Integrating Human and Natural Systems in Community Psychology: An Ecological Model of Stewardship Behavior

Community psychology (CP) research on the natural environment lacks a theoretical framework for analyzing the complex relationship between human systems and the natural world. We introduce other academic fields concerned with the interactions between humans and the natural environment, including environmental sociology and coupled human and natural systems. To demonstrate how the natural environment can be included within CP’s ecological framework, we propose an ecological model of urban forest stewardship action. Although ecological models of behavior in CP have previously modeled health behaviors, we argue that these frameworks are also applicable to actions that positively influence the natural environment. We chose the environmental action of urban forest stewardship because cities across the United States are planting millions of trees and increased citizen participation in urban tree planting and stewardship will be needed to sustain the benefits provided by urban trees. We used the framework of an ecological model of behavior to illustrate multiple levels of factors that may promote or hinder involvement in urban forest stewardship actions. The implications of our model for the development of multi-level ecological interventions to foster stewardship actions are discussed, as well as directions for future research to further test and refine the model.     

Informational constraints shape emergent functional behaviours during performance of interceptive actions in team sports

Objectives

This study aimed to explain how defenders intercept the trajectory of a passing ball by understanding how they coupled their actions to critical information sources in a competitive performance setting in team sports.

Design

Time series data on movement displacements of fifteen senior male futsal performers were recorded and digitized during nine competitive futsal games.

Method

Performance was recorded by a digital camera and digitized with TACTO software. The spatial-temporal dynamics of performers during ten intercepted and ten non-intercepted passes were compared. Time to ball interception was calculated by the difference between the time of each defender to an interception point in ball trajectory and the time of the ball’s arrival at the same interception point. Initial distances between defenders and ball and velocity data of defenders and ball over time were also recorded.

Results

Time to ball interception revealed positive values when passes were not intercepted, and negative to zero values when passes were intercepted. At the moment of pass initiation defenders’ distances to the ball constrained their possibilities for successful interception. Analysis of defenders’ adaptations to the environment revealed that continuous changes in the defenders’ velocities constrained their success of the interception.

Conclusions

Intercepted passes seemed to be influenced by the continuous regulation of a defender’s velocity relative to the ball’s trajectory. Time to ball interception is a variable that captured the emergent functional behaviours of players attempting to intercept the trajectory of a pass in the team sport of futsal.     

How does a word become a message? An illustration on a developmental time-scale

Recent changes in views on cognition underscore its embodied, situated and distributed character. These changes are compatible with the conceptual framework of ecological psychology. However for ecological psychology to propose explanations for a broad range of cognitive phenomena, including language, it needs an account of how to link the dynamics of coupling between the organism and the environment with the apparent symbolicity of informational structures. In this paper it is proposed that a theory of information in biological systems, advocated by Howard Pattee, may help forge this link. By treating informational structures as constraints on dynamics this approach helps to identify which processes, in which systems and on what time-scales are needed for structures to ‘become messages’. I will illustrate how these processes might work on developmental time-scale in the domain of language, building on the work by Edward Reed (1995, 1996) and extending it using the view of linguistic structures as constraints.     

Schools as Vehicles to Assess Experiences,Improve Outcomes,and Effect Social Change

Schools are important settings that can be utilized to yield a positive impact on youth and the many issues our society faces. In this Presidential Address, I identify key issues and directions for the field, advocating that we need to expand our ecological focus, improve school climate, and collaborate with schools to effect change. To illustrate these key themes, findings from four projects with k‐12 youth and educators in the United States are described, and these projects have the following foci: protective factors for youth exposed to violence, teacher‐directed violence as part of an APA Task Force, school climate and neighborhood factors in relation to academic outcomes, and school transitions for students with disabilities. Challenges and future directions to build upon community psychology theory, research, practice, and policy are discussed.     

论生态学的马克思主义的人道主义

生态学的马克思主义基于对人类命运的关照,立足人道主义,反对以单纯保护生态为目的的生态中心主义和企图转嫁生态矛盾的生态帝国主义;认为资本主义的生产、分配和消费方式是引发生态危机的根源;要想摆脱已经上升为人和自然之主要矛盾的生态危机,不仅需要建立“无增长的”经济模式,倡导“劳动闲暇一元论”和日常生活的“简朴主义”,根除虚假需求,克服异化消费,使生产过程分散化、民主化和管理科学化,变控制自然为解放自然,提倡技术为全人类服务,使生态学充满人道主义,而且需要根除资本主义生产的利润动机,杜绝独裁主义的政治和生产逻辑,反对技术法西斯主义,最终废除资本主义制度,建立非极权的、更易于生存的、以实现生态与社会和谐发展为目标的“稳态社会主义”。     

Beyond Positivist Ecology: Toward an Integrated Ecological Ethics

A post-positivist understanding of ecological science and the call for an “ecological ethic” indicate the need for a radically new approach to evaluating environmental change. The positivist view of science cannot capture the essence of environmental sciences because the recent work of “reflexive” ecological modelers shows that this requires a reconceptualization of the way in which values and ecological models interact in scientific process. Reflexive modelers are ecological modelers who believe it is appropriate for ecologists to examine the motives for their choices in developing models; this self-reflexive approach opens the door to a new way of integrating values into public discourse and to a more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change. This reflexive building of ecological models is introduced through the transformative simile of Aldo Leopold, which shows that learning to “think like a mountain” involves a shift in both ecological modeling and in values and responsibility. An adequate, interdisciplinary approach to ecological valuation, requires a re-framing of the evaluation questions in entirely new ways, i.e., a review of the current status of interdisciplinary value theory with respect to ecological values reveals that neither of the widely accepted theories of environmental value—neither economic utilitarianism nor intrinsic value theory (environmental ethics)—provides a foundation for an ecologically sensitive evaluation process. Thus, a new, ecologically sensitive, and more comprehensive approach to evaluating ecological change would include an examination of the metaphors that motivate the models used to describe environmental change.

EMA-一种生态主义取向的研究模式

生态瞬时评估（EMA）不是一个单一的研究方法,而是一种研究模式,它强调现实世界中实时数据的采集和反复的评估,并能阐释变量间自然存在和变化的相互关系,具有很高的生态学效度。EMA的使用会加强我们对个体与环境之间的动态交互作用的理解。EMA的基本设计思路包括基于事件的设计、基于时间的设计和联合设计。在EMA 的使用中还有一些问题如软硬件的发展、伦理、数据等问题等需要研究者注意。目前EMA应用最广泛的领域是临床心理学和行为研究方面。     

现代生存论语境下民族禁忌的生态伦理价值

云南少数民族禁忌是中国少数民族传统文化不可或缺的一部分,它体现着少数民族地区广大人民群众的生存智慧。本文通过分析云南少数民族有关动植物、山水、生产生活等的禁忌,揭示出云南少数民族多样性的禁忌背后所潜藏的哲学意蕴以及生态伦理价值,指出民族禁忌对促进民族地区生物多样性和生态环境的保护具有举足轻重的作用。