On the Relation Between Human Ecology and Behavioral Social Psychology

Abstract

Human ecology and operant conditioning are compared in order to consider the feasibility and desirability of linking human ecology and behavioral social psychology. General similarities between human ecology and operant conditioning include a recognition of the interaction between behavior and environment, the necessity of longitudinal analyses, the view that change is externally determined, and quantitative analyses involving aggregated behaviors. Major differences include origins of general principles, methodology, and units of analysis. Many similarities also exist among general concepts and principles. Operant principles might be applied to provide complex psychological, social-psychological, sociological, and human-ecological analyses. The major barrier between human ecologists and behavioral social psychologists and sociologists now appears to be the discrepancy in the size of the social systems each studies. The relation between human ecology and social psychology has been discussed on several occasions (e.g., Duncan and Schnore, 1959; Hawley, unpublished manuscript), and in most cases the conclusion has been that the relationship is one of mutual independence. In most cases, however, human ecology has been discussed in relation to the cognitive branch of social psychology. The relation between human ecology and the behavioral branch of social psychology has apparently not been considered in spite of the fact that the two approaches employ similar orienting strategies and have produced numerous strikingly parallel general concepts and propositions. This article calls attention to such parallels and discusses the feasibility and desirability of a symbiotic relationship between human ecologists and behavioral social psychologists and other sociologists who have begun applying the concepts and principles of operant conditioning to the analysis of social process and social organization. ORIENTING DESCRIPTIONS OF HUMAN ECOLOGY AND OPERANT CONDITIONING1 Human ecology can be generally defined as the study of the relationship between a human population and its environment. The bulk of human ecology falls within the branch of general ecology called synecology, the study of the relationships among groups of organisms engaged with a given environment. A second branch, autecology, is the study of the individual organism's interaction with its environment. The human ecologist, however, studies primarily a population's collective interaction with its environment. Such interactions with the environment are viewed as collectively adaptive and produce a recognizable form of organization seen in the relationships among the activities emitted by different functional units. The adaptive notion gives human ecology its characteristic equilibrium position. Duncan (1959) has distinguished four major interdependent variables constituting an ecosystem. These are population, organization, environment, and technology-any of which may constitute the major dependent variable for certain purposes. Operant conditioning, strictly speaking, is the conditioning of operants. An operant is any behavior which can be strengthened or weakened by the contingent events which follow the behavior. The behavior may be referred to as a response, and its strength may be indicated by several dimensions including its frequency * This article is a revision of a paper presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Sociological Society, 1971. I wish to acknowledge the useful comments and suggestions of Amos Hawley and James Wiggins. 1 The present description of human ecology is based largely on Hawley's (1968) elaborated description. The reader is referred to Reese (1966) and Reynolds (1968) for efficient introductions to operant conditioning.