HUMAN ECOLOGY AS AN INTERDISCIPLINARY CONCEPT
23
correlations were found to be significant and the cultural traits the
dependent variable, Vayda and Rappaport still strongly question the
“inevitability” of the traits. As with Harris, these critics of Steward’s
method do not reject the concept of cultural ecology but instead make a
case for the need of a systems approach: “there presumably are feedbacks operating between social factors and ecological adaptations, and
it [is] necessary to look for circular or reticulate relations between effects
and causes rather than for simple one-way linear cause-to-effect
sequences”. A successful move into systems analysis would also diminish
or eliminate those problems in the approach considered most serious by
Harris.
The foregoing presentation has been concerned primarily with the
development of an ecological approach in cultural anthropology. But it
should be recognized that the applicability of ecology in the discipline
does not end there (see Watson and Watson, 1969). Scattered in the
literature are attempts to apply ecological concepts in physical anthropology and in archaeology. One example of the former is Newman’s
(1953) study of the applicability of Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules
(Bergmann, 1847; Allen, 1877) to human beings, or, for a more general
appraisal, examine the essay by Weiner (1959) (see also Roberts, 1952).
In archaeology, reference should be made to the surveys of Barth (1950),
Meighan et al. (1958) and Quimby (1960).
3. Ecological psychology
If the proponents of an ecological approach to psychology are correct,
then there is at least the beginning of a revolution taking place in that
discipline: an accelerating movement out of the laboratory with its
controlled experiments on human behavior and into the field for direct
observation of behavior under uncontrolled, field conditions: observation of behavior in an unconditioned environment.
It is fairly widely accepted that the studies of Roger Barker and
Herbert Wright (1955; see also Wright and Barker, 1952) on the children
of the town of Midwest, Kansas (beginning in 1947), were the pioneering
efforts in this ecological psychology, a term employed by Barker and
Wright and their students and followers. It is in fact so well established
there-and so isolated there-that some wag described it as “that
strange brand of psychology which grows only in Oskaloosa”, where the
Midwest Psychological Field Station of the University of Kansas is
located (see also Barker, 1960, 1963). This approach has been variously
called psychological ecology (by Lewin, 1944; and later, Dreyer, 1971),
environmental psychology (Proshansky et al., 1970), or the Kansas term
of ecological psychology (as employed by Barker, 1965, 1968; and
Willems, 1965). The latter term seems the preferred one since we &re
23
correlations were found to be significant and the cultural traits the
dependent variable, Vayda and Rappaport still strongly question the
“inevitability” of the traits. As with Harris, these critics of Steward’s
method do not reject the concept of cultural ecology but instead make a
case for the need of a systems approach: “there presumably are feedbacks operating between social factors and ecological adaptations, and
it [is] necessary to look for circular or reticulate relations between effects
and causes rather than for simple one-way linear cause-to-effect
sequences”. A successful move into systems analysis would also diminish
or eliminate those problems in the approach considered most serious by
Harris.
The foregoing presentation has been concerned primarily with the
development of an ecological approach in cultural anthropology. But it
should be recognized that the applicability of ecology in the discipline
does not end there (see Watson and Watson, 1969). Scattered in the
literature are attempts to apply ecological concepts in physical anthropology and in archaeology. One example of the former is Newman’s
(1953) study of the applicability of Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules
(Bergmann, 1847; Allen, 1877) to human beings, or, for a more general
appraisal, examine the essay by Weiner (1959) (see also Roberts, 1952).
In archaeology, reference should be made to the surveys of Barth (1950),
Meighan et al. (1958) and Quimby (1960).
3. Ecological psychology
If the proponents of an ecological approach to psychology are correct,
then there is at least the beginning of a revolution taking place in that
discipline: an accelerating movement out of the laboratory with its
controlled experiments on human behavior and into the field for direct
observation of behavior under uncontrolled, field conditions: observation of behavior in an unconditioned environment.
It is fairly widely accepted that the studies of Roger Barker and
Herbert Wright (1955; see also Wright and Barker, 1952) on the children
of the town of Midwest, Kansas (beginning in 1947), were the pioneering
efforts in this ecological psychology, a term employed by Barker and
Wright and their students and followers. It is in fact so well established
there-and so isolated there-that some wag described it as “that
strange brand of psychology which grows only in Oskaloosa”, where the
Midwest Psychological Field Station of the University of Kansas is
located (see also Barker, 1960, 1963). This approach has been variously
called psychological ecology (by Lewin, 1944; and later, Dreyer, 1971),
environmental psychology (Proshansky et al., 1970), or the Kansas term
of ecological psychology (as employed by Barker, 1965, 1968; and
Willems, 1965). The latter term seems the preferred one since we &re