Ecological Psychology and Social Psychology: It is Holt, or Nothing!

Abstract

What is the greatest contribution that ecological psychologists can offer social psychology? Ideally, ecological psychologists could explain how people directly perceive the unique properties of their social partners. But social partners are distinguished from mundane objects because they possess mental traits, and tradition tells us that minds cannot be seen. When considering the ideal possibility, we reject that doctrine and posit minds as perceivable. For ecological psychology, this entails asserting that minds are the types of things able to structure ambient energy. Contemporary research and theory suggests distinctly ecological ways of attacking this problem, but the problem is not new. Almost 100 years ago, Holt argued for the visibility of minds. Thus when considering these ideas, ecological psychologists face a choice that is at once about their future and their past. Extending ecological psychology's first principles into the social realm, we come to the point where we must either accept or reject Holt's arguments, and the wider context they bring. In doing so, we accept or reject our ability to study the uniquely social.

Paper Practices in Institutional Talk: How Financial Advisors Impress their Clients

“…Thus, they use the flexibility of paper concerning input and physicality (Gaver, 1996) only to a low extend. This exemplifies how, in accordance with recent changes in ecological psychology (Charles, 2011;Leonardi, 2011;Overdijk et al, 2012;Fayard and Weeks, 2014), the context-free consideration of affordances may differ from de facto uses. As the results show, it is not the routines' overwhelming flexibility that escapes the limits of affordance theory.…”

A longitudinal study of the effects of negative parental child-rearing attitudes and positive peer relationships on social withdrawal during adolescence: an application of a multivariate latent growth model

“…Behaviour setting is limited by space and time and has a comprehensive structure for mutual relationships with physical, social, and cultural attributes; therefore results in behavioural patterns that progress uniformly or regularly. The ideas of Barker are based on the objective environment instead of the psychological environment, which forms the core of Lewin's living space (Andean, 2011;Charles, 2011;Gutkin, 2012).…”

An ecological-phenomenological perspective on multispecies leisure and the horse-human relationship in events

“…In contrast to the Cartesian perspective, from an ecological-phenomenological perspective Mind does not exist solely in the head but is readily available to be perceived by other active agents with the capacity to perceive. In a context such as multispecies leisure this is important because all individuals will be distinguishing affordances for action that have direct meaning for themselves (Charles, 2011).…”