Götz Friedrich M, Montello Daniel R, Varnum Michael E W, Luca Davide, Kenrick Douglas T
Department of Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Department of Geography, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, USA.
Nat Hum Behav. 2025 Jul 3. doi: 10.1038/s41562-025-02237-y.
We do not live in a vacuum. Everything humans do, think and feel is embedded within geography, which itself is interpreted, understood and modified by humans. Although it is thus conceptually obvious that psychology and geography need one another to fulfil their mandates, integrating them has been empirically challenging. To remedy this, we propose the unifying Geographical-Psychological Interactionist Framework. This framework features three axes (that is, geography, psychology, and geography-psychology interactions). Each axis hosts overarching classes (for example, human, physical and spatial geographical variables) and specific instances thereof (for example, climate and distance). As such, our framework provides: (1) a systematic taxonomy of the general interplay between geography and psychology; (2) a precise vocabulary with which to categorize specific interactions; and (3) a straightforward tool to inspire concrete and testable hypotheses. We conclude by positioning our conceptual framework in relation to existing theories and discuss next steps towards an interdisciplinary future at the nexus of psychology and geography.
我们并非生活在真空中。人类所做、所想、所感的一切都嵌入在地理环境之中,而地理环境本身又由人类进行诠释、理解和改变。因此,尽管从概念上来说,心理学和地理学显然需要相互协作来完成各自的使命,但在实践中,将它们整合起来却颇具挑战。为了弥补这一不足,我们提出了统一的地理 - 心理互动主义框架。该框架具有三个轴(即地理学、心理学以及地理 - 心理互动)。每个轴都包含总体类别(例如,人类、自然和空间地理变量)及其具体实例(例如,气候和距离)。因此,我们的框架提供了:(1)地理与心理学之间一般相互作用的系统分类法;(2)用于对特定互动进行分类的精确词汇;(3)一个能激发具体且可检验假设的直接工具。我们通过将我们的概念框架与现有理论相关联来得出结论,并讨论在心理学和地理学交叉领域迈向跨学科未来的下一步举措。