‘After‐the‐fact causality’: a different direction for cultural geography

Abstract

Cultural geography might benefit from consideration of radical behaviourism and from interpretation and application of the concepts of behaviour analysis. The basic concept is that of operant conditioning, referring to the environment reinforcing behaviours that are most adaptive and effective in achieving reinforcers and avoiding aversive stimuli. The concept of rule-governed behaviour facilitates incorporation of cognition into behaviour analyses, accommodating the fact that many consequences are delayed. These concepts are applied in an analysis of nineteenth-century Mormon settlement in the American West. This argument for an objectivist approach is laden with social scientific baggage not favoured in contemporary cultural geography.

Why Ethical Consumers Don’t Walk Their Talk: Towards a Framework for Understanding the Gap Between the Ethical Purchase Intentions and Actual Buying Behaviour of Ethically Minded Consumers

“…Such perspectives seek to understand the interaction and correlation of cognitive constructs, such as beliefs, attitudes and intentions (Hobson, 2006). Behaviourist perspectives, in contrast, are based on measurement of observable behaviour, where the environment plays a determining role in this behaviour (Norton, 2003).…”

“…There has been an increasing discourse within the wider field of human behaviour regarding the integration of relevant elements of these perspectives to better understand consumer behaviour and address the shortcomings of either perspective (Bagozzi, 2000;Davies et al, 2002;Norton, 2003). For example, Stern (2000) presents the holistic conceptual 'Attitude-Behaviour-Constraint (ABC)' model of environmentally significant behaviour, which suggests that behaviour (B) is a function of (internal) attitudinal variables (A) and (external) contextual factors (C).…”

Environmental psychology and the geographies of ethical and sustainable consumption: aligning, triangulating, challenging?

“…If research aims to grasp why certain environmental and ethical messages and practices appeal to certain people at certain times and places, then such questions require further attention. In line with Norton (2003), this argument does not seek to devalue arguments such as those of Barnett et al – far from it. A lack of exploration around such terms as dispositions no doubt stems from differential intellectual emphasis.…”

“…Since then, disciplinary movements and disputes have engendered increased divergence, spurred on by behavourial geography's internal conflicts and epistemological critiques of human science research as mechanistic, dehumanizing and ignorant of context (Kitchin et al 1997; Norton 2001). From here, human geographers have moved towards more qualitative and phenomenological approaches (Norton 2003), thus sidelining psychology as a discipline they can and should converse with. In turn, psychologists argue that critiques of their work stem from shallow and ill‐informed readings, that attempt to create distance between today's geography and its determinist past (Norton 2001).…”

“…There exists already a history of human geographers forging areas of mutual interest and collaboration with the psychological sciences, either through working towards an ‘integrative framework that can unite the ideas and theories from both psychology and geography’ (Kitchin et al 1997, 564), or highlighting the conceptual and methodological limitations engendered by an ‘almost complete rejection of objectivist approaches’ (Norton 2003, 418; see also 2001). Whilst some geographers do use psychological methodologies to explore environmental attitudes (e.g.…”