Consultation: Ecobehavioral

An Ecobehavioral View of Human Behavior

Behavioral theory, or behaviorism, explains human behavior as occurring in direct relation to environmental antecedents and consequences. Antecedents are factors present in an environment that precede a behavior of interest and that give rise to, or stimulate, the occurrence of the behavior. These are things such as how a classroom is arranged, how a teacher presents instructions, or how a parent states a request for compliance. Some antecedents can occur outside of the immediate situation and are called setting events. Setting events are events that occur separate in time or place, yet can have an influence on behavior in subsequent situations. For example, if a student experiences teasing on the bus ride to school, the teasing may adversely affect the student's attitude or performance in class that day. Although important to consider, in behavioral psychology research, setting events tend to receive less attention than immediate antecedents. Consequences are events in an environment that directly follow a targeted behavior and have a reinforcing or punishing effect, thus making the behavior more (if reinforced) or less (if punished) likely to occur. For example, if a teacher praises a child for trying a difficult problem and the teacher's praise serves as a reinforcing event, then the student is more likely to put forth effort in the future when faced with challenging work. It is important to note that reinforcing consequences serve to create learning of new behavior, but punishing consequences only serve to limit the display of already learned behavior. This is why it is important for people to experience high amounts of reinforcement when learning new skills or behaviors.

Ecological theory, or systems theory, attempts to explain how factors associated with various social systems (ecologies) influence human behavior. An individual child is a part of many different social systems such as family, friends, school, church, and other important systems. Each of these individual systems has interdependent components (i.e., a family can be comprised of parents, siblings, and extended family members) and is also part of larger systems such as neighborhoods, school districts, and political entities. Nonsocial factors are present in a child's ecology as well. For example, a child's behavior can be influenced by the physical location, size, and characteristics of his or her home. While these nonsocial factors may merit some attention in ecobehavioral consultation, the major focus is on the interaction of human elements within and between various ecological systems. An important aspect of ecological theory is that attitudes and cognitions are an important part of the ecology, not just observable behavior.

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