Behavior settings
Encyclopedia
Behavior settings are theorized entities that help explain the relationship between individuals and the environment - particularly the social environment. This topic is typically indexed under the larger rubric of 'Ecological (or Environmental) Psychology'. However, the notion of behavior setting is offered here in more detail and with more specificity than is found in the larger entry under 'Ecological Psychology
' or 'Environmental Psychology
'.
There has been a tendency in the social sciences generally to polarize arguments about consciousness, identity, behavior, and culture around either the mind existing 'in the head' or the mind being an artifact of social interaction. 'Mind'—in the sense used here—is understood as the motivation for behavior. Evidence indicates that both of these 'facts' are accurate. One of the problems social scientists have is understanding this paradox. Behavior settings are mediating structures that help explain the relationship between the dynamic behavior of individuals and stable social structure. Social scientist Roger Barker
first developed this theoretical framework in the late 1940s.
Behavior settings also may serve as a bridge between the foundational work of Humberto Maturana
& Francisco Varela
on Autopoiesis and the insights developed in American Pragmatism
and Continental Activity Theory
.
A behavior setting exists at the interface between the standing patterns of behavior and the milieu
(environment), wherein the behavior
is happening in the 'milieu', and the 'milieu' in some sense "matches" the 'behavior'. In technical parlance, the "behavior-milieu interface" is called the synomorph, and the 'milieu' is said to be circumjacent and 'synomorphic' to the 'behavior'.
In a dentist’s office, for example, "patients get their cavities filled". This is the standing pattern (the behavior/milieu part or 'synomorph') because we are in the office (the 'milieu' surrounds us, i.e. 'circumjacent') and the pieces of the 'milieu' 'fit' the standing pattern (the drill is meant to fit in my mouth and drill my tooth, i.e. 'synomorphic' with the 'behavior'). Further, to be considered a 'behavior setting', these 'behavior/milieu parts' or 'synomorphs' must have a specific degree of interdependence
that is greater than their interdependence with other parts of other settings.
There is an empirical test that can determine the relative robustness of behavior settings, depending on the index of interdependence between and among specific standing patterns of behavior. By itself, a standing pattern of behavior is meaningless; it would be like watching a person pretending to go to the dentist’s office and having a cavity filled. Also, a dentist’s office without patients (or the possibility of patients) would be a meaningless artifact.
So, a behavior setting is a self-referenced (internally interdependent and self-defined) entity that consists of one or more standing patterns of behavior. Just as the standing pattern is synomorphic with the artifacts in the milieu, so are standing patterns synomorphic with other standing patterns in the behavior setting. We see in the eminent ecological psychologist, Roger G. Barker’s conception, an elegant and stable view of the nested interrelationships that exist within our common experience. The pieces fit, and in their fitting we see the larger structure-in-a-context that is necessary for making claims about development, causality
, or purpose.
"Ecological units" exist at the interface between the ecological environment and certain practice of molar behavior. These units exist in the physiological, social
, psychological, and behavioral realms and share three common attributes:
An ecological unit is a composite of an 'environment piece' and a 'behavior piece'. They are hybrid artifacts that exist as quasi-objective entities, much like Searle’s "observer-relative features of the world" (Searle, 1995). An example that Barker (1968) uses (p.11) is a road—a road is a track (physical feature) used for travelling or carrying goods (expression of 'molar behavior'). The coupling of a molar behavior to an environmental feature (affordance
) is the mechanism through which the reciprocal relations between different levels of nested or related phenomena occur. The ecological unit is the foundation for the concept of a 'behavior setting' which was defined above. More generally, it seems that this notion captures the relationship of any organism
to its niche
and is captured by Reed (1996) in his discussion of the 'affordance'.
Barker also develops a useful analogy for conceptualizing this relation, as well as preparing readers for later claims about behavior settings. He observes that 'molar behavior' is to the 'ecological environment', just as 'visual perception' is to 'light'; i.e. in order to understand visual perception, you have to understand light, independent from visual perception. If we were only to look at the eye-optic channel at the instant that light hit the receptor surface, we would know nothing of depth of field
, focus
, or perspective
.
The behavior setting concept could be very useful in the field of architectural programming, architectural design, as well as in urban planning and design. It is the very challenge for behavior setting theory today to be used in those fields: architects and behavioral scientists still are not in full contact in design and research issues. The kind of ecological unity devised by Roger Barker connects strongly and consistently behavior and physical features of ordinary - and those not-so-ordinary settings in universities, labs, hospitals, etc.
According to Barker (1968), conducting a behavior setting survey consists of the measurement of eleven key descriptive attributes:
There are two temporal attributes: Occurrence (O), the number of days in a year the behavior setting is capable of occurring, and Duration (D), the number of hours the behavior setting functions during a year. Population (P) is the number of different persons who inhabit the behavior setting during the year. These three basic attributes allow for a calculation of Occupancy Time (OT), the number of person-hours spent in the behavior setting. It is the product of the occurrences (O), the average number of inhabitants per occurrence (P/O), and the average duration per occurrence (D/O).
Penetration (Pe) is the degree to which an inhabitant is involved in the setting and consists of six incremental zones, ranging from onlooker to leader. Using these divisions, the average depth of penetration can be determined for population subgroups (e.g., frequency of minority students being leaders in a club).
Action Patterns (AP) are the functional attributes of the patterns of behavior (e.g., religion, education, and recreation). For each action variable, researchers note the activity’s frequency (participation subscale), its production of materials for use in another setting (supply subscale), and whether the activity is evaluated (appreciation subscale). Behavior Mechanisms (BM) are the modalities through which behavior is implemented in the setting, such as gross motor activity, talking, or thinking. Researchers note each mechanism’s frequency (participation subscale), the speed of the behavior (tempo subscale), and the expenditure of energy (intensity subscale).
Richness is a composite measure of the variety of behavior within the setting. It is computed from the prior attributes using the following formula: (∑Pe + ∑AP + ∑BM)OT/100
Pressure is the degree to which external forces act upon a person to approach/enter or avoid/withdraw from the setting. For example, a setting can be required (a child is for a class at school), invited (a child welcomed to a Sunday School class), or prohibited (a child is excluded from a bar). Welfare is the relevance of the setting to a particular group of inhabitants; that is, whether the group is served by the setting, whether the group serves others in the setting, or whether the setting instigates and supports other settings relevant to the group. Finally, the Local Autonomy of the behavior setting is the geographic level at which the setting’s operations are determined (e.g., town, district, county, state).
Ecological psychology
Ecological psychology is a term claimed by a number of schools of psychology. However, the two main ones are one on the writings of James J. Gibson, and another on the work of Roger G. Barker, Herb Wright and associates at the University of Kansas in Lawrence...
' or 'Environmental Psychology
Environmental psychology
Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments...
'.
There has been a tendency in the social sciences generally to polarize arguments about consciousness, identity, behavior, and culture around either the mind existing 'in the head' or the mind being an artifact of social interaction. 'Mind'—in the sense used here—is understood as the motivation for behavior. Evidence indicates that both of these 'facts' are accurate. One of the problems social scientists have is understanding this paradox. Behavior settings are mediating structures that help explain the relationship between the dynamic behavior of individuals and stable social structure. Social scientist Roger Barker
Roger Barker
Roger Garlock Barker was a social scientist, a founder of environmental psychology and a leading figure in the field for decades, perhaps best known for his development of the concept of behavior settings....
first developed this theoretical framework in the late 1940s.
Behavior settings also may serve as a bridge between the foundational work of Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana
Humberto Maturana is a Chilean biologist and philosopher. He is considered a member of the second wave of cybernetics, known for developing a theory of autopoiesis about the nature of reflexive feedback control in living systems.- Biography :After completing secondary school at the Liceo Manuel de...
& Francisco Varela
Francisco Varela
Francisco Javier Varela García , was a Chilean biologist, philosopher and neuroscientist who, together with his teacher Humberto Maturana, is best known for introducing the concept of autopoiesis to biology.-Biography:...
on Autopoiesis and the insights developed in American Pragmatism
Pragmatism
Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition centered on the linking of practice and theory. It describes a process where theory is extracted from practice, and applied back to practice to form what is called intelligent practice...
and Continental Activity Theory
Activity theory
Activity theory is a psychological meta-theory, paradigm, or theoretical framework, with its roots in Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky's cultural-historical psychology. Its founders were Alexei N...
.
A behavior setting exists at the interface between the standing patterns of behavior and the milieu
Milieu
Milieu is the word for environment in French, and, for hundreds of years, also in Dutch, Swedish, English, and other languages that were strongly influenced by French culture and French language, primarily during the 17th and 18th centuries....
(environment), wherein the behavior
Behavior
Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...
is happening in the 'milieu', and the 'milieu' in some sense "matches" the 'behavior'. In technical parlance, the "behavior-milieu interface" is called the synomorph, and the 'milieu' is said to be circumjacent and 'synomorphic' to the 'behavior'.
In a dentist’s office, for example, "patients get their cavities filled". This is the standing pattern (the behavior/milieu part or 'synomorph') because we are in the office (the 'milieu' surrounds us, i.e. 'circumjacent') and the pieces of the 'milieu' 'fit' the standing pattern (the drill is meant to fit in my mouth and drill my tooth, i.e. 'synomorphic' with the 'behavior'). Further, to be considered a 'behavior setting', these 'behavior/milieu parts' or 'synomorphs' must have a specific degree of interdependence
Interdependence
Interdependence is a relation between its members such that each is mutually dependent on the others. This concept differs from a simple dependence relation, which implies that one member of the relationship can function or survive apart from the other....
that is greater than their interdependence with other parts of other settings.
There is an empirical test that can determine the relative robustness of behavior settings, depending on the index of interdependence between and among specific standing patterns of behavior. By itself, a standing pattern of behavior is meaningless; it would be like watching a person pretending to go to the dentist’s office and having a cavity filled. Also, a dentist’s office without patients (or the possibility of patients) would be a meaningless artifact.
So, a behavior setting is a self-referenced (internally interdependent and self-defined) entity that consists of one or more standing patterns of behavior. Just as the standing pattern is synomorphic with the artifacts in the milieu, so are standing patterns synomorphic with other standing patterns in the behavior setting. We see in the eminent ecological psychologist, Roger G. Barker’s conception, an elegant and stable view of the nested interrelationships that exist within our common experience. The pieces fit, and in their fitting we see the larger structure-in-a-context that is necessary for making claims about development, causality
Causality
Causality is the relationship between an event and a second event , where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first....
, or purpose.
Ecological units
"Ecological units" exist at the interface between the ecological environment and certain practice of molar behavior. These units exist in the physiological, social
Social
The term social refers to a characteristic of living organisms...
, psychological, and behavioral realms and share three common attributes:
- they are self-generated, as opposed to resulting from the observer’s or researchers interest or manipulation;
- they have a time-space locus; and
- they have a boundary separating the internal pattern of the unit from the external pattern of surround.
An ecological unit is a composite of an 'environment piece' and a 'behavior piece'. They are hybrid artifacts that exist as quasi-objective entities, much like Searle’s "observer-relative features of the world" (Searle, 1995). An example that Barker (1968) uses (p.11) is a road—a road is a track (physical feature) used for travelling or carrying goods (expression of 'molar behavior'). The coupling of a molar behavior to an environmental feature (affordance
Affordance
An affordance is a quality of an object, or an environment, which allows an individual to perform an action. For example, a knob affords twisting, and perhaps pushing, while a cord affords pulling...
) is the mechanism through which the reciprocal relations between different levels of nested or related phenomena occur. The ecological unit is the foundation for the concept of a 'behavior setting' which was defined above. More generally, it seems that this notion captures the relationship of any organism
Organism
In biology, an organism is any contiguous living system . In at least some form, all organisms are capable of response to stimuli, reproduction, growth and development, and maintenance of homoeostasis as a stable whole.An organism may either be unicellular or, as in the case of humans, comprise...
to its niche
Ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is a term describing the relational position of a species or population in its ecosystem to each other; e.g. a dolphin could potentially be in another ecological niche from one that travels in a different pod if the members of these pods utilize significantly different food...
and is captured by Reed (1996) in his discussion of the 'affordance'.
Barker also develops a useful analogy for conceptualizing this relation, as well as preparing readers for later claims about behavior settings. He observes that 'molar behavior' is to the 'ecological environment', just as 'visual perception' is to 'light'; i.e. in order to understand visual perception, you have to understand light, independent from visual perception. If we were only to look at the eye-optic channel at the instant that light hit the receptor surface, we would know nothing of depth of field
Depth of field
In optics, particularly as it relates to film and photography, depth of field is the distance between the nearest and farthest objects in a scene that appear acceptably sharp in an image...
, focus
Focus (optics)
In geometrical optics, a focus, also called an image point, is the point where light rays originating from a point on the object converge. Although the focus is conceptually a point, physically the focus has a spatial extent, called the blur circle. This non-ideal focusing may be caused by...
, or perspective
Perspective (visual)
Perspective, in context of vision and visual perception, is the way in which objects appear to the eye based on their spatial attributes; or their dimensions and the position of the eye relative to the objects...
.
The behavior setting concept could be very useful in the field of architectural programming, architectural design, as well as in urban planning and design. It is the very challenge for behavior setting theory today to be used in those fields: architects and behavioral scientists still are not in full contact in design and research issues. The kind of ecological unity devised by Roger Barker connects strongly and consistently behavior and physical features of ordinary - and those not-so-ordinary settings in universities, labs, hospitals, etc.
Surveying a Behavior Setting
According to Barker (1968), conducting a behavior setting survey consists of the measurement of eleven key descriptive attributes:
- Occurrence
- Duration
- Population
- Occupancy Time
- Penetration
- Action Patterns
- Behavior Mechanisms
- Richness
- Pressure
- Welfare
- Local Autonomy
There are two temporal attributes: Occurrence (O), the number of days in a year the behavior setting is capable of occurring, and Duration (D), the number of hours the behavior setting functions during a year. Population (P) is the number of different persons who inhabit the behavior setting during the year. These three basic attributes allow for a calculation of Occupancy Time (OT), the number of person-hours spent in the behavior setting. It is the product of the occurrences (O), the average number of inhabitants per occurrence (P/O), and the average duration per occurrence (D/O).
Penetration (Pe) is the degree to which an inhabitant is involved in the setting and consists of six incremental zones, ranging from onlooker to leader. Using these divisions, the average depth of penetration can be determined for population subgroups (e.g., frequency of minority students being leaders in a club).
Action Patterns (AP) are the functional attributes of the patterns of behavior (e.g., religion, education, and recreation). For each action variable, researchers note the activity’s frequency (participation subscale), its production of materials for use in another setting (supply subscale), and whether the activity is evaluated (appreciation subscale). Behavior Mechanisms (BM) are the modalities through which behavior is implemented in the setting, such as gross motor activity, talking, or thinking. Researchers note each mechanism’s frequency (participation subscale), the speed of the behavior (tempo subscale), and the expenditure of energy (intensity subscale).
Richness is a composite measure of the variety of behavior within the setting. It is computed from the prior attributes using the following formula: (∑Pe + ∑AP + ∑BM)OT/100
Pressure is the degree to which external forces act upon a person to approach/enter or avoid/withdraw from the setting. For example, a setting can be required (a child is for a class at school), invited (a child welcomed to a Sunday School class), or prohibited (a child is excluded from a bar). Welfare is the relevance of the setting to a particular group of inhabitants; that is, whether the group is served by the setting, whether the group serves others in the setting, or whether the setting instigates and supports other settings relevant to the group. Finally, the Local Autonomy of the behavior setting is the geographic level at which the setting’s operations are determined (e.g., town, district, county, state).