Environmental Forces in the Everyday Lives of Children.

Abstract

THE NATURALLY OCCURRING ENVIRONMENT has entered most studies of environment-behavior relationships as a distal variable with general, pervasive attributes; this is true, for example, of most comparative studies of cultures, classrooms, and homes. It is obvious, however, that the environment is not an undifferentiated medium in which people are immersed; it clearly involves a variety of active processes which selectively spur, guide, and restrain behavior. Dr. Schoggen has studied the varied, dynamic processes within the behavior-stream environment, and his findings have led him to treat the social environment as motivated, i.e., as directed with respect to the child. The success of this approach has wide implications for both theory and practice.Phil Schoggen is Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon, he was awarded the Ph.D. degree by the University of Kansas.THIS STUDY FOCUSES upon the active efforts made by the child's social environment to penetrate his psychological world and to modify his behavior. Other studies have sought to elucidate the structure, dynamics, and content of the child's behavior stream as recorded in specimen records. Central to these efforts has been the directedness of the child's behavior with respect to the behavior objects, persons, and behavior settings of his environment. This study, on the contrary, is concerned with the structure, dynamics, and content of the child's social environment which occurs pari passu with his behavior. Central to this problem is the directedness with respect to the child of the behavior of the objects, persons, and settings which make up his social environment. The previous studies have provided some important methodological and conceptual guides for the present undertaking.

Everyday caretaker talk to toddlers vs. threes and fours

“…We assume with Ervin-Tripp (19726) that a theory of the interpersonal functions of speech lies outside linguistics in other social sciences. Since there is no established theory or method for classifying the interpersonal functions of caretaker talk, we developed our system on the basis of empirical observation, drawing upon general developmental theory, motivational theory, and the nonlinguistic literature on categories for caretaker-child interaction (Caldwell 1968, Schoggen 1963, White & Watts 1973, as well as the non-caretaker literature on categories for the functions of speech (Ervin-Tripp 1964, Searle 1969, Soskin & John 1963.…”

A Powerful Theory and a Paradox

“…He was the first person to use the Stenomask (P. Schoggen, 1964) for making specimen records, a substantial improvement over handwritten notes. P. Schoggen (1963) also developed the Environmental Force Unit for analyzing specimen records and used this unit in analyzing the behavior of both typical children and those with physical handicaps. Much of P. Schoggen's career was spent in academic administration.…”

Processes which mediate behavior-environment congruence

“…Another appro:tch to uiitlerstanding thc learning aspects of bch:Lvior-eriviroriment congruence would be to observe how parents or other adults train children to behave in new environments, noting the techniques of training, and thc cues pointed out to childrm, for example, "don't run in the living room," (Dyck, 1963; Schoggen, 1963;Schoggen & Schoggen, 1971). One could study naturally occurring settings such :is the kindergarten class referred to earlier, or specially created novel settings n hich are of theoretical or practical importance.…”