The papers comprising this second volume of Human Behavior and the Environment represent, as do their predecessors, a cross section of current work in the broad area of problems dealing with interrelation ships between the physical environment and human behavior, at both the individual and the aggregate levels. Considering the two volumes as a unit, we have included papers covering a broad spectrum of problems ranging from the theoretical to the applied, and from the disciplinary-based to the interdisciplinary and professional. Approxi mately half of the papers are written by psychologists, with the remainder coming, in part, from such other disciplines as sociology, geography, and from such diverse applied and professional fields as natural recreation, landscape architecture, urban planning, and opera tions research. The volumes thus provide an overview of work on current topical problems. Yet, as the field is developing, specialization is inevitably increasing apace, and the editors as well as the publisher have become convinced of the desirability for futu're volumes in this series to be organized along topical lines, with successive volumes devoted to different aspects of this rather sprawling field. Thus, Volume 3, currently in the planning stage, will be devoted exclusively to the interaction of children with the physical environment, considered from diverse viewpoints, again including authors from diverse fields of specialization.

The theme of the present volume concerns people' s response to the natural environment, considered at scales varying from that of a house hold plant to that of vast wilderness areas. Our decision to focus on this particular segment of the physical environment was prompted in part by the intrinsic interest in this subject on the part of a diverse group of sodal scientists and professionals-and of laypersons, for that matter and in part by the relative neglect of this topic in standard treatments of the environment-behavior field. It also serves to bring out once again the interdisdplinary nature of that field, and we are pleased to have been able to inc1ude representatives from geography, sodology, soda! ecology, and natural recreation among our contributors. We believe that this volume will serve a useful purpose in helping to integrate the find ings and concepts in this presently somewhat fragmented field, scat tered as they are over a very diverse array of publications representing a similarly varied group of spedalties. It is hoped that the result will be to stimulate future development of this area and to add a measure of in creased coherence to it. Volume 7 of our series will be devoted to the theme of elderly people and the environment, with M. Powell Lawton joining us as guest co-editor. The titles of the papers comprising Volume 7 are shown on page v. Irwin Altman J oachim F. Wohlwill ix Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

It also takes into account the expected and unexpected stresses, challenges, and life tasks that can influence development within social environments."--BOOK JACKET.

This addition to Anissa Rogers' bestselling Human Behavior in the Social Environment expands the original text with new chapters on spirituality, families and groups, organizations, and communities. Written in the compact, concise manner of the original text, the new chapters cover mezzo and macro contexts, and offer additional material valuable to two- and three-semester HBSE courses.

This is the first in a series of volumes concerned with research encompassed by the rather broad term "environment and behavior. " The goal of the series is to begin the process of integration of knowledge on environmental and behavioral topics so that researchers and professionals can have material from diverse sources accessible in a single publication. The field of environment and behavior is broad and interdiscipli nary, with researchers drawn from a variety of traditional disciplines such as psychology, sociology, anthropology, geography, and other social and behavioral sciences, and from the biological and life sciences of medicine, psychiatry, biology, and ethology. The interdis ciplinary quality of the field is also reflected in the extensive involve ment of environmental professionals from architecture, urban plan ning, landscape architecture, interior design, and other fields such as recreation and natural resources, to name just a few. At present, the field has a somewhat chaotic flavor, with research being carried out by a variety of scholars who publish in a multitude of outlets. Many researchers and practitioners are unaware of the state of knowledge regarding a specific topic because of the unavailability of integrated reference materials. There are only a handful of books dealing with environment and behavior, most of them unintegrated collections of readings, with only an occasional systematic analysis of some facet of the field.