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Cultural Ecology and Individual Behavior

  • John W. Berry
Chapter
Part of the Human Behavior and Environment book series (HUBE, volume 4)

Abstract

Traditionally, much of the discipline of psychology has attempted to comprehend behavior as a function of stimuli impinging upon an individual. In recent years, the approach of ecological psychology has noted that the stimuli usually employed in psychology really represent only a very narrow range of all possible stimuli, and that they are excessively artificial in character; as a result, ecological psychology has emphasized the need to study behavior in more molar and naturalistic contexts. Similarly, an emerging cross-cultural psychology has argued that we should be attending to broad ranges of situations drawn from a cross section of cultures. It soon became clear, though, that sampling from new cultures also meant sampling from the new environmental contexts in which the cultures were situated. Thus, it became essential that the movement cross-culturally be accompanied by increased attention to the environmental settings of the cultures studied, a position similar to that espoused by ecological psychology.

Keywords

Individual Behavior Cognitive Style Acculturative Stress Ecological Context Food Accumulation 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1980

Authors and Affiliations

  • John W. Berry
    • 1
  1. 1.Department of PsychologyQueen’s UniversityKingstonCanadaUSA

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