Department of Psychology, Barrett-Henzi Laboratory, University of Lethbridge , Lethbridge, Canada.
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2024 Sep 23;379(1910):20230285. doi: 10.1098/rstb.2023.0285. Epub 2024 Aug 8.
Since the 1950s, Roger Barker's theory of behaviour settings has been useful for a wide number of disciplines. Few realize, however, that behaviour settings theory is also a methodology. Barker fully describes how to identify, describe and measure behaviour settings in his seminal book (1968), and this method is further delineated in Phil Schoggen's (1989). Nevertheless, beyond these two (rather expensive) books there are few other resources available to twenty-first century researchers who wish to systematically describe and measure behaviour in its ecological context using the principles of behaviour settings theory. In this article, I offer a practitioner's field guide to implementing the behaviour settings method, which includes a contemporary illustration of defining a behaviour setting using a recent observational study of an art gallery in Lethbridge, Canada. I discuss how researchers can use Barker's original methodology to determine what is a behaviour setting and how to define its boundaries, and I suggest best practices, offering practitioners the tools to replicate Barker's procedures. This article is part of the theme issue 'People, places, things, and communities: expanding behaviour settings theory in the twenty-first century'.
自 20 世纪 50 年代以来，罗杰·巴克（Roger Barker）的行为环境理论已在许多学科中得到广泛应用。然而，很少有人意识到，行为环境理论也是一种方法。巴克在其开创性著作（1968 年）中全面描述了如何识别、描述和测量行为环境，而菲尔·斯科根（Phil Schoggen）在（1989 年）中进一步阐述了这一方法。然而，除了这两本（相当昂贵）的书之外，对于那些希望使用行为环境理论的原则在其生态背景下系统地描述和测量行为的 21 世纪研究人员来说，几乎没有其他资源。在本文中，我为实施行为环境方法提供了一份从业者现场指南，其中包括使用最近对加拿大莱斯布里奇美术馆的观察研究来定义行为环境的当代实例。我讨论了研究人员如何使用巴克的原始方法来确定什么是行为环境以及如何定义其边界，并提出了最佳实践，为从业者提供了复制巴克程序的工具。本文是主题为“人物、地点、事物和社区：在 21 世纪扩展行为环境理论”的一部分。
