Environment and Culture

352 Pages·1980·6.21 MB·English

by  Irwin Altman

Human Behavior
and Environment
ADVANCES INTHEORYAND RESEARCH
Volume 4
Environment and Culture
Human Behavior
and Environment
ADVANCES INTHEORYAND RESEARCH
Volume I
Volume 2
Volume 3: Childrenand the Environment
Volume 4: EnvironmentandCulture
Human Behavior
and Environment
ADVANCES INTHEORYAND RESEARCH
Volume 4
Environment and Culture
EDITED BY
IRWIN ALTMAN
UniversityofUtah
Salt LakeCity,Utah
AMOS RAPOPORT
UniversityofWisconsin
Milwaukee,Wisconsin
AND
JOACHIM F. WOHLWILL
PennsylvaniaStateUniversity
UniversityPark, Pennsylvania
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC
Library ofCongressCataloginginPublicationData
Mainentry under title:
Humanbehavior andenvironrnent.
Inc1udesbibliographiesand indexes.
1. Environmental psychology - Collected works.I. Altman,lrwin.H.Wohlwill,
Joachim F.
BF353.H85 301.31 76-382942
ISBN 978-1-4899-0453-9 ISBN 978-1-4899-0451-5 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-0451-5
©1980SpringerScience+BusinessMediaNewYork
OriginallypublishedbyPlenumPress,NewYorkin1980.
Softcoverreprintofthe hardcover 1stedition 1980
Allrightsreserved
Nopart ofthisbook maybereproduced,stored inaretrievalsystem, ortransmitted,
inany form orbyany means,electronic,mechanical, photocopying,microfilming,
recording,orotherwise,withoutwritten permission from thcPublisher
Articles Planned for Volume 5
TRANSPORTATION AND ENVIRONMENT
Editors:Joachim Wohlwill, Peter Everett, and Irwin Altman
Social Impact Assessment of Transportation Environments
LYNN LLEWELLYN
Transportation and Stress: An EcologicalPerspective
DANIEL STOKOLS AND RAYMOND NOVACO
Human Factors and Transportation Safety
SLADE HULBERT
Psychological Contributions to Travel Demand Modeling
IRWIN P. LEVIN AND JORDAN P. LOUVIERE
Travel Behavior Change Strategies
PETER EVERETT
Transportation and the Behavioral Sciences
DAVID T. HARTGEN
Transportation Environments for the Future
RICHARD M. MICHAELS
V
Contributors
JOHNR.AIELLO • DepartmentofPsychology,Rutgers-TheStateUniver
sity, New Brunswick, New Jersey
JOHN W. BERRY • DepartmentofPsychology,QueensUniversity, Kings
ton, Ontario, Canada
JOHN W. BENNETT • DepartmentofAnthropology, Washington Univer
sity, St. Louis, Missouri
RICHARD W. BRISLIN • East-West Center, Culture Learning Institute,
Honolulu, Hawaii
SIDNEY N. BROWER • Planning Commission, Department of Planning,
City of Baltimore, 222 East Saratoga Street, Baltimore, Maryland
AMOSRAPOPORT • DepartmentofArchitecture, UniversityofWisconsin
Milwaukee, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
MILES RICHARDSON • Department of Geography and Anthropology,
Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
IGNACY SACHS • Le Centre InternationaldeRecherche sur I'Environ
nement et le Developpement, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes,
54 Boulevard Raspail, Paris, France
JOHN H. SORENSEN • Department of Geography, University of Hawaii,
Honolulu, Hawaii
DONNA E. THOMPSON • Department of Psychology, George Peabody
College, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee
GILBERT F. WHITE • Institute of Behavioral Science, University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado
vii
Preface
Following upon the first two volumes in this series, which dealt with a
broadspectrumoftopicsin theenvironmentandbehaviorfield, ranging
from theoreticalto applied, and includingdisciplinary, interdisciplinary,
and professionally oriented approaches, we have chosen to devote sub
sequent volumes to more specifically defined topics. Thus, Volume
Three dealt with Children and the Environment, seen from the combined
perspective of researchers in environmental and developmental psy
chology. The present volume has a similarly topical coverage, dealing
with the complex set of relationships between culture and the physical
environment. Itisbroadand necessarilyeclectic withrespect tocontent,
theory, methodology, and epistemological stance, and the contributors
to it represent a wide variety of fields and disciplines, including psy
chology, geography, anthropology, economics, and environmental de
sign. We were fortunate to enlist the collaboration ofAmos Rapoport in
the organization and editing of this volume, as he brings to this task a
particularly pertinent perspective that combines anthropology and ar
chitecture.
Volume Five of the series, presently in preparation, will cover the
subject of behavioral science aspects of transportation.
Irwin Altman
Joachim F. Wohlwill
ix
Contents
Introduction 1
CHAPTER 1
CROSS-CULTURAL ASPECTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL DESIGN
AMOS RAPOPORT
Introduction 7
Culture. ......... .. .. . . . 9
Environmental Design 10
The Relationship of Culture and Environmental Design ......... 15
The Variability of Culture-Environment Relations 19
Culture-Specific Environments................................ 26
Designing for Culture. ....................................... 30
Implications for the Future ................................... 39
References .................................................. 42
CHAPTER 2
CROSS-CULTURAL RESEARCH METHODS:
STRATEGIES, PROBLEMS, ApPLICATIONS
RICHARD W. BRISLIN
Introduction 47
Cross-Cultural Studies ....................................... 48
xi
xii Contents
Overview of Chapter 49
The Uses of Cross-Cultural Research. ................... ...... 50
Expansion of Independent Variables 50
Hypothesis Generation and Testing. ...................... 51
The Generation of Theories 52
Theory Validation and Expansion ......................... 53
Culture-Universal and Culture-Specific Frameworks:
Emicsand Etics 54
Procedures for Using Emic-Etic
Conceptualization 58
The Plausible Rival Hypothesis Approach. ..................... 62
Archival Material: Content Analysis ........................... 66
Multiple Methods and Multiple Data Points .................... 69
Explaining Complex Phenomena through Low Correlations
among Variables 71
Human Relations in Cross-Cultural Research. .................. 74
Considerations for the Future. ................................ 76
Bibliographie References to Cross-Cultural Research
Methods .......................... .... ............. ... 77
References .................................................. 78
CHAPTER 3
CULTURAL ECOLOGY AND
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
JOHN W. BERRY
Introduction 83
Systematic Approaches 84
Comparative Studies of Individual
Adaptation 91
Individual Adaptation to Environmental
Change ,........ .. 100
Conclusions and Future Directions ............................ 103
References .................................................. 104