24
GERALD L. YOUNG
talking about an ecological approach to psychology and since it is well
established.
Brunswik (1 943) very early asserted the importance of “ecological
validity” long before the work by Barker and Wright, but his call to
“imitate experimentally the tangled causal texture of the environment”
is categorically rejected in the ecological approach of present-day
psychology. The hall-mark of the contemporary approach in psychology
is that it is focused on “naturally occurring, individual behavior variation” and the “naturally occurring contexts of behavior” (Barker, 1968).
Central to an ecological orientation in psychology is analysis of the
natural, uninterrupted, multi-variable “stream of behavior” as it occurs
naturally in the environment. This is strongly emphasized by Willems
(1965), Sells (1966) and Barker (1968). This breaks with the traditional
concern of scientific psychology with differences between individuals
through the identification and measuring of individual behavior
constants under imposed stable conditions. This emphasis on “naturally
occurring conditions” is the main reason for rejection of Brunswik’s
imitation “ecological” approach. It should be mentioned that every
writer concerned with the ecological approach to psychology has carefully, even emphatically, disclaimed any intention of downgrading the
importance and contributions of experimental laboratory work, or of
displacing it as central to psychology. In every case the purpose, in
Willems’ (1965) words, is to expand on laboratory work, to establish that
“within the boundaries of psychological science, something more is
called for; something which psychology has not had-an ecological
orientation-which experimental research, by definition, cannot provide” (see also Bjorkman, 1966). Willems went so far as to say that the
field of psychology cannot attain a measure of how its findings match
the real world (that environment outside the laboratory) without an
ecological orientation. Proshansky et al. (1970) reinforce this need for
psychology to go beyond laboratory experiments in human behavior,
this need “for investigations that are willing to discard the relatively
simple cause-and-effect paradigm that typifies some of the more
laboratory-oriented behavioral science research”. Some of these same
issues” between ecological and classical research in psychology are
raised by Gump and Kounin (1960).
Sells (1966) has also questioned the “reality” of “experimental treatments of segments of behavior” and stresses “multivariate field observation and experiment over univariate laboratory experiment”. He
emphasizes repeatedly the implications for psychology of the ecological
approach, particularly in terms of coming to know the impact of the
“real world” on human behavior patterns (see also Paris, 1944). This
idea of the “real world” again implies a most fundamental concern, in
6 6 .
GERALD L. YOUNG
talking about an ecological approach to psychology and since it is well
established.
Brunswik (1 943) very early asserted the importance of “ecological
validity” long before the work by Barker and Wright, but his call to
“imitate experimentally the tangled causal texture of the environment”
is categorically rejected in the ecological approach of present-day
psychology. The hall-mark of the contemporary approach in psychology
is that it is focused on “naturally occurring, individual behavior variation” and the “naturally occurring contexts of behavior” (Barker, 1968).
Central to an ecological orientation in psychology is analysis of the
natural, uninterrupted, multi-variable “stream of behavior” as it occurs
naturally in the environment. This is strongly emphasized by Willems
(1965), Sells (1966) and Barker (1968). This breaks with the traditional
concern of scientific psychology with differences between individuals
through the identification and measuring of individual behavior
constants under imposed stable conditions. This emphasis on “naturally
occurring conditions” is the main reason for rejection of Brunswik’s
imitation “ecological” approach. It should be mentioned that every
writer concerned with the ecological approach to psychology has carefully, even emphatically, disclaimed any intention of downgrading the
importance and contributions of experimental laboratory work, or of
displacing it as central to psychology. In every case the purpose, in
Willems’ (1965) words, is to expand on laboratory work, to establish that
“within the boundaries of psychological science, something more is
called for; something which psychology has not had-an ecological
orientation-which experimental research, by definition, cannot provide” (see also Bjorkman, 1966). Willems went so far as to say that the
field of psychology cannot attain a measure of how its findings match
the real world (that environment outside the laboratory) without an
ecological orientation. Proshansky et al. (1970) reinforce this need for
psychology to go beyond laboratory experiments in human behavior,
this need “for investigations that are willing to discard the relatively
simple cause-and-effect paradigm that typifies some of the more
laboratory-oriented behavioral science research”. Some of these same
issues” between ecological and classical research in psychology are
raised by Gump and Kounin (1960).
Sells (1966) has also questioned the “reality” of “experimental treatments of segments of behavior” and stresses “multivariate field observation and experiment over univariate laboratory experiment”. He
emphasizes repeatedly the implications for psychology of the ecological
approach, particularly in terms of coming to know the impact of the
“real world” on human behavior patterns (see also Paris, 1944). This
idea of the “real world” again implies a most fundamental concern, in
6 6 .