the truly ecological focus of the behavior setting perspective. Bechtel (1983) sees the limitations of methodology, i.e. prohibitive consumption of time and resources in carrying out a behavior setting survey. Wicker (1983b) criticizes the lack of linkages from ecological psychology to related fields. Nevertheless the behavior setting concept is becoming actively incorporated into social science theory and research (Schoggen, 1983). The dilemmas of ecological psychology and the behavior setting still exist. This article will show ways for supporting Barker's behavior settiiag concept with the help of the book to be reviewed. Interdisciplinary Analysis of the 'Behavior Setting' Concept In June 1981, nearly 30 years after the 'discovery' of the behavior setting, a group of German psychologists, social scientists and environmental planners, looking for a useful interdisciplinary theoretical framework for environment-behavior research and practice, found the concept challenging enough to discuss it at a symposium on

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the 'Development, Status, and Applicability of the Behavior Setting Concept'. The articles from the symposium, subsequently revised and updated, are presented in Ordnung und Variabilitiit im Alltagsgeschehen (Order and Variability in Everyday Happenings), edited by Gerhard Kaminski. In the introduction, Kaminski asserts that the most specific contribution of the 'behavior setting' concept is its revelation o f highly structured arrangements of objects and events within the variable ecological environment. For example, in church people sit on pews that allow them to see the priest. Focusing on 'behavior settings', however, implies a reduction of the broad range of everyday life events. On the one hand, the transition from one behavior setting to another (e.g. from a church to a restaurant) is ignored in the traditional behavior setting approach. On the other hand, deviant behaviors are not easily included in behavior settings to a comparable extent. For example, the behavior streams of newcomers in certain behavior settings are very different from each other because their behavior is not only determined by behavior setting characteristics, but also on newcomer's goals and the prior experience and the meanings they attach to the sociophysical milieu of the setting (see Fuhrer, 1986). Therefore, attempts to elaborate Barker's behavior setting should take this into account. The subsequent section ('The Behavior Setting Concept in the Barker School') presents the behavior setting in its original form and in its recent developments. The article by Jens-Joerg Koch (University of Paderborn) presents the behavior setting in its classical form. The article by Winfried Saup (University of Augsburg) is an extended essay on classical behavior setting and its origins. He also presents some important elaborations of the concept within the Barker school (e.g. the concept of 'manning' and its further developments by Wicker). Both articles are enriched by several critical comments. For example, the homeostatic nature of behavior settings and the lack of focusing on the inhabitants as psychological beings was criticized. However, recent work by Wicker and his associates focusing on life cycles of settings is actually an elaboration of the more stable and episodic view of behavior settings as it was interpreted within the classical approach (cf. Wicker, in press; Wicker and King, in press). This life cycle perspective of settings also recognizes the role of contextual factors (e.g. social, economical, cultural), the links that exist among settings within broader community structures, and the cognitions and motives of setting founders (Wicker, in press). In the third section ('Experiences with the Behavior Setting Concept in Empirical Research') three research projects using the behavior setting concept are reported. Agnes Schaible-Rapp and Helmut von Benda (Technical University of Munich and University of Erlangen-Niirnberg) analysed problem solving in work environments as a function of physical characteristics of the context. However, the behavior setting unit of analysis did not seem to be sufficiently sensitive to describe both qualitative differences of molar behavior and aspects of the physical environment in their functional quality effecting problem solving. For example, solving a problem within 'behavior settings' is influenced differently by either spontaneous or compulsory communications. However, in both cases the communicative behavior was classified as a kind of 'social contact'. Concerning this lack of precision in descriptive categories, a certain room, for example, itself communicates little about the setting program and the way people will solve a problem. Therefore, the physical characteristics of the milieu should be related to the functional meaning they have for acting

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individuals. However, these statements are not developed in a convincing manner, nor are they linked to empirical data. Amelie Mummendey and Volker Linneweber (University of M/inster and University of Saarbriicken), primarily working on aggressive interactions, present a taxonomy for describing underlying social dimensions. Although they interpret aggressive acts as resulting from person-environment transactions, they did not use the behavior setting concept as a unit of analysis. Rather they used the concept of 'situation' as it is widely accepted in social psychology. They nevertheless make a genuine effort to link their work with the behavior setting concept. Agreeing with Schaible-Rapp and von Benda, they judge the behavior setting concept as not sufficiently specific to describe the characteristics of the socio-physical and normative context that people use as 'information' in judging aggression. Both articles suggest the need for further elaboration of the descriptive parameters of the behavior setting concept if it is to be useful for studies of these types. Walter Molt, (University of Augsburg) has taken precisely this direction in an article dealing with the influence of streets, as behavior settings, on human behavior. In a first step, he elaborates the behavior setting concept in several ways. These elaborations emphasize the synomorphic relationship between setting participants, driven by certain expectations, and the setting itself in its use-oriented functions. The setting program is of utmost importance. Discrepancies between participants' behavior and expectations about the behavior required by the setting program cause interventions into the setting for maintaining its essential functions. On this basis, several types of streets were described and systematized in a taxonomic order. Finally, in four field experiments on prosocial behavior, particular deviances or 'disturbances' were arranged, such as an experimenter riding a bicycly clumsily emptied his bag of oranges over a street. The results showed that everyone helped in eliminating the 'disturbances'. The degree of 'disturbance', objectively always the same, varied with the subjective interpretation of the surrounding within which the 'disturbances' happened. The program seems disturbed when the oranges roll on a street with a lot of traffic, whereas in a street without any traffic the program was not disturbed. This is an excellent example of how the behavior setting concept, partially elaborated to fit a particular research question, can serve as a useful theoretical background for the empirical analysis of a particular kind of everyday behavior. The next section ('Psychological Recommendations for Innovations of the Behavior Setting Concept') presents further contributions and suggestions on how the behavior setting concept should continue to be theoretically and empirically developed in the future. All three authors, each in a different way, set themselves the goal of 'psychologizing' 'behavior settings', interpreted as a 'pre-psychological' concept, by integrating the behavior setting concept more closely with concepts, methods, and lines of inquiry from other psychological subdiscipline s. This is in accordance with recent transactional conceptualizations of settings by Stokols (1981), Stokols and Shumaker (1981), and the life cycle perspective on settings by Wicker (in press). The article by Ernst Boesch (University of Saarbruecken) demonstrates how 'behavior settings' are embedded in certain 'action-fields', i.e. comprehensive and temporally enduring goal structures (e.g. the family, a friendship). From this point of view, behavior settings serve one's purpose(s) concerning those 'action-fields':

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settings have a certain valence and functional meanings for certain actions. For example, the behavior of a person visiting a particular restaurant for lunch with a colleague is likely to differ from his behavior when he visits the same restaurant to dine with his wife. In the former case the restaurant is a component of the working 'action-field', whereas in the latter case the restaurant is part of the family 'actionfield'. The functional meanings attached to the sociophysical milieu of the restaurant differ from one case to the other, and therefore, the restaurant setting is used differently (e.g. the choice of the table, the duration of staying in the restaurant, the interaction with the partner). Boesch suggests a combination of research on behavior settings and research on 'action-fields' for a better understanding of how the sociophysical components of behavior settings in their meaning-relatedness are coordinated with the goals and motives of setting participants. He thus calls attention to the psychological and symbolic meanings of the socio-physical and temporal milieu of behavior settings through the coordination of action-field specific and placespecific actions with characteristics of participants (see also Stokols and Jacobi, 1984). Lenelis Kruse (University of Heidelberg) examines cognitions of setting occupants that are largely ignored by the theory of behavior settings (cf. Wicker, in press). Kruse emphasizes the social and sociocultural nature of behavior settings, which implies a focus on people's cognitive representations of behavior settings, particularly of setting programs which are the basis for setting-specific acting and speaking. This perspective implies, as suggested by Wicker (in press), that behavior settings are, to varying degrees, social constructions, i.e. the result of social transactions among setting participants. Kruse links the behavior setting concept to the script concept from Schank and Abelson (cf. Abelson, 1981). The latter in some ways, appearsto be a 'rediscovery' (Wicker, in press) of behavior setting programs from a cognitive point of view (cf. also Fuhrer, 1985b; 1986). However, there is also empirical evidence from everyday situations where setting participants act and speak within behavior settings successively in a specific, sometimes changing manner (e.g. by 'code switching'; cf. Gazdar, 1980), or fail to do so (e.g. sitting in a particular fast-food restaurant waiting for a waitress when one has to place an order with the cashier). Kruse's article suggests a promising basis for integrating ecological psychology, social psychology, and the psychology of language to focus on the description and interpretation of setting-specific actions and talk. Such cross-fertilization between the psychology of scripts and behavior setting theory seems possible (cf. Fuhrer, 1986), however, the linkage between psychological concepts (e.g. scripts) and the behavior setting as a nonpsychological environmental unit is not as 'direct' as Kruse believes. She underestimates the ecological-psychological 'gap problem' (see Fuhrer, 1985b; in press). Furthermore, the knowledge needed for becoming familiar with a behavior setting is more than 'script learning', i.e. more than the acquisition of a behavior setting program. A newcomer structures an unfamiliar setting cognitively with the aid of a plurality of both behavior setting-related and non behavior settingrelated knowledge systems (cf. Fuhrer, 1985a; 1985b; 1986; Kaminski, 1985). The starting point for Gerhard Kaminski's (University of Tfibingen) paper is the fact that traditional behavior setting surveys and analyses require large amounts of time and other resources. Kaminski believes this fact led to a 'coarser' conception of everyday behavior and its environments than was appropriate, resulting in the isol-

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ation of ecological psychology from other fields, which are usually more specialized and more restricted. Kaminski favors a more psychologically-oriented naturalistic analysis of behavior settings. There are different options for how to deal with such an analysis. The various alternatives are based on different conceptual presuppositions about how to assess and interpret behavior setting-related events. These presuppositions (called 'paradigms') refer to different categorical aspects of the complex reality of behavior settings. Kaminski distinguished eight such 'domains of presuppositions'. For example, he refers to social implications, environmental differentiation, and 'grain of activity-environment interlacing'. Within each of these 'domains', presuppositions of different degrees of simplicity or complexity can be chosen. Some of the most simple levels of differentiation are so coarse that they lie beyond the common implications typical of psychological approaches. Thus, behavior settings and their happenings could be described and analysed on different paradigmatic levels (called 'paradigm-specific behavior setting analysis'). A paradigm would equal a set of presuppositions where in each of those categorical 'domains' one level has to be chosen. However, scientists are then confronted with a serious dilemma or trade-off between extent and depth of analysis: If it seems necessary to analyze on a fine-grained level, i.e. very detailed, then we can afford it only for a small section of a behavior setting. For example, within the domain of activity differentiation one can assume that the stream of behavior consists of multiple actions at the same time (cf. Barker, 1963; Fuhrer, 1984). If on the other hand, we want to understand a behavior setting in its entirety, as it was Barker's intention, then we can afford this only at very coarse-grained, and therefore, 'subpsychological' levels. It is evident too, that behavior settings could be analysed in a much finer-grained manner than Barker did. However, this would require a great deal of resources. Nevertheless, it becomes evident that it would be necessary to work out criteria and rules for deciding systematically when to choose one or another paradigm for dealing with such complex sociophysical systems as behavior settings. Kaminski's 'paradigm-specific analysis' shows a useful and promising strategy for dealing scientifically with the extent-depth dilemma of behavior setting research. In the fifth section ('The Behavior Setting Concept in the View of other Social Scientists') an anthropologist, a sociologist and a behavioral geographer localize and judge the value of the behavior setting concept from the perspective of their disciplines. Ina Maria Greverus (University of Frankfurt), a cultural anthropologist, indicates that behavior settings are cultural products, and as such, they are embedded in particular cultural communities. In that respect, she is in close correspondence with Kruse and Wicker (in press) concerning the social and cultural nature of behavior settings. Therefore, the values of a particular society or subgroup influence behavior settings of this society. An important question is thus the degree of congruence between the types of behavior settings and the intentions of their founders on the one hand, and the cultural values of the setting participants on the other hand. Thus, instead of evoking the same behavioral response from any person who might enter a behavior setting, the socio-physical arrangement that makes up the setting 'works' only for the individuals who share and understand the actual values they encode. In that respect, the behavior setting concept becomes a key function within the analysis of cultural communities and their philosophy of life (see also Welz, 1984). This could also be a very promising strategy for cultural anthropology

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in combining a more molar analysis of certain cultural contexts with the analysis of their behavior settings as quasi 'micro-cultural systems' and in looking for the degree of 'synomorphy' between these contexts and these settings. Bernd Hamm (University of Trier) compares the Barker approach with the social ecological approach within modern sociology. He identifies differences which stem from Barker's attempt to develop a more aggregated conceptualization of environment-behavior phenomena. Hamm, like Boesch and Greverus, mentions the importance of behavior settings as vehicles of functional and social meanings and of symbolic meanings of historical experiences. In that respect, Hamm's work is parallel with recent work by Stokols and Jacobi (1984) on the role of traditional meanings as a major determinant of the affective and symbolic significance of places. Peter Weber (University of Miinster) presents several recent theoretical approaches from behavioral geography. He points to the value of the behavior setting concept in describing spatial and temporal boundaries for individuals and groups. His work could also be of help in counteracting the individual-biased perspective within the field of behavioral geography. The articles in the sixth section ('The Behavior Setting Concept within the Practice of Environmental Planning') consider the utility of the behavior setting concept for architecture, city planning, and social impact assessment. Janos J. Zimmermann (University of Karlsruhe) gives a partial insight into the work situation of an architect and planner. In the everyday process of decision making within the field of city planning the behavior setting concept is not used explicitly. However, planners' decisions are based more implicitly on a quasi behavior setting unit. This argument stems from the fact that the creation of settings and their planning are based on assumptions about particular setting-specific behavior patterns. He demonstrates how the behavior setting concept could be used within the different phases of the planning process. He points also to the necessity of further development of the concept in order to make it more suitable for describing institutional, organizational, socio-economic and cultural influences on settings. This suggestion is in close correspondence with recent research work on settings by Wicker and his co-workers, who have examined the importance of both intra-setting dynamics of social organizations and inter-setting linkages as components within broader community structures (cf. Wicker, in press; Wicker and King, in press). Hans-Joachim Harloff (Technical University of West Berlin) has used empirical data from a Behavior Setting Survey (BSS) conducted in the American Midwest. He demonstrates the usefulness of the behavior setting concept for both environmental planning and social impact assessment. Harloff considers the 'centiurb' measure of habitat extent (Barker, 1978, p. 234) as a first approximation of the quality of life within a community. The larger the centiurb measure of habitat extent, the greater are the molar behavior opportunities and requirements within a certain time period. Data from a real planning case (Perry Dam; Jefferson County, Kansas) indicate how the public life of a community is affected by the construction of a dam. Nevertheless, Harloff had some difficulties using a BSS for environmental planning and social impact assessment. He has suggested here ways to deal with them. First, the extent of a BSS could be reduced by selecting only particular types of behavior settings according to the question(s) of a particular planning case (see also Bechtel, 1977). For example, in an economically motivated planning study one could select only economically-oriented authority systems. Second, difficulties stemming from

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assigning behavior settings to potential users group (e.g. for predicting the impact of new settings on their neighbourhoods). Third, the quality of life measured by 'centiurbs' should be complemented by additional measures. Harloff suggested the combination of measures of habitat extent and habitat variety. The latter seems also to be underrepresented within the classical BSS. Finally, in addition to the centiurb measure, which is especially useful for smaller communities or corresponding parts of communities, one should develop corresponding measures for cities and towns over a million inhabitants. This undertaking could be a promising starting point for use of the behavior setting concept by urban planners and community managers. Antje Flade and Ursula Bauer (Institute for 'Wohnen und Umwelt', Darmstadt) were interested in whether architectural students introduced into the behavior setting concept would use it when designing a particular classroom (e.g. with regard to the size a n d the arrangement of school desks for a certain number of pupils). The results of their empirical study showed that only those students based their design on the behavior setting concept who recognized and represented the inter-relationship between behavioral components, required by the setting program, and their physical milieu. The study, however, was not well designed (e.g. an experimental/ control-group comparison is missing), and therefore, such questions, as defining precise criteria taken as indicative for using the behavior setting concept either explicitly or implicitly remained unanswered. In the seventh and final section the editor of the book summarizes the main findings of the undertaking. Aside from listing the innovative contributions of the work done by the Barker school (e.g. propagating both a naturalistic approach and an extensive description of behavior streams, and working on the aggregate level by focusing on small-scale social systems within psychological research), Kaminski notes that the behavior setting concept is still not sufficiently assimilated within psychological theorizing and research. He takes this fact as an indication that the behavior setting concept is not a genuine psychological concept, but is rather a 'prepsychological construct'. The articles by Boesch and by the social scientists fro.m neighboring fields have also documented that the individual behavior setting units are largely regarded as isolated from each other. The traditional literature does not focus on intersetting linkages, socio-physical and cultural surrounding of settings, and the value systems of encompassing communities or societies. It is not surprising therefore that the behavior setting concept has not penetrated the social sciences (a notable exception is the work of economist Karl Fox, 1985). Finally, and confusing for psychologists, is the broad focus in describing environment-behavioral phenomena. This is a perspective that contrasts with mainstream psychology, which is largely an experimentally oriented, 'small-range science'. In sum, the articles make clear the difficulty of getting close to the behavior setting concept because it seems so 'self-sufficient' (Kaminski), i.e. not taking into account other social science disciplines focusing on certain attributes of the socio-cultural environment which in turn are also parts of behavior settings. Therefore, the behavior setting concept is in many respects isolated from traditional psychology and social sciences (cf. Wicker, 1985). However, the book represents the first intensive and interdisciplinary oriented examination of Barker's behavior setting concept. In that respect, it represents an excellent source of promising ideas that challenge and offer vitality to the behavior setting concept. What the book lacks is an intensive discussion of the problem of how the

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influences that behavior settings as objective environmental units have. Any further elaboration of the behavior setting concept must deal with this basic, but neglected problem.

Psychological Ecology Furnishes 'Behavior Settings' for Psychology In the future, researchers using the behavior setting concept should deal with the problem that behavior settings are functioning 'according to laws that are incommensurate with laws governing molar behavior' (Barker, 1968, p. 6). Therefore, every attempt to link the behavior setting concept with psychological concepts will result in a 'conceptual breach' (Barker, 1968, p. 187). Thus it seems that psychology requires conceptual bridges to the behavior setting approach as an eco-behavioral, and not as an individual-biased discipline. A full understanding of behavior and its proximal socio-physical and temporal environment will still depend on both individual psychological concepts and eco-behavioral concepts, however. Lewin (1951), keenly aware of such incommensurabilities between psychological environments and the ecological environment, suggested the establishment of a new discipline, called 'psychological ecology'. This discipline would have the purpose of classifying where and how psychological and nonpsychological facts overlap (cf. Fuhrer, in press). There are at least two ways of developing a psychological ecology in the sense of Lewin (1951) which are not mutually exclusive: (1) The conceptual elaboration of the 'interface' between the psychological environments and the nonpsychological environment. These new psycho-ecological concepts, neither purely ecological nor purely psychological, should clarify how concepts from other scientific disciplines (e.g. eco-behavioral science) can be translated into psychological terms (cf. Fuhrer, in press). For example, the setting program is relevant by virtue of its 'rule-guided action structure', which prescribes both potential action steps and their order for inhabitants within a particular setting (cf. Fuhrer, in press). The purpose of Barker's eco-behavioral science should be the development of a framework for describing ecological structures and laws of the environment. From that, a psychological ecology should develop concepts that are relevant for both ecobehavioral science and psychology, but are still not psychological. The point of such a 'decoding' of ecological structures and laws is to show which components of behavior settings can be potentially relevant for acting individuals (cf. Fuhrer, in press). (2) To understand the inhabitants' behavior we have to know, in addition to the objective availability of certain behavior setting components, the psychological factors influencing the inhabitants who control the behavior setting. Lewin (1951) named these individuals gatekeepers. Gatekeeping means controlling a strategic portion of a channel--whether that channel is for the flow of goods, or information or people--so as to have the power of decision over whether whatever is flowing through the channel will enter the behavior setting, and therefore, the inhabitants, or not. The psychology of the gatekeepers encompasses a great variety of factors (e.g. cognitive, motivational and emotional factors). Therefore, the dominant question regarding an analysis of inhabitant actions within behavior settings is: Who is the gatekeeper and what is his psychology? The theory of gatekeepers helps to define in a more precise way how certain

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'objective' components (e.g. sociological, economic) and persons intersect with certain 'subjective' psychological factors. An elaboration of the idea of a psychological ecology, especially from an interdisciplinary point of view, would be a promising basis for both an ecological perspective within psychological theorizing and research (cf. Fuhrer, 1983) and for dealing with Barker's behavior setting concept as a supra-individual, and therefore, pre-psychological concept.

Acknowledgements I am grateful to Aris Janigian, Jeanne C. King, Dan Stokols, and Allan W. Wicker for their helpful comments on the manuscript and for their assistance in preparing the English version of this paper. The paper was written while the author was a research fellow at the Program in Social Ecology at the University of California, Irvine, with a grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation (81.167.0.84).

References Abelson, R. P. (1981). Psychological status of the script concept. American Psychologist, 37, 717-727. Barker, R. G. (1960). Ecology and motivation. In R. R. Jones (ed), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press pp. 1-50. Barker, R. G. (1968). Ecological Psychology. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Barker R. G. (1978). Measures of habitat and behavior output. In R. G. Barker and Assoc., Habitats, Environments, and Human Behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 229-244. Barker R. G. (1979). Settings of a professional life-time. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37, 2137-2157. Barker, R. G. (1983). Will the enigma go away? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 173174. Barker R. G. (in press). Prospecting in environmental psychology. In D. Stokols and I. Altman (ed), Handbook of Environmental Psychology. New York: Wiley. Barker R. G. and Assoc. (1978). Habitats, Environments, and Human Behavior. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Bechtel, R. B. (1977). Enclosing Behavior. Stroudsburg, PA: Dowden, Hutchinson & Ross. Bechtel, R. B. (1983). Shall we gather at the river? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 174-175. Fox, K. A. (1985). Social Systems Accounts: Linking Social and Economic Indicators through Tangible Behavior Settings. Dordrecht, Boston: D. Reidel. Fuhrer, U. (1983). Oekopsychologie: some general implications from a particular literature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 239-252. Fuhrer, U. (1984). Mehrfachhandeln in dynamischen Umfeldern (Multiple acting in dynamic fields). Gfttingen, Toronto: Hogrefe. Fuhrer, U. (1985a). Handlungsanalyse durch Setting-Program-Analyse (Action analysis by setting program analysis). Zeitschrift fiir Experimentelle und Angewandte Psychologie, 2, 194-216. Fuhrer, U. (1985b). Das Konzept 'Behavior Setting': Uberlegungen zu seiner fiir Psychologie relevanten 'Aufbereitung' (The behaviour setting concept: reflections on its preparation for psychology). In P. Day, U. Fuhrer and U. Laucken (eds), Umwelt und Handeln (Environment and acting). Tiibingen: Attempto, pp. 239-261. Fuhrer, U. (1986). Der Erwerb von 'Programm-Wissen' in Abh~ingigkeit vom Vorwissen sowie vonder Komplexit/it des settingbezogenen Kontextes (The acquisition of 'program knowledge' as a function of both prior knowledge and setting complexity). Zeitschrift fiir Experimentelle und Angewandte Psychologie, 2, 11-42. Fuhrer, .U. (in press). Bridging the ecological-psychological gap: contextual theorizing. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour.

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Gazdar, G. (1980). Pragmatic constraints on linguistic production. In B. Butterworth (ed), Language Production, Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press, pp. 49-67. Gump, P. V. (1983). Developing an eco-behavioral science. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 176-178. Ittelson, W. H., Proshansky, H. R., Rivlin, J. G. and Winkel, G. H. (1974). An Introduction to Environmental Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Kaminski, G. (1983). The enigma of ecological psychology. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 85-94. Kaminski, G. (1985). Cognitive bases of situation processing and behavior setting participation. Paper read at the conference 'Perspectives on Contemporary German Social Psychology', University of Sussex, Brighton, England, 21-22 September, 1985. Lave, J., Murtaugh, M. and de la Rocha, O. (1984). The dialectic of arithmetic in grocery shopping. In B. Rogoff and J. Lave (eds), Everyday Cognition: Its Development in Social Context. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 67-94. Lewin, K. (1951). Field Theory in the Social Sciences. New York: Harper. Moos, R. H. (1983). The evolution of ecological psychology: coping with environmental complexity. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 178-180. Schoggen, P. (1983). A brighter future. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 182-183. Stokols, D. (1981). Group x place transactions: some neglected issues in psychological research on settings. In D. Magnusson (ed.), Toward a Psychology of Situations. Hillsdale, N J: Erlbaum, pp. 393-415. Stokols, D. (1985). Theoretical and policy implications of ecological psychology for the management of environmental crisis. In P. Day, U. Fuhrer and U. Laucken (eds), Umwelt und Handeln (Environment and acting). Tiibingen: Attempto, pp. 1-28. Stokols, D. and Shumaker, S. A. (1981). People in places: a transactional view of settings. In J. H. Harvey (ed.), Cognition, Social Behavior, and Environment. Hillsdale, NJ: Eribaum, pp. 441-480. Stokols, D. and Jacobi, M. (1984). Traditional, present oriented, and futuristic modes of group-~nvironment relations. In K. J. Gergen and M. M. Gergen (eds), Historical Social Psychology. Hillsdale, N J: Erlbaum, pp. 441480. Weiz, G. (1984). Behavior settings in a changing cultural context. Man-Environment Systems, 14, (5 & 6), 233. Wicker, A. W. (1981). Nature and assessment of behavior settings: recent contributions from the ecological perspective. In P. McReynolds (ed.), Advances in Psychological Assessment, Vol. 5. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, pp. 22-61. Wicker, A. W. (1983a). An Introduction to Ecological Psychology. New York: Cambridge University Press (Original work published 1979). Wicker, A. W. (1983b). Further possibilities. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 3, 180-182. Wicker A. W. (1985). Whatever happened to ecological psychology? Contemporary Social Psychology, 11, 140-143. Wicker, A. W. (in press). Behavior settings reconsidered: temporal stages, resources, internal dynamics, context. In D. Stokois and I. Altman (eds), Handbook of Environmental Psychology. New York: Wiley. Wicker, A. W. and King, J. C. (in press). Life cycles of behavior settings. In J. P. McGrath (ed.), Research on Time: Studies Toward a Social Psychology of Time. Beverly Hills: Sage.