Ecological Variables

Ecological Variables
Author(s): Desmond S. Cartwright

Source: Sociological Methodology , 1969, Vol. 1 (1969), pp. 155-218
Published by: Wiley
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/270884
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ECOLOGICAL VARIABLES
Desmond S. Cartwright
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO
Time for the preparation of this

paper was made available through the author's participation in a contract
between the State of Colorado and the Office of Juvenile Delinquency and
Youth Development, United States Department of Health, Education and
Welfare; the contract being titled: A Field Test and Refinement of a Model
to be Utilized in Surveying Existing Programs for Present and Future
Needs in Child and Youth Services Insofar as They Concern Delinquency.
The writer is indebted to Carol I. Cartwright for critical readings of several
early drafts; to Edgar F. Borgatta for valuable editorial commentary and
specific critique of the design and content of the manuscript; and to an
anonymous reviewer who provided numerous insightful criticisms of a late
draft of the paper. The assistance of Mary and Madeline Luebke in typing
early drafts of the manuscript is much appreciated. Mrs. Jean Michener
most ably carried out the task of final preparation of the manuscript.
A literature search of materials on ecological variables leads the

searcher into a maze of disparate scientific endeavors. Not only are there
155

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156 DESMOND S CARTWRIGHT
different disciplines specializing in ecology, but also the fundamental

logical nature of the variables in question differs from one study to
another.
In one meaning, ecological variables are those that provide
potential influence upon organisms: food supply, cosmic radiation, other
organisms. In another meaning, reference is made more specifically to
areal distribution, and emphasis is placed on mapping morphological
features and locations of organisms or other entities; such is urban
ecology, for example.
In a third meaning, ecological variables are complex processes
involving change and interaction, such as dominance, competition, flow
of energy, equilibrium. Dominance is that of one species over another
(like trees over shrubs), basically in terms of competition for available
resources (like sunlight). Succession is another good example of this
meaning: it refers to the effect of one species upon its habitat, such that
changes are wrought in the habitat so that it now becomes a better
ecologic niche for some other species to move into.
A fourth meaning extends the third to consider everything in
some three-dimensional spatial extent, with all of the exchanges and
effects and reciprocations and flows of energy and states of equilibrium
and disequilibrium characterizing such place. Moreover, it may study
the changes over extended periods of time, attempting to understand the
total system functioning. This is the "ecosystem" meaning of ecological
variables, and it stems naturally from an initial orienting attitude
(Koch, 1959) that prefers a general systems theoretical approach to
science.
A fifth meaning of the term "ecological variables" is in a totally
different logical class, referring as it does to statistical properties of
groups. Following Robinson (1950), Goodman (1959), for example,
provides a statistical discussion of ecological variables as "descriptive
properties of groups." Robinson had contended that correlations
between such group data, which he called "ecological correlations,"
could not be used to infer to correlations between properties of indi-
viduals. Selvin (1958) labeled such inference the "ecological fallacy."
Doubtless there are other meanings. The sciences dealing with
ecology as a subspecialty are numerous; even in human ecology spe-
cialists may be found in anthropology, biology, geography, psychology,
and sociology. Within the latter, two main traditions have arisen: the
areal distribution, census data, urban ecology tradition; and the eco-

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ECOLOGICAL VARIABLES 157
system tradition. There are also methodological divisions, into those who
use factor analytic techniques and those who do not, for example.
The sights of the present paper are set upon sociological method-
ology. However, the work of other disciplines should be examined also
in attempting to obtain an overview of the scope of methodological
issues. Urban ecology, for example, has not so far been concerned with
evaluating population density in terms of three-dimensional layered
space; the suggestion that it should be so concerned arises from con-
sideration of altitude as a variable in the ecological studies of geographers
and biologists.
This paper will have four main parts. In the first two parts, the
scope of the subject matters and methodological issues will be surveyed,
covering human ecology in sociology and four other disciplines, and
according to any of the different meanings of "ecological variables" that
given scientists implicitly adopt. Then the diversity of methodological
issues surrounding ecological variables will be organized into a compre-
hensive schema, selected parts of which will be given more detailed
treatment. In the last part of the paper attention will be focused on the
logical problems of inference from group correlations to individual cor-
relations. Some previous solutions will be reviewed and a new one
described.
SCOPE: SOCIOLOGY
Early Studies
In this section the focus will be on early work in the analysis of

bivariate causal relations, choice of areal unit, construction of indices,
adjustments for unwanted sources of variance, interactive causal chains
(ecosystem theory), and spatial patterns.
Bivariate Causal Relations. The study of causes in areal distribu-
tions originated, according to Elmer (1933), with M. de Guerry de
Champneuf, an official in the French Ministry of Justice between 1821
and 1835. Among other things, he tabulated data on crime over the
eighty-six political departments of France and showed substantial
variation in rates of accusation for crimes against the person and against
property. Grouping departments into geographical districts, North,
South, and so on, he showed that these, too, varied sharply (from 12 to
28 per cent of all crimes against the person in 1825, for example), and
that such differences between districts tended to persist through the

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158 DESMOND S. CARTWRIGHT
years up to 1830. Guerry interpreted these differences as related to

differences in climate and length of seasons.
The Belgian statistician, Quetelet, also placed emphasis on the
causative role of seasons and similar influences. According to his biog-
rapher, Hankins (1908): "He usually spoke of the average man as
varying from country to country, as not being the same for urban and
for rural populations, as in fact, being different in different environmental
and social conditions. In other words, 'the average man is always such
as is conformable to and necessitated by time and place'" (p. 520).
Quetelet focused on causes of mean values, and distinguished between
constant, variable, and accidental causes. Constant causes are those
that act in a continuous manner with the same intensity and in the same
direction: sex, age, latitude, for example. Variable causes act con-
tinuously but with intensity and direction changing: an important subset
of variable causes is the set of periodic causes such as seasons, hours of
day, rotation of earth on its axis, all of which ". . . are of immense
influence on organic life and in human affairs" (p. 573). Accidental
causes are fortuitous and indifferent in their action, somewhat like
random shocks.
Both Guerry and Quetelet chose to interpret cause as unidirec-
tional if they could find a variable that was more moving than moved.
The interpretation that crime-rate variation produces variation in
latitude is evidently implausible. Yet they ignored the problems of
"tied variables," those that vary with a covariant vector without having
been explicitly measured. In Guerry's case, for example, it might have
been differential migration to places of varying climate that really ac-
counted for the covariations he observed. Such problems of interpretation
beset all investigation. Whereas in recent years many scientists have
thrown out "correlational" procedures, Guerry and Quetelet focused
on what they knew of the variables concerned and made a complex
judgment as to which was influencing which.
In modern work the method of choice is that of controlled manipu-
lation of independent variables in studying causal influence of the latter
upon some chosen dependent variable. In ecological research, however,
it is rare to find a situation in which manipulative treatment is ap-
propriate, even if possible. It is therefore most important to concentrate
upon developing the logic and techniques of causal analysis without
manipulation.
Choice of Areal Unit. The "ecological fallacy" involves the infer-

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ence that relations found between measures taken over groups of one
size apply also to the same measures if they would be taken over groups
of a different size. The problem is especially acute in (though not at all
restricted to) ecological research, where the size of the areal unit needs
to vary with the problem and with the available data. The group size
of counties is typically larger than that of cities, smaller than that of
states.
Levin and Lindesmith (1937) report on the work of Joseph
Fletcher, who in 1850 published a Summary of Moral Statistics of
England and Wales. Most interesting from the present point of view is
his use of maps and larger ecologic areas. His first map was one effec-
tively of "natural areas" based on the prevailing industry type, agri-
culture, mining, manufacturing, and so on, drawn ". . . with as much
accuracy as was permitted by the large and varying size of the counties;
the civil divisions which . . ." were the integral ones for his data.
Neither the counties nor the areas were equal in size. The counties
for Fletcher were what Duncan et al. (1961) call the "basic set of areal
units" into which the entire "universe of territory" is subdivided, such
that the units are exhaustive of the universe and also nonoverlapping.
Basic units may be combined into larger ones, as Fletcher made "natural
areas."
In reality the investigator is often confronted with the choice of
taking the data in the units available from government surveys or making
up new units and collecting all his own data. Most commonly, the latter
alternative would be prohibitively costly of time and money. The given
units might be recombined in some fashion if it can be shown more
desirable; however, it is usually not done on the basis of equating units
for size, but rather, like Fletcher, on the basis of making homogeneous
units with respect to one or more variables.
The problems of differing size of unit affect the measures them-
selves, not only the inferences. Obviously, size of population will vary
directly with areal size of county, given average equal density.
Construction of Indices. Variations in size can be partially ac-
counted for by construction of rates and indices. Fletcher constructed
maps showing distributions by county and ecologic division for various
"indices of moral influences and results," including "dispersion of
population," "ignorance, as measured by the percentage of signatures
by marks in the marriage registers," "Crime, as indicated by criminal
commitments of males (allowance made for the age of the population),"

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"Pauperism," and "Deposits in savings banks in proportion to the

population." The problems of such ratios are well known, chiefly that
the resulting measure is responsive to two sources of variation at least,
namely the numerator and the denominator, and hence strictly should
only be used when there is a known nonvanishing correlation between
the two parts.
Nor do such measures always achieve their purpose. Duncan
et al. give the example of migration rate: if it is calculated as the propor-
tion of migrants to residents, then out-migration will tend to be greater
for small areas than for large ones, since for fixed individual probability
of moving an average distance within the universe in given time, the
chances of outsiders moving in to a small place are smaller than the
chances of insiders moving out to a large place.
Partialing out Unwanted Variance. Fletcher was aware of the
problems posed generally by migration, especially in causal analysis of
areal distributions. For example, he made an adjustment for migration
in estimating the crime rate, making allowance for the "influence of the
denser populations rather to assemble the demoralized than to breed an
excess of demoralization." He used an index of "Commitments for the
more serious offenses against the person and malicious offenses against
property (allowance made for age distributions)," which he thought
would be a "truer index of the moral state of a community less affected
by mere migration, than other forms" (Levin and Lindesmith, 1937). By
including only the more serious offenses Fletcher tried to "fly above the
storm"; but it seems that he was little justified, since such an index
would require evidence that migration rates were at least substantially
lower among persons committing serious crimes than among others. The
construction of indices generally must be very explicitly based upon
what exactly is and what is not in the numerator and also in the de-
nominator if there is one.
Yet another feature of Fletcher's problem should be pointed out:
he assumed that dense populations assemble rather than breed demor-
alization. Even supposing that no crucial tied variables are at issue here
there may be as much justification for assuming, for example, that
migrants to densely populated areas produce additional stress on the
resident population, through offering labor at specially competitive
prices, for example. The assumptions made by the investigator con-
cerning the underlying causal network are in many cases crucial to an

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understanding of the index he uses, and also to interpretation of the

results obtained. Many investigators begin with a concept with such and
such extensions and restrictions (such as Fletcher's crime rates exclusive
of the influence of migration) and then proceed to ask how they can
measure the associated variable. No one has yet spelled out the logic or
the rules for such enterprise; yet it is obvious that here, in the implemen-
tation of a conceptual variable into measuring operations, lies the most
crucial bridge between scientific thought and scientific results. How can
the scientist be sure that he is obtaining measurements on the conceptual
variable that he believes he is measuring? It is the problem of "construct
validity"; while general to methodology, it is especially of concern to
ecology since the situations studied are alive with ambient alternative
influences, and indices are constantly being devised to include this and
exclude that contribution to variance.
Causal Chains and Ecosystem Theory. Among early investigators,
Mayhew (1861) was acutely aware of the myriad influences in his
studies of the city of London. In the tradition of areal distribution
studies he divided the city into its parishes and other districts, and
presented tables showing statute acres of each district, population, and
number of inhabited houses for the years 1841 and 1851 (p. 164). Then
he computed population increase, population density, and population
per household figures for each district (p. 165).
Other parts of his work more closely foreshadow the biological
and ecosystem tradition. For example, after describing the three types of
street paving in London at that time (stone, macadam, and wood) he
calculates there are 1,750 miles of streets over which each of 25,000
horses (with and without carriages, etc.) travels 8 miles a day, for a
total of 200,000 miles traveled each day, or 70 million miles a year. "It
follows, therefore, that each piece of pavement would be traversed no
less than 40,000 times per annum, or upward of a hundred times a day
by some horse or vehicle . . . The daily and nightly grinding of
thousands of wheels, the iron friction of so many horses' hoofs, the
evacuating of horses and cattle, and the ceaseless motion of pedestrians,
all decomposing the substance of streets and roads, give rise to many
distinct kinds of street dirt" (p. 185). These are dust, dung, mud, and
surface water. A table shows for each division of the city the number of
loads of dust and mud collected daily and annually, and the annual value
of same (pp. 186-187). Commenting on the relation of dust to public

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health, Mayhew writes:. in every 24 hours an adult breathes

36 hogsheads of air .... What is the amount of atmospheric granite,
dung, and refuse-dust received in a given period into the human lungs
. . . must be something fearful to contemplate" (p. 188). After careful
calculations of numbers of horses, cattle, pigs, and other animals daily
in the city, and of the amount of food they consume and dung they
excrete, he finds that 39,592 tons of dung are annually dropped on the
streets of London, and then he quotes from a publication of the Board of
Health: "Much of the horse-dung dropped in the London streets . . .
dries and is pulverized, and with the common soil is carried into houses
as dust, and dirties clothes and furniture. The odour arising from the
surface evaporation of the streets when they are wet is chiefly from
horse-dung. Susceptible persons often feel this evaporation after partial
wetting, to be highly oppressive" (p. 196).
Mayhew's calculations and expansions of equations were designed
to produce understanding of cumulative effects, both on the social scene
in requiring institutional action and on the interiors of organisms. His
analysis shows clear awareness of interactive effects of technology on
environment, of the results in the environment affecting the tech-
nologists, of the latter organizing to react appropriately on the en-
vironment, and so on.
Spatial Patterns. Awareness of such underlying interactions has
accompanied the study of pattern in the areal distribution of phenomena.
An early student of spatial patterns in London was Charles Booth.
In his final volume (1902) he shows a map of some fifty districts, colored
according to their social condition, which reveals immediately that the
poorest, most crowded districts are in the center clustered around the
"City" (that is, the central business district); that mainly ringing the
first group is the group of districts next most poor and crowded; and
that, with the exception of one enclave around Hyde Park, the districts
with the best social conditions are in the outer ring. An impression of
concentric zones springs directly from the gestalt. It is possible that
such impressions played a significant part in Burgess's formulation of
the concentric zone hypothesis for the growth and structure of a city:
Zone I, the Loop, or central business district; Zone II, in transition;
Zone III, Working men's homes; Zone IV, Residential; Zone V, Com-
muters (Burgess, 1925). The total pattern of city growth and also the
patchwork pattern of "natural areas" of a city were topics of primary
interest for the group of sociologists known as the Chicago School.

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The Chicago School
In this section ecosystem theory as developed by the Chicago

School will be examined, then some of their studies in areal distribution
will be described.
Chicago School Ecosystem Theory. The Chicago School of research
was begun by Robert Park (1916), who also formulated the system-
theory approach to ecological research: "The interrelation and inter-
dependence of the species are naturally more obvious and more intimate
within the common habitat than elsewhere. Furthermore, as correlations
have multiplied and competition has decreased, in consequence of
mutual adaptations of the competing species, the habitat and habitants
have tended to assume the character of a more or less completely closed
system. Within the limits of this system the individual units of the
population are involved in a process of competitive cooperation, which
has given to their interrelations the character of a natural economy.
To such a habitat and its inhabitants-whether plant, animal, or
human-the ecologists have applied the term 'community' " (Park,
1936). Park was very explicit about the kinds of variables that interest
the human ecologists: "movements of population and of artifacts;
changes in location and occupation-any sort of change, in fact, which
affects an existing division of labor or the relation of the population
to the soil. Human ecology is, fundamentally, an attempt to investigate
the processes by which the biotic balance and the social equilibrium
(1) are maintained once they are achieved and (2) the processes by
which, when the biotic balance and the social equilibrium are
disturbed, the transition is made from one relatively stable order to
another" (Park, 1936).
Park applied this thinking to the city: "The city plan establishes
metes and bounds . . . and imposes an orderly arrangement . . .
upon the buildings . . . . Within the limitations prescribed, however,
the inevitable processes of human nature proceed to give those regions
and those buildings a character which it is less easy to control ....
Personal tastes and convenience, vocational and economic interests,
infallibly tend to segregate and thus to classify the populations of great
cities
"Physical geography, natural advantages and disadvantages,
including means of transportation, determine in advance the general
outlines of the urban plan. As the city increases in population, the subtler

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influences of sympathy, rivalry, and economic necessity tend to control

the distribution of population. Business and industry seek advantageous
locations . . There spring up fashionable residence quarters from
which poorer classes are excluded because of the increased value of the
land. Then there grow slums . . .." (Park, 1925: 4-6).
Thus the "processes of human nature" interact with the "metes
and bounds" and physical geography; and selective migration of persons
and establishments produces distinct areas within the city: "There are
regions in the city in which there are almost no children, areas occupied
by residential hotels, for example. There are regions where the number of
children is relatively high: in the slums, in the middle-class residential
suburbs . . . . There are regions where people almost never vote, except
at national elections, regions where the divorce rate is higher than it is
for any state in the Union, and other regions in the same city where
there are almost no divorces." (Park, 1926: 11-12).
Chicago School: Studies of Areal Distributions. As an example of
actual research strategy in the Chicago School tradition, the work of
Shaw and his associates may be quoted: ". . . the study of such a
problem as juvenile delinquency necessarily begins with a study of its
geographical location. This first step reveals the areas in which delin-
quency occurs most frequently, and therefore marks off the communities
which should be studied intensively for factors related to delinquent
behavior." (Shaw et al., 1929: 5-8). It is apparent that the identification
of special areas is not merely descriptive but rather is strategic in
preparing for intensive research.
The typical study proceeded as follows: (1) from public records
the age, sex, and address of all offenders in a given period were obtained;
(2) addresses were plotted as spots on maps; (3) the city was marked off
into square-mile areas; (4) the delinquency rate of each square mile
was calculated as the ratio of offenders to base population of same age
and sex; (5) on maps with just the square-mile areas marked off, the
delinquency rates were inserted in each square; (6) sets of adjacent
units with high rates were noted as "delinquency areas"; (7) spatial
patterns were studied using radial maps; straight lines emanating from
the center (the Loop) were drawn so that they coincided with the
principal streets of the city. Along these lines, at approximately one-mile
intervals, were written the rates of the square-mile areas intersected
by a radial line; such maps revealed radial patterning of rates and
gradients in rates; (8) spatial patterns were studied also with zone maps

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made by drawing a series of concentric part-circles with center on the

Loop; the first zone was taken to Halsted Street as tangent, with radius
of subsequent zones increasing by one mile successively; (9) correlations
were computed over square-mile area rates for diverse phenomena:
physical deterioration, cheap housing, renter-occupancy, relief families,
tuberculosis, infantile mortality, adult crime, and so on; (10) having
identified high delinquency areas and some of their associated housing,
population, and social behavior characteristics, the investigators moved
in for intensive study of the culture, making use of interviews, case
histories, and ultimately community reorganization devices for delin-
quency control.
The Chicago School did not hesitate to use research for both pure
scientific and also social work purposes. Thus their study of areal
distributions was aimed both at discovery of pattern and also simple
location of the areas needing further work. The study of radials and
concentric zones, however, was more purely based on theories of urban
growth. Certain correlated variables, such as distance from the center of
the city, were again theoretically motivated. Others, like the cheap
housing and families on relief, were partly drawing upon formulations of
"social disorganization" as an important general theoretical correlate of
delinquency, and partly also helping to give preliminary characterization
to the areas later to be studied intensively.
As reported by Shaw and McKay later (1942: 100), many of the
correlated variables showed significant relations with delinquency rates
found in other cities. Thus a most important further step can be seen in
their overall strategy: replication in other ecologic settings. The fact
that they sought replication is itself evidence of their interest in scientific
generalization as well as understanding and amelioration of particular
delinquency areas.
Indeed, Shaw and McKay had many logically different purposes
in their work, and in fact combined all of the different approaches to
"statistical geography" discussed below. However, despite the system
orientation of their mentors) Park and Burgess, the actual work done by
Shaw and McKay contained very little of the direct kind of change and
other dynamic variables seen by Park as essential to an ecological
approach. A few such measures as extent of population decline were
employed, and some geographically relational measures such as proxim-
ity to industrial incursion. Rather than study change-measures, Shaw
and McKay turned to the study of changes in cross-sectional measures.

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Thus they compared (1942: 60 if.) the delinquency rates by square-

mile-area for 1900-1906 with those for twenty and thirty years later. Of
the twenty-five areas with highest rates in the 1900-1906 series, nineteen
also were among the twenty-five highest in the 1917-1923 series and
eighteen were in the twenty-five highest of the 1927-1933 series.
It may be noted that Shaw and McKay introduced a superior
areal unit, one which takes a great deal of labor, however. One problem
of analysis that beset their studies was the reliance on gradients along
radials and across concentric zones. As pointed out by Ross (1933), no
account was taken of variability within zones or around radials, and no
statistical tests were applied to check whether or not a gradient was
significantly different from horizontal, or whether the difference between
two adjacent zone rates was larger than might be expected on the basis
of chance variation among square-mile areas within zones. Such varia-
tion was extensive, as Shaw and McKay pointed out; but their attention
was on replication over settings, not on statistical hypothesis-testing
within one setting. The latter is clearly less laborious.
Modern Era
In this section focus will be on modern ecosystem theory, recent

developments in measurement and analysis of areal distributions, and
recent work in multivariate analysis of ecological variables.
Modern Ecosystem Theory. Duncan (1964) considers the basic
ecosystem processes to be dependency and exchange relations between
organisms and their environment. These relations involve flows of
materials, energy, and information. His Figure I (p. 38) shows the
"Generalized pattern of energy flow via food chains in an ecosystem,"
starting with radiant energy and heat emanating from the sun, involving
plants, herbivores, carnivores, bacteria, refertilizing waste matter, soil,
water, and gases, along with a number of circular chains among these
various entities. Information consists of "instructions" for the expendi-
ture of energy: "[It] serves to control, that is, to modify, the rate and
pattern of materials and energy flows as these are intersected by living
units" (p. 41). Flows of materials, energy, or information may be
examined from six standpoints: entry into the system; transformation
during the flow through the system; transfer within the system; accumula-
tion, storage, and retrieval; application by and for some living unit part of
the system; and dissipation.

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Ecosystem analysis is applied to a wide range of topics: the

evolution of man; the evolution of society; modern technological
expansion. In the evolution of man, genetic, social, and cultural changes
represent ecological adaptations. "The ecology of man was, therefore, to
be the ecology not merely of a peculiar organism, but the ecology of that
animal's culture, social patterns, technology, and increasingly 'artificial'
environment" (p. 48).
In the evolution of society, developmental stages (from food-
gathering to urban) are differentiated ecologically in terms of exploitive
technology, rather than in types of environment. Patterns of population
concentration (including cities) followed patterns of agricultural
productivity. Demographic phases of ecological expansion could be
predicated on realizing the potential of a prior technological advance.
For example, irrigation and drainage would improve productivity per
acre in many instances, but could do so effectively only if demographic
expansion or appropriate redistribution could supply the necessary
concentration of labor: ". . . changes great enough to be described as a
transition from one 'level' (of social organization) to another were almost
certainly the outcome of expansion in several intercorrelated components
of the human niche in the ecosystem" (p. 57).
In modern technological expansion, ". . . flows of requisites
increasingly are mediated by technological systems instead of being the
outcome of direct interchange between human activity and the en-
vironment" (p. 63), and a rough chart of development in this direction
is provided by figures (p. 64) for number of "technical engineers" per
1,000 economically active population in the U.S. from 1900 (1.3) to
1960 (12.8). Duncan's Table 1 (p. 63) shows estimates of annual work
output per capita (horsepower hours) by source of energy, for the U.S.,
1850, (44.3 from all sources), 1900 (103.5), and 1950 (444.9). In the
modern industrial system exchanges of materials, energy, and informa-
tion are reflected in exchanges of money. His Table 2 shows figures for
Federal Reserve credit clearings between regions of the country, re-
flecting volume of transactions between regions. Increasing volume and
complexity require increasingly complex organization. Description of
business enterprises by types of corporate unit, by function, size, and
interrelation, results in a conception of "multiple organizational pyra-
mids." Thus ecological expansion in industrial social evolution may be
summarized as the "ecological complex . . .: technological accumula-

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tion at an accelerated rate; intensified exploitation of the environment;

denmographic transition (now popularly known as 'population explosion');
and organizational revolution" (p. 75).
One criticism of the ecosystem approach is that virtually any
subject is relevant. Radiant solar energy, genetic changes in evolution,
types of exploitive technology, demography of population concentra-
tion, agricultural productivity, irrigation and drainage, engineering,
units of work energy, finance, business organization-all are important
topics for consideration by the human ecologist, especially with regard
to the study of flows and other dynamic relations between parts of whole
systems. Doubtless a similar impression prompted Rossi's comment on
an earlier paper by Duncan and Schnore (1961) that included similar
treatnment of the "ecological complex"; Rossi (1961) deplored the
"intellectual imperialism" of defining the "ecological perspective" so
loosely that any praiseworthy sociological work can be included.
Areal Distributions. The solution offered by Shaw et al. (1929) to
the problem of unit size was the construction of square-mile areas. While
the size of unit is thus made equal, no adjustments for local topographic
irregularities can be made: one unit might contain a piece of park, some
commercial areas, part of a residential section, and a top corner of
railroad track. The idea of census tracts was originally designed (by
Laidlaw; see U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1962: 1) to produce homogene-
ous subdivisions of cities, letting the boundaries go in what shape and
size seemed necessary (within limits). Community areas were also
designed with homogeneity in mind, being collections of contiguous
census tracts having unit qualities of community, name, awareness on
the part of inhabitants of common interest, and so on. As pointed out by
Kitagawa and Taeuber (1963), there have been major changes in
distribution of residents and patterns of land-use over time within any
one community area, so that the homogeneity of an original area may
decrease sharply with time. The dilemma here is rather sharp: on the
one hand, the delimitation of such comnlunity areas (or tracts) is
designed to provide a relatively homogeneous unit for the analysis of
varying conditions within a given territory and for studying changes
over time in local communities, so that changes are expected and
desired; on the other hand, the study of such changes would be most
reasonable only if the units remained homogeneous, that is, if all parts of
a community area changed synchronously and in the same way; for if
they do not, then the boundaries should be redefined to produce a new

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set of homogeneous units; but that destroys the comparability of units

over time. Kitagawa and Taeuber recommend that for many purposes
the investigator should probably define his own units, be it subgrouping
of census tracts or whatever. But that reduces the comparability
between investigations, and in no way resolves the problemll of chang
over time.
The notions of "perceived homogeneity" (Tryon, 1955), or
"functional homogeneity" (Duncan et al., 1961: 38) offer plausible
alternatives to resolution in the problem of indeterminacy in comparison
of areal units if explicit restriction is made to that particular type of
homogeneity. But Duncan et al. believe that no general methodological
solution is available from such expedients, and urge rather that methods
for defining degrees of homogeneity be developed, along with criteria for
judging the suitability of different degrees of homogeneity for different
research purposes.
Research purposes in areal study may be aligned in part with the
different approaches described by Duncan et al. (1961): (1) "choro-
graphic," in which the aim is to understand a given area in terms of the
total character of the values of all variables in that given area; (2) loca-
tion and distributions, in which a defined "population" of items is
studied for its distribution in space, each item assumed to have some
definite areal location at a given point in time; (3) study of spatial
structure, which means both static and dynamic relations among parts,
such as the transportation routes linking different parts of a business
enterprise; (4) "systematic" study of areal variation and covariation in
various phenomena, in which interest centers upon describing the
variation of a class of phenomena in terms of their location and in
explaining the variation from area to area in terms of variations in other
phenomena, such as the study of variations in income level from region
to region of the United States and associated variation in natural
resources, industry type, and so on; (5) the use of areal units in which to
make observations of variable values (such as divorce rates) and values
of associated variables (such as income); the units provide groupings of
data only, like class intervals, and spatial characteristics in themselves
are of no interest.
Approaches (1) and (2) deal more with an entire territory as one
complex setting, probably do not need to unitize into subdivisions, and
hence do not incur the problem of homogeneity of units. Approach
(3) may or may not unitize. But approaches (4) and (5) do become

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subject to proper statistical treatment onily through unitizing. (The

term "unitizing" is more often used in content analysis, but the formal
similarity in areal research is obvious.) Thus complete heterogeneity is
satisfactory for a chorographic purpose; but homogeneity of high
degree is probably more usually needed in statistical studies of areal
variation and covariance. Incidentally, the distinction between choro-
graphic and systematic study is formally identical to the distinction
between "ideographic" and "nomothetic" research in psychology. In the
former, focus is on the concrete individual, on all the interacting traits of
motive and capacity that make him a unique individual; in the latter,
focus is on general law-like relations among variables, independent of
given individuals, (see, for example, Allport, 1940).
In addition to five approaches to areal study, Duncan et al. (1961)
also discuss five types of areal data that may be obtained: contents,
spatial characteristics, locational aspects, comparative data, and
topological data. In regard to contents, the unit is a sample of items, part
of a population of items contained in the territory. The observations
made on the items (for example, births of persons) are used to provide
aggregate characterizations of the unit (for example, birth rate). Herein
lie the major problems, including those of the ecological fallacy. Other
problems surround the several measures of aggregation: simple enumera-
tion, rates, frequency distributions, and so on. For example, a problem
with frequency distributions in this writer's experience is the difficulty
of realistic representation except graphically. If the age composition of
the population is to be represented, for example, at least measures of
central tendency and dispersion and skew should be employed. But even
that is often not enough, for low median age can be achieved through
underrepresentation of the old or overrepresentation of the young; the
latter may be occasioned through a bulge in the babies or in the youth
or equally in both.
The second type of data that may be gathered on areal units refers
explicitly to spatial extent, such as total land area, or percentage of
acreage in farms. A major problem arises when the data from units are
used to estimate values for the territory. The average of percentages in
farms will not in general give the territory percentage unless all areal
units are the same size. Weighting is required.
The third type of data is that of location of features in an areal
unit. Two uses are made: a feature is said to be located in a unit (as
Denver is said to be located in Colorado); or the unit is said to be charac-

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terized by the feature located in it (as that Colorado contains fifty-four

mountain peaks at or above 14,000 feet). Problems include the fact that
the unit may be too large relative to the feature to provide precise
location. Characterization, prime in chorographic work, clearly may
apply strictly to only a part of the area (there are no peaks at all in
Prowers County, Colorado).
The fourth type of data portrays the area in comparative relation
to other areas, in rank order, for example. Even as the rank orders of
items within units allow no comparison between units, so the ranks over
units provide no possible characterization of the territory.
The fifth type of data includes relations of mainly spatial separa-
tion or connectedness, such as membership in a region or proximity
to a metropolitan center. One example of modern measurement devices
in this class is that of "population potential." For any point in the
territory, its distance from the center of each unit is measured. In
relation to each unit, the quantity population/distance is calculated;
these quantities are summed over all units to give the population po-
tential of the point. Joining points of equal potential with a line, the
several lines may be depicted in an isoline map. Duncan et al. (1961: 54)
give such a map for the United States for 1950. Such potential measures
are quite general in form, and in principle any "X-potential" may be
computed. Beverly Duncan (1964) studied the distributions of work-
places in Chicago using a "workplace potential" measure of the same
form: for a particular site, the sum over all workplaces in the territory
of the reciprocals of the mile distance separating each workplace from
the site. This was done for two industries, nonelectrical and electrical
machinery, and isoline maps for each were drawn.
The example offers an opportunity also to appraise the total
thrust of areal distribution studies, or statistical geography, in relation
to human ecology. Such studies are primarily concerned with distribu-
tions in space, and these characterize the space as such and also the
entities within the space. No distinction is drawn between an entity that
is being studied and the ecologic setting within which that entity has its
habitat. Proximity relations may be sought equally between different
aspects of the setting, such as junkyards to railroads, or between entities
and setting, such as workmen to workplaces. While spatial relations are
important aspects of many ecologic studies, they are only part.
An ecologic consideration of "workplace potential," for instance,
might question at least two assumptions of the measure used by Beverly

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Duncan. First, linear distance as the crow flies is probably quite poor
as a measure of actual distance to be traveled or of the difficulty of
traveling from residence to place of work. Streets turn corners, run
around parks or industrial areas, and sometimes do and sometimes do
not have public transportation along them. Sometimes they run through
neighborhoods inimical to selected segments of the population of
potential workmen. Second, since "workplace potential" was ". . .
interpreted as a measure of the accessibility of the site to workplaces
in the . . ." territory, it is appropriate to consider other factors involved
in "accessibility." While the place of the workplace might be reachable,
its work potential in terms of actually providing a job for a potential
workman might be quite remote, depending on numerous aspects both
of the workplace and of the potential workman. From an ecologic point
of view, the notion of accessibility would be poorly represented by
geographic linear distance.
Advances in Multivariate Analysis: Methodological. Multivariate
techniques include multiple regression, factor analysis, cluster analysis,
analysis of dispersion, and several others. Duncan et al. (1961) provide
extensive discussion of uses of multiple regression, much of which
depends upon prior formulation of a model of the relationships to be
studied, selection of an appropriate dependent variable, and regression
upon several independent variables pertinent to a test of the model or
alternative models. The use of such models for estimating the individual
correlation from group data will be discussed in the last section of this
paper.
One series of uses of regression analysis described by Duncan et al.
(1961: 128-160) has to do with assessment of contiguity and regional
classification. Let Y be the dependent variable, X1, X2, X3, X4, the
independent variables, Y* the predicted estimate of Y. Two areal units
may be similar on Y, on some or all of the X, and/or on Y*. The authors
give examples from State Economic Areas, with Y = percentage of land
in farms, X1 = population potential, X2 = distance to metropolitan
area, X3 = index of urbanization, X4= index of soil quality, Y* =
24.33 + 0.590X1 + 0.629X2 - 0.284X3 + 0.472X4, R = .72. The fol-
lowing pair of areas shows similarity in all ways:
Nebraska 6-Y = 96, Y* = 97, X1 = 24, X2 = 16, X3 = 28, X4 = 120

S. Dakota 4a-Y = 97, Y* = 98, X1 = 21, X2 = 22, X3 = 28, X4 = 118
Such a pair might be grouped together in a region on any of the three

bases. But consider the next pair:

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Kentucky 9-Y = 43, Y* = 51, X1 = 37, X2 = 19, X3 = 26, X4 = 0

Tennessee 6-Y = 77, Y* = 51, X1 = 35, X2 = 18, X3 = 23, X4 = 2
This pair would be grouped if the independent variables or the predicted

values were the chosen basis of grouping; not if the actual dependent
variable were the basis.
A different extreme is offered by the next pair:
Ohio 6a-Y = 88, Y* = 87, X1 = 47, X2 = 16, X3 = 40, X4 = 77

Texas 3-Y = 88, Y* = 88, X1 = 16, X2 = 20, X3 = 51, X4 = 118
Duncan et al. describe the latter pair of units as being ". . . alike for
different reasons." (p. 155); whereas Nebraska 6 and S. Dakota 4a were
"alike for the same reasons."
The basic problem with such analysis is the causal assumption. If
variables are manipulated it is appropriate to call them "independent,"
and those whose consequential variation is observed "dependent."
Without manipulation the implied causal direction, if any, is in doubt
until further consideration demonstrates otherwise. For example, it
might be agreed that where soil quality is higher it is reasonable to
suppose that humans would be more likely to put more acres into farms
on that very account; but it is difficult to imagine that humans would do
their best to put as much distance as possible between their agricultural
and their metropolitan areas, so the distance as such cannot be causal.
Similarly, it is hard to see that smallness of urbanization could produce
or otherwise be causally efficient in relation to percentage of land in
farms, although it is known that if a town or city occupies a place, no
part of such place can be classified as a farm in the census; also that it is
not easy to extend the city limits over a farm if the owner objects.
Multiple regression procedures minimize the residuals Y - Y* the
best way they can for the given data, and it is well known that the
weights multiplying the predictor variables to produce that minimization
will change with additional independent variables or with subtractions.
For a given underlying factor, A, measures sharing the variance of
Factor A will share also the weights; remove one measure from that set
and the weights on the remainder increase in absolute size; remove a
measure with variance in an orthogonal factor set and no change occurs
in the weights of Factor A measures. (See Gordon (1967), for example.)
Thus the procedure has internal restraints that are independent of
choice of predictor variables in a substantive sense. It is these restraints
that are imposed upon the linear combination Y* and allow it, for

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instance, to show two area

quite unlike (see above).
Factor analysis addresses different questions: namely, if there are
interdependencies among measures, which measures are in which set?
The fundamental procedure is that of solving the eigenproblem in
matrix algebra. Given a square, nonsingular matrix A, find a number a
and a column vector V, such that AV = aV. If A has r rows and columns,
there are r different (or nearly so) values of a, each associated with a V
vector. The original matrix A can be decomposed into a summation: let
the matrix aiVV'al be called P. For each aV combination there is a P, and
hence there are r matrices, P1, P2, . . . , Pr. Then A = P1 + P2 +
*- +Pr. Each P has the property that Pi- Pj = 0, that is, these
product matrices are orthogonal. Under usual extraction procedures (see
Harman, 1967; Sawiris, 1967), the largest a is examined first, and then
the next largest, and so on.
Now when A is a correlation matrix with unities in the main
diagonal, each value of a is equivalent to an amount of variance asso-
ciated with a hypothetical variable, a principal axis factor so-called (or
more exactly, a principal component). The total variance in the set of
r measures equals r, 1.00 for each measure. This quantity is redistributed
among the principal axis factors, with amounts greater than 1.00 going
to the first few factors; less than 1.00 going to subsequent factors. In
terms of the matrices P, the first few make up most of A, the remainders
thereafter being small. Therefore the collection of interdependent rela-
tions among r measures can be divided mainly into as many orthogonal
sets as there are "substantial" factors. One elegant solution to the choice
of a "substantial" size is that of Guttman (1954), who shows that a
lower bound to the number of common factors is given by the number
of a values greater than 1.00. Let that number be m. Usually something
like one third of the a values is included in m. This means that a good
approximation to the pattern of interrelations among the r measures
can be obtained using only r/3 = m hypothetical variables, yielding a
considerable reduction in the sheer number of measurements to be
studied.
Before actual values of these new measures can be obtained, two
further steps in technique must be taken. First, for the best understand-
ing of the hypothetical variables it is customary to "rotate" the m axes
retained. The most authoritative rationale and procedures for such
rotation are described by Harris and Kaiser (1964). Typically the

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rotation will ensure that the smallest number of original measures has
a nonvanishing correlation with the hypothetical factor; and at the
same time, it will ensure that each original measure has nonvanishing
correlations with the smallest number of the m factors. The second task
is that of estimating the factor scores from the obtained measurements
of the original measures. A thorough review of available procedures is
given by Horn (1965).
If it can be shown that some one of the original r measures is very
highly correlated with a particular factor, then that one measure may
henceforth be used in place of all the measures having substantial cor-
relations with the factor-whatever the variable is, it is measured very
well by that one measure; and the remainder are redundant.
Cluster analysis is in some forms a shortcut to factor analysis
with rotation. Using Tryon's (1955) procedures of key-cluster analysis
yields an excellent approximation to a principal axis factor analysis
followed by rotation to an independent cluster solution in the Harris-
Kaiser sense.
Several workers have argued strongly for the use of factor analytic
techniques in ecological research. The noted ecologist Schmid writes:
"Factor analysis possesses two special advantages. The first is parsimony:
it can reduce a large number of interrelated variables to a relatively
small number of independent factors. The second advantage is in provid-
ing a means for discovering underlying unities. It affords a technique for
determining the patterns, regularities, and basic structure of a large
number of variables" (1960a: 535). "The factors obtained from this
analysis are, like any scientific concept, abstract statistical artifacts . . .
it may or may not be possible to demonstrate a direct relationship
between the factors and basic sociological processes. Although one may
be strongly tempted to infer causality, the results of factor analysis
merely measure the degree of concomitance among community structures
and characteristics. The elements that are revealed may be purely
coincidental and do not necessarily possess direct relevance to the
etiology of crime" (1960a: 542).
It is apparent that Schmid here reflects an ambivalence or am-
biguity that is common throughout all work with factor analysis. On
one hand, a factor is supposed to represent an underlying unity, some-
thing which serves to bring together all the measures loading the factor.
On the other hand, a factor is thought of as a reducer of the number of
variables, as a statistical artifact merely measuring the degree of con-

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comitance among entities. In terms of the mathematical development

above, a factor is simply an eigenvector multiplied by the root of its
associated eigenvalue; when it is a rotated factor or cluster, then it is
still simply a mathematical vector related to the original principal axis
factors by a linear combination equation. If the investigator chooses,
he can remain content to say that the rotated factor has such and such
correlations with a subset of his original measures; or he can choose to
describe the factor as summarizing all the measures that have sub-
stantial correlations with it; or he can choose to interpret the factor as
having some gathering or producing or intertwining or other non-
accidental influence on the subset of measures brought together in sub-
stantial correlation with the factor. The choice is the responsibility of
the investigator.
The investigator using factor analytic techniques may pursue
alternative strategies depending on the nature of his problem (Cart-
wright, 1965, for example); but much factor analytic work is still
exploratory. In this strategy, one way of phrasing the question is: here
are some measures that look useful, so what variables might they be
measuring? Here the measures are in search of variables. By contrast,
the approach used by many workers with multiple regression techniques
is that of first building a model which specifies conceptual variables, and
then hunting for a measure of each variable. Here the variables are in
search of measures.
Thus exploratory factor analysis, even up through the rth
replication to check and refine summaries, interpretations, or measure-
ments of factors, strategically precedes multiple regression analysis; for
one useful question that might be asked of factor analysis is: what varia-
bles (and what measures) are worth putting into a regression analysis?
The same question can be asked about typologies: what measures
are worth using in typological research? For questions about homogeneity
of areas and of regions built up from areas are questions about types of
areal unit. Even if focus is placed solely upon the characteristics of the
population, the situation is multivariate. Selvin (1958) has pointed out
that Durkheim, recognizing the multivariate nature of group differentia-
tions, was careful to explore one variable at a time, in as minute detail
as possible, before proceeding to the introduction of a new variable.
Selvin argues that groups need to be studied with as many variables as
possible, with all variables simultaneously represented, preferably in a
multivariate typology.

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In the work of Tryon (1955, 1967) may be seen the full use of
cluster analysis for purpose of multivariate typing. First, measures are
clustered into as many independent clusters as are demanded by the
correlational data; then scores for each cluster are produced and each
object is scored on all clusters; then the objects are clustered on the
basis of homogeneity of pattern across the cluster scores. The object
clusters are called 0-types. Then 0-type prediction is used on criterion
measures of various kinds, the search being made for homogeneity in the
criterion scores of members of a given 0-type.
Finally, brief mention must be made of a class of multivariate
techniques depending on the analysis of dispersion. Dispersion is the
multivariate equivalent of variance in the univariate case. It includes the
variances of the several measures and also their covariances. The
simplest question asked is: do two or more groups differ in the total set
of means for n measures? Several expositions of the mathematical basis
may be found (for example, Rao, 1962), and of recent developments in
analysis for more complex designs (chapters by Jones and Bock in
Cattell, 1966). So far little use has been made of these procedures in
ecological research, but they have much to off er.
Advances in Multivariate Analysis: Substantive. The main part of
this section will be concerned with results in factor and cluster analysis;
the survey is not intended to be complete. As will be seen, most of the
work has been in urban settings.
Schmid (1950) and Schmid, MacCannell, and Van Arsdol (1958)
studied correlations between a dozen census tract measures for two score
American cities in 1940 and 1950. They concluded that a major dimen-
sion of socioeconomic status of the population, as determined by such
measures as education, income, and occupation, underlies the social
structure of American cities.
Working independently, using procedures of cluster analysis,
Tryon (1955) identified three major clusters of measures on the census
tracts of San Francisco, 1940. The defining measures for the Family Life
cluster were owner-occupied dwelling units, large families, percentage of
females not working (housewives), number of young children. Defining
measures for the second cluster, Assimilation, were skilled males,
native-born whites, females, foreign stock from Protestant Europe, and
white-collar females. The third cluster, Socioeconomic Independence,
was measured by percentage of managerial and professional males,
own-account males and percentage college-educated. The third cluster

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is evidently closely similar to the socioeconomic status dimension of

Schmid, MacCannell, and Van Arsdol.
Using a very different method, Shevky and Bell (1955) arrived at
essentially the same three clusters. Whereas Tryon allowed an analytic
procedure to determine the clusters from correlations of measures on
tracts, Shevky and Bell theorized that three major kinds of change
characterize the developing industrial society and that these trends are
reflected in the structure of a given social system at a given point in
time. The kinds of change are: range and intensity of relations, differ-
entiation of function, and complexity of organization. These result
respectively in changing distribution of skills (with growing importance
of managerial skills), changing structure of productive activity (shifting
focus from household to factory), and changing composition of popula-
tion (age, sex, ethnic distributions). In a specific social system, these
broad trends yield changes in occupational hierarchy, in family patterns,
and in isolation and segregation of groups. Shevky and Bell then develop
constructs to reflect these three dimensions of differentiation between
social areas: Social Rank by economic status, Urbanization by family
status, and Segregation by ethnic status. Selecting from a pool of
appropriate available measures for each construct, they chose occupa-
tion, schooling and rent to measure Social Rank; fertility, women at
work and single-family units to measure Urbanization; racial and
national groups in relative isolation to measure Segregation.
Social Rank seems similar to Socioeconomic Independence or
status; Urbanization to Family Life; and Segregation to the opposite of
Assimilation. Again we may note the methodological contrast between
variables in search of measures (the Shevky and Bell approach) and
measures in search of variables (the Tryon approach, and more generally
the approach of cluster and factor analysis).
Returning to the matter of multivariate typology, Shevky and
Bell (1955) proceed to outline ways in which tracts may be grouped into
social areas by putting together those tracts that have a similar pattern
of scores on the three index measures. Tryon (1967) shows an analytic
procedure for achieving the same end, and demonstrates that such
0-Type areas permit a greater degree of accuracy in prediction than the
usual multiple regression procedures with 1940 cluster scores as pre-
dictors. Specifically, given a homogeneous set of tracts on the three
predictors, criterion measures of various kinds are found to be similarly
homogeneous within the set (but heterogeneous between sets). His

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Table 3 (Tryon, 1967) shows the increase of prediction (in comparable

units) as one progresses from univariate through multivariate to 0-Type
prediction. For example, from 1940 cluster score data, the best univariate
prediction of voting behavior in 1954 on taxation regarding bonds for
schools, hospitals, homes for the aged, and similar items was -.76 from
the family life score. A linear multiple correlation from all three 1940
cluster scores yielded .82. The three highest 0-Type predictions were .99,
.92, and .92. Altogether three of twelve 0-Type social areas showed
predictions with values less than the multiple R of .82. The remainder
showed better predictions.
Tryon (1967) also shows very high constancy of cluster score
values for tracts from the 1940 to the 1950 census, with multiple correla-
tions of .95 to .98. Similar constancy from 1940 to 1950 in many in-
dividual measures was noted by Schmid, MacCannell, and Van Arsdol
(1958). In part, no doubt, it is this very constancy that allows fourteen-
year predictions of voting behavior to have accuracies indicated by
values of .8 and .9. In part also it is due to the method of cluster analysis
which automatically brings together measures with high internal
consistency and high communality or correlation with many other
measures in the available data. Indeed, Tryon (1967) shows that the
same three cluster dimensions account for 94 per cent of the total vari-
ance (unities in the diagonal) of a set of measures including the three
from 1940, the three from 1950, three measures of political attitudes in
1940, 1947, and 1954, two measures of voting on taxes, and so on in
1954, per capita income in 1949, turnout of voters in 1940 and in 1947,
moved home in 1940, and moved home in 1950. Broadening the scope of
his interpretations of these clusters to reflect the broader inclusion of
measures, Tryon renames Socioeconomic Independence as Conservatism,
Family Life as Territoriality, and Assimilation as Exclusiveness.
In a very thorough study of the ecology of crime areas in Seattle,
Schmid (1960a, 1960b) also grouped tracts into natural areas on the
basis of factor scores. For the ninty-three tracts, rates on twenty crimes
and eighteen census variables were intercorrelated and factorized, with
eight factors resulting and rotated to orthogonal structure. Five of the
factors were chiefly reflective of type of crime; three appear essentially
similar to the three discussed above. His Low Social Cohesion-Low
Family Status shows high percentage of females in labor force, low
fertility ratio, low percentage married, and is the reverse of Tryon's
Family Life cluster. Schmid's Low Social Cohesion-Low Occupational

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Status, with education, median income, and percentage of professional

workers all having large negative loadings, is the reverse of Tryon's
Socioeconomic Independence. Other correspondences are not clear, and
since the samples of variables were not identical, complete identification
is not possible.
Schmid also evaluated the tracts of Seattle in accordance with
the Tryon and Shevky-Bell typologies. Reversing Shevky-Bell's Ur-
banization to give it the same direction as Tryon's Family Life measure,
and reversing Segregation to give it the same direction as Tryon's
Assimilation, he found that correlations over Seattle tracts were .94 and
.81 respectively, with .84 for the Social Rank and Socioeconomic
Independence comparison. In many instances, however, a single census
index actually did a better job of predicting individual crime rate figures.
Social rank, socioeconomic independence, socioeconomic status
all seem to refer to one and the same general variable. There has been
some question about this, however.
Lander (1954) studied the census tracts of Baltimore 1940, and
obtained two factors: Socioeconomic Status (low education, low rent,
substandard housing); and Anomie (low owner-occupied dwellings, high
percentage nonwhite, high delinquency rate). The logical relation of
variable to measures is not clear for the Anomie factor. Gordon (1967)
questions whether Lander's data may not best be considered to show a
single general factor of Socioeconomic Status, and provides good reason
to think this is so. Actually, even Lander's original correlation matrix
suggests this.
By reverse-scoring certain of Lander's measures the correlation
matrix can be made mainly positive: using above-standard housing
(ASH), white (W), not overcrowded (NOC), and not delinquent (ND);
and using the nonreversed directions for education (ED), rent (R),
owner-occupied (00) and foreign-born (F), Lander's correlation matrix
was as follows (decimals omitted):
ED R ASH NOC ND 00 W F
ED 89 76 71 51 39 41 -12
R 73 68 53 47 34 -13
ASH 86 69 67 58 -07
NOC 73 72 69 01
ND 80 70 16
00 76 12
W 32

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The correlation matrix evidently can be closely approximated by

a single general factor, but (as suggested by E. F. Borgatta in personal
communication) the pattern is much better approximated by a simplex
solution (Guttman, 1954b). Jones (1959) discusses the notion of simplex
as interdependencies among stages of learning, in which later stages
incorporate the products of earlier ones and use them. Thus the set of
data obtained by Lander may perhaps best be described in terms of
"utility" relations as discussed later in this paper.
The correlation matrices obtained by Lander in Baltimore, by
Bordua in Detroit, and by Chilton in Indianapolis are provided by
Chilton (1964). All show essentially the same susceptibility to either a
general factor or a simplex approximation.
The question of generality of factors from one city when applied
to another is of the greatest importance. Borgatta and Hadden have
completed the most extensive study so far on this matter, dealing with
tracts in all cities of the United States, and also with cities. In the tract
study (Borgatta and Hadden, 1965) they first found through preliminary
analyses that the variations of tract variables are independent of varia-
tions in the city variables for cities containing the tracts. They then
posed the following basic question of analysis: "What is the structure of
variables that underlies the distribution of tracts, independently of the
cities within which they occur?" Separate analyses were carried out for
regions: Northeast region, forty-eight cities, with a total of 8,616 tracts;
Northeentral region, forty-eight cities, with a total of 6,069 tracts;
South region, fifty-seven cities, with a total of 3,773 tracts; West region,
twenty-four cities, with a total of 4,245 tracts. All cities represented the
177 Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas for which the Bureau of the
Census provides tract data. In addition comparable analyses were carried
out on each of two 20 per cent samples of all tracts in the United States.
In each analysis thirty-two variables were employed. Principal
components factor analysis with R2 values in the main diagonal was
followed by Varimax rotation in each of the six separate studies. The
authors state (Borgatta and Hadden, 1965: 26): "From the point of view
of interpretation, which is granted to be intuitive here rather than by
some mechanical formula, the number of factors varies by region, with
eight interpretable for the West region, seven for the other regions, and
only six for the 20 per cent samples." Nevertheless, five factors appeared
to be parallel, within limits, in all sets of data, although some variations
of structure were found even within these factors, and the grouping with
Factor V was particularly tenuous.

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Factor I is called Socioeconomic Status, and is defined by these

variables: per cent families with over $10,000 income, Per cent college
graduates, Median income of families, Per cent professional and mana-
gerial males, Mediail school years completed, Median monthly rent,
Median value of owner-occupied units.
Factor II is called the Suburb Factor, which includes both
family type indicators and also housing and geographical indicators of
suburban characteristics. Thus defining variables include Population per
household, Median age, Per cent females under five years, Fertility
ratio, all positive except age, indicating the presence of large numbers of
children. Negative loadings on Male divorce rate and Male widower rate
suggest low proportions of broken families. The variable Per cent
females over 14 in the labor force is negatively loaded, indicating that
the positive pole of the factor is associated with low proportions of
women working, which is itself traditionally associated with young
families, as pointed out by the authors. Both Per cent single dwelling
units and Central city vs. Urban ring (scored positively on Urban ring)
are positively loaded, giving the housing and geographical location
characteristics of suburbia.
Factor III, Mobility, has defining variables of Per cent moved
into units 1958-1960, and Per cent in same house 1960 as 1955 (nega-
tive). A variation in the Northeeiltral region is called a Stable Family
factor. It has one very high loading by the variable Per cent married
males, and loadings of .40 or better on: Per cent females under five years,
Per cent units sound, Per cent owner-occupied units, and Per cent in
same house 1960 as 1955. A loading of .30 is found for Per cent units
built 1950 or later, and this adds to an expanded interpretation as a
factor defined by tracts in which (Borgatta and Hadden, 1965: 15):
". . . construction occurred after 1950, but probably before 1955, in
which there are large proportions of completed families." It should be
added that the families appear residentially stable over at least five
years.
The fourth factor is called the Disorganization-Deprivation
Factor. The defining variables are: Per cent Negroes, Male separation
rate, Per cent families under $3000 income, Per cent completed less
than five years school, Per cent imale labor force unemployed, and Ma
widower rate, all with loadinigs of .54 or better. Thus illiteracy, un-
employment, low income, and family dissolution are all reflected in this
factor in association with the percentage of Negroes in the community.

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The fifth factor represents the percentage of foreign-born, with

high loadings also on few single dwelling units and few owner-occupied
units.
Using measures of the first four factors applied to gang neighbor-
hoods in Chicago, Cartwright and Howard (1966) showed that scores on
the suburb factor predicted corner-boy gang behaviors, while scores on
the socioeconomic factor predicted behaviors more strictly associated
with the delinquent subculture as described by Cohen (1955: 25ff.). The
behavior scores were those obtained by Short, Tennyson, and Howard
(1963). Thus the factors obtained by Borgatta and Hadden have already
been shown to have considerable predictive power in at least one
independent study.
Even more striking in evidence of generality across different
panels of data are the results obtained by Hadden and Borgatta (1965)
in their factor analytic study of American cities. Taking sixty-five
variables of 1960 census data on 644 cities of 25,000 population or
greater, they factorized the data with rotation to Varimax orthogonal
simple structure. The study was replicated on panels of small cities
only, intermediate only, central cities only, and other subsets. Sub-
stantial parallelism was found. Factor I was Socioeconomic Status
Level, with income, rent, education, white collar loading highly. Factor
II was Nonwhite, with many having less than five years of school,
many families less than $3,000 income annually, high percentages
living in rented units. Factor III, Age Composition, had per cent under
five years as its highest variable. Factor IV indicated whether the city
was an Educational Center, with high percentage of population living
in group quarters, employed in education, college graduates, and few
married couples relatively. Factor V was Residential Mobility, and
interesting indications included the fact that high iiobility cities are
outside of the northeastern and northeentral regions and are relatively
young as cities. Factor VI was Population Density, with density high
and many using public transportation, also few single dwelling units and
owner-occupied units. Other factors reflected type of industrial con-
centration: retail, wholesale, manufacturing generally, durables manu-
facturing. Sixteen factors in all were described, several with variants for
certain panels (for example, large cities only); six factors were almost
identical for all panels. Four more varied in only one panel (p. 65).
Using two measures of Factor I, two of Factor V, one each for
Factor II, III, IV, VI, VII, and VIII, plus two other measures, Hadden

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and Borgatta offer a profile of the cities, by states, each city having
twelve measures, one of population in thousands and eleven in approxi-
mate deciles. Thus a complex, multivariate typology of cities is presented
(pp. 76-100) in quantitative form, waiting to be put to work. Hadden
and Borgatta comment: ". . . about the use of the profile as a source
for comparative research . . . . It is important to emphasize that one
value of this kind of study is that it permits, indeed compels, the re-
search to progress beyond the limits of 'traditional' variables, because
the relationships among these variables have already been summarized"
(p. 75). It is evident that the profiles will permit valuable nonrandomized
contrast designs (Keyfitz, 1964) and quasi-experimental designs (Camp-
bell and Stanley, 1963) in the study of impacts of different urban ecolo-
gies upon diverse aspects of social organization.
As the unit area is increased, the homogeneity decreases, in
general. Evidently tracts will be more homogeneous than community
areas, the latter more homogeneous than cities, and the latter more
homogeneous than counties. In their appendix (pp. 185ff.), Hadden and
Borgatta discuss the observation that results obtained in ecological
research depend, to a considerable extent, on the way the ecological unit
is defined. The concern is especially important for varying definitions of
a given type of unit such as a city. Changes in the census definition of
urban units from 1940 to 1950 led Bogue (reported in Hadden and
Borgatta, p. 187) to assert that it meant abandoning forty years of
thinking and research done on metropolitan districts and breaking the
chain of continuity in urban population statistics. However, no empirical
evidence on the effects of changes had been produced. Hadden and
Borgatta then report a study of Urbanized Areas, Standard Metro-
politan Statistical Areas, and the principal cities of the latter areas.
Using a multitrait-multimethod matrix (Campbell and Fiske, 1959),
they show that the fifteen factors extracted for each type of area are
highly comparable, with most validity coefficients in the .9 range and
only one below .6, namely that for density in Urbanized Area with
density in Standard Metropolitan Statistical Areas which was .24.
Considering the types of areas at issue, it would have been strange
indeed to find a high correlation between density values. Thus the
factor scores (for factors highly similar to those in the American cities
data reported above) show a robustness that overrides variations in
areal definition of comparable units.
But do factors describing tracts also describe cities? It seems that

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they do to some extent. No complete study of this comparison has been

undertaken, but it is evident from the results reported above that
Socioeconomic Status in tracts is the same as Socioeconomic Status in
cities, at least so far as the principal defining measures are concerned.
Similarly, the Suburb factor in tracts is essentially the Age-Composition
factor in cities; and both are similar to the Family Life (vs. Urbanization)
factors or clusters of Tryon and Shevky and Bell. Mobility in the tract
studies is evidently the same as Mobility in the cities data; also the
factor of Foreign-Born concentration in each set. But Factor IV in the
cities data, Educational Center, does not appear in the tract data,
probably because relevant measures were not included. One may expect
other differences.
In two recent studies of counties (even larger units) (Eber, 1966;
Cartwright and Reuterman, 1967), factors of farming concentration
have been found. Clearly such would not characterize cities or city
tracts at all. In the Cartwright and Reuterman study, which dealt only
with counties in Colorado (Eber studied counties in Alabama), a cluster
identical with Family Life and Suburb factor was found, and another
cluster highly similar to Socioeconomic Status was found. Thus these
two factors appear stable over very different units.
Another factor found in the county data was called Mercantile
Development, with loadings on total population, number of manufactur-
ing establishments, number of commercial establishments, and assessed
valuation. Apparently it could have appeared in the Hadden-Borgatta
study had they not decided to reduce all variables to per capita values.
This they did because a Total Population Size factor had dominated
preliminary analyses (p. 38), carrying with it most of the total enumera-
tion variables like number of manufacturing establishments. But a very
interesting result was obtained in the county data with this Mercantile
factor: almost all counties hovered narrowly about the mean of the
factor score, but nine counties stood substantially apart from the main
group, with high values. Probably, in the case of cities all over 25,000
population, differentiation on Mercantile Development makes little
sense except in sheer size; but at the county level the differentiation is
seen as between those counties that have whatever is necessary for
minimum subsistence on a civilized basis (a few shops and so on), and
those counties that have entered upon mercantile specialization, attract-
ing and creating more, and more varied, establishments as the specializa-
tion continues.

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The clusters were all scored on one highly correlated measure:

Number of Wholesaling and Manufacturing Establishments for Mer-
cantile; Number of Irrigated Acres for Irrigated Farming; Per Cent
Population Under five Years for Young Families; Per Cent Migrants
for Economic Opportunity (the cluster similar to socioeconomic status);
and Altitude. Using these measures, the counties were clustered into
0-Types, yielding twelve ecologic regions, not all geographically con-
tiguous. The analysis of dispersion was employed to describe the
effectiveness of the typing; the criterion minimized is the determinant
of the pooled within-groups dispersion matrix divided by the determinant
of the total dispersion matrix. If the grouping were random, these two
determinants would be approximately the same; to the extent the types
are homogeneous within and differentiated between themselves the ratio
of the determinants (within over total, Wilks' lambda ratio) falls to
zero. In the county cluster data the ratio .014 was obtained.
0-Types are created with the purpose of general prediction in
mind. Special interest centered in the county study upon predicting
commitment rates for juvenile delinquency. The cumulative rates for
males, 10-17, 1960-1964 were obtained, and correlated with the five
selected measures:
X1 Wholesaling and Manufacturing .09

X2 Irrigated Acres .24
X3 Young Families .15
X4 Migration (from other states) -.30
X5 Altitude - .03
The multiple regression yielded:
Y* = 3.85 + .036X1 + .002X2 + .290X3 - .107X4 - .001X5

with multiple correlation coefficient of .476.
The 0-Type H-values for the commitment rates had eight values
of .90 or better, three between .70 and .89, and one completely imaginary
(that is, with negative homogeneity). The increasing efficiency of predic-
tion from univariate through linear multiple regression to 0-Type
procedures is again evidenced.
This section on multivariate developments is necessarily incom-
plete; but even so, it should not omit mention of smallest space analytic
techniques. These nonmetric procedures of distance analysis, factor

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analysis, and other devices have substantial promise for contributions

to ecological research (see Guttman, 1967, for a general account;
Laumann and Guttman, 1966, for an application to the contiguity of
occupations in an urban setting; Lingoes and Guttman, 1967, for non-
metric factor analysis; Lingoes, 1968, for multivariate analysis of
qualitative data).
SCOPE: OTHER DISCIPLINES
The intent of this section is to provide the sociological reader

with a rapid insight into ecological research as pursued in anthropology,
biology, geography, and psychology. A further view of the breadth of
scope in human ecology will be obtained, and selected topics and pro-
cedures will be referred to which will subsequently provide illustrative
material for a comprehensive view of the subject.
Anthropology
Anthropologists have long been concerned directly with the

study of man in his natural habitat and his social and technological
adaptations. An excellent example is provided by Birdsell (1966) in his
study of Australian aboriginal tribes. After showing a map of the
distribution of annual mean rainfall in Australia (with contour lines of
isohyets), he presents a figure showing tribal area in hundreds of square
miles plotted as a function of mean annual rainfall in inches. A coefficient
of curvilinear correlation between the two variables has a value of .6.
Refinements of data remove certain tribes whose population density is
largely affected by factors other than rainfall: unearned surface water,
marine resources (on and adjacent to islands) and certain cultural
factors. The refined set of data show a coefficient of .81 between tribal
area and rainfall.
Another example, in physical anthropology, is provided by
Shapiro (1939) who studied Hawaiian-born Japanese, immigrant
Japanese, and Japanese who remained in the regions from which the
immigrants and parents of the Hawaiian-born had come, with control
for social level, and differentiation by sex and age. He showed by careful
anthropometric measurements that the Hawaiian-born males exceeded
the immigrant males who exceeded the males still in Japan, on the
following measures: Lower Arm Length, Leg Length, Head Height,
Shoulder Width; the exact inverse relations held for Chest Depth and

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Nose Breadth. In certain features evidences of some "regression" to the

original (in Japan) measures were apparent. Hawaiian-born males
exceeded the immigrants, who were smaller than the residents in Japan,
on Sitting Height, Trunk Height, and Interocular Width. Regression in
the opposite direction appeared for Chest Width and Total Face Height.
While other factors also were at work, there appears good evidence that
the ecological setting of Hawaii was conducive to certain changes in
anatomy.
A recent study in ecology of a highland people in New Guinea
(Brookfield, 1966) shows, among many other things, that whereas
previously there were no economic regions (all subsisting primarily on
sweet potatoes), there now exist sharp differences in economic level due
primarily to the introduction of coffee cash-crop cultivation. However,
the latter is possible only in certain altitudes and subject to certain
factors of access to transportation. Regions not within favorable al-
titudes or access locations do not share in the economic growth due to
coffee. Here seems to be an instance of the emergence of social rank
differentiation based on economic status where the fundamental change
has more to do with type of crop than with increasing industrialization
as in the Shevky-Bell postulates.
Biology
It is probably more accurate to classify climatology and its effects

on humans with geography rather than biology. But a recent volume on
human ecology, edited by a worker following ". . . a biological or
animal ecological orientation" (Bresler, 1966, introduction) begins with
chapters on climates. The first, by Dorf (1966), surveys a massive time
period from 500,000,000 years B.C. to the present. His first figure shows
variations in mean temperature in the 40- to 90-degree zone of latitude,
north. The temperatures fall from a 55-degree plateau ending about
50,000,000 B.C. to values closely varying around 30 degrees by 1,000,000
B.C., and continuing to fluctuate 45 degrees about an average of 32
from then to now. It seems that the earth at present is in one of the
slightly warmer interglacial stages. "By comparison with the long
duration of past interglacial and glacial episodes in earth history, it is
generally believed that we shall return to another glacial stage in about
10,000 to 15,000 years. Such a prospect, with its accompanying ice
sheets devastating northern lands and settlements is not a happy one to
contemplate in terms of physical, economic or political consequences"
(p. 20).

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An informative paper by Landsberg (1966), director of the

Office of Climatology, U.S. Weather Bureau, discusses history, climatic
energetics, classification, changes, control, microclimatology, and
bioclimatology. ". . . the scope of [microclimatology] . . . includes the
contrasts of valley, slope, and crest climates in a hilly terrain, or it
pertains to the climate of a settlement, town, or city as distinct from the
surroundings, undisturbed by human activity. The microclimatic
differences are often startling. They develop primarily under conditions
of clear sky and little wind, but some still exist with clouds, wind, and
rainfall . . . . Manipulation of microclimates is, or should be, an
important adjunct to planning land utilization, agricultural manage-
ment, architecture and urban development" (p. 43). In his Table 2, he
gives some climatic changes produced by cities as compared with a rural
environment: dust and pollution ten to twenty-five times more; radiation
15 to 20 per cent less; clouds and precipitation 5 to 10 per cent more;
average temperature 1 to 2 degrees Fahrenheit more; relative humidity
3 to 10 per cent less; windspeed 20 to 30 per cent less.
Newman (1966) considers the applicability of two "ecological
rules" to human species. Bergmann's rule holds that "within a single
wide-ranging species of warm-blooded animal, the subspecies or races in
colder climates attain greater body size than those in warmer climates"
(p. 150). The principle involved is that greater body size increases the
body mass/body surface ratio, thereby reducing body heat loss by
radiation. Allen's rule holds that "warm-blooded animals living in cold
climates have their heat radiating body surfaces further reduced by
decreases in the size of their extremities and appendages" (p. 151). In his
summary of evidence, Newman states: "Using stature as a measure of
body size, map 2 shows a concentration of short people in the lower
latitudes astride the equator, bearing out part of Bergmann's rule. Then
stature shows somewhat irregular increases toward the north and south.
These gradients or clines are sustained up to the northern continental
fringe (New World only treated) where the Eskimo show shorter
statures due largely to their shorter legs. This shortness of extremities
conforms to Allen's rule" (p. 163). Trends in head and face size confirm
those for stature.
In a very thorough statistical study of rural areas in New York
State, Gentry, Parkhurst, and Bulin (1966) used geological data to
classify townships as "probable" or "unlikely" as to presence of ex-
tensive quantities of natural materials with high radioactivity. The
congenital malformation rate for "probable" areas was 15.8 per 1,000

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live births; for "unlikely" areas it was 12.9. Areas with outcrops of
igneous rocks had the highest malformation rate, 17.5. Another ex-
tremely careful study by Grahn and Kratchman (1966) shows that
neonatal mortality rates are higher in most mountain states; and that
there is a regular increase in rate with altitude, which appears related not
to geologic environment, but to associated increases in cosmic ray
intensity and decreases in oxygen partial pressure. The latter appears to
function by reducing fetal overall growth rates in the last ten weeks of
pregnancy, thereby reducing birth weight, with consequent lowering of
resistance potentials.
Geography
Since 1920 a standard text on human geography by Huntington

and Cushing has appeared in successive editions to the present. The text
by Huntington and Shaw (1951) deals with man's relation to mountains
and plains, influence of oceans, use of inland waters, relation to soil, use
of minerals, influences of climate on man and surrounding vegetation,
role of cyclonic storms, and many other matters. Typical observations
include the following: "Cyclonic belts have three chief characteristics:
(1) Rain falls in moderate abundance at all seasons; (2) Weather is
subject to marked changes every few days . . .; (3) Seasons are strongly
pronounced" (p. 552). "(Cyclonic) regions . . . include nearly all the
world's most progressive countries . . . where manufacturing and
commerce, as well as agriculture, are carried on extensively. Inhabitants
of cyclonic regions are so energetic . . . . They invent and run the
world's machinery, construct its great power plants, and prepare its
manufactured goods" (p. 554).
The enthusiasm of modern geographers for ecological studies can
be grasped from the following passage of Aschmann (1962) quoted with
endorsement by Eyre and Jones (1966) in their Introduction: "An
awareness of the intricate relationships between man and his environ-
ment is a major realm for scholarly investigation . . . . A heightened
understanding of such relationships can be gained only through a
disciplined investigation of both sides of the fence, the natural environ
ment, physical and biotic, and the human or cultural one. As a discipline,
only geography endeavours to maintain this perspective."
The conceptions are detailed at length by Eyre and Jones in their
Introduction; and one example follows: "It is this great interaction
between the natural and the psychological, between the blind forces of

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nature and the self-conscious activities of man, that is envisaged here

when the term 'human ecology' is used" (p. 7). They include no chapter
on urban ecology in their book ". . . because geographers when study-
ing the 'human ecology' of urban areas have tended to analyse social and
economic conditions with little regard for territorial considerations save
the more obvious effects of site and location. In any study of 'human
ecology' as we envisage it, the use of territorial resources to satisfy the
social and economic needs of the community must loom large but . . .
the fundamental significance of land tenure, and in particular land
ownership, in urban areas has been more readily grasped by land
speculators than by geographers" (p. 13). Commenting on a chapter
dealing with land tenure in relation to settlement in Anglesey (Jones,
1966), "It is permeated by an emphasis on . . . a cardinal principle of
human ecology, namely the fundamental difference between land and
every other form of wealth. Land is not simply a commodity, for, with
the partial exception of land reclamation, no one can make it. Yet, as the
source from which most wealth is drawn, it is essential to every human
being's existence. . . demand for its use has constantly increased,
whereas its supply has remained restricted" (p. 13).
A typical paper in the collection by Eyre and Jones is that of
Palmer (1966) on landforms, drainage, and settlement in the Vale of
York. Emphasis is on the geological strata and morphology and on
resulting soil series. "Evidence of early settlement is found on soils
where a light or medium texture combined with suitable relief allowed a
natural free drainage . . ." (p. 104). Evidence of tidal scouring and
redeposition shows substantial sea flooding of the Vale during the dark
ages. "It seems unlikely that physical conditions favoured settlement in
the lacustrine plain until Anglian times" (p. 107). The Domesday Survey
of population in 1086 A.D. revealed more even distribution of settlement
sites than previously, with settlements also on the lacustrine plains.
Whoever settled there must have been able to make arable land out of
badly drained heavy clay soils. The author musters evidence for the
hypothesis that the settlers were Anglo-Saxons who had developed a
technique of ploughing in strips, which produces "gripping" or "landing
up" so that the ground dries out more quickly in spring due to the
ridging of the surface. Use of maps, archaeological evidence from
barrows, geological history, history of climates and tidal levels, and
history of migrations are employed in an impressive work of scientific
reconstruction.

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Psycho
Egon Brunswik (1943) first drew attention to the importance

of "ecological validity" in research in psychology, calling for attempts
to "imitate experimentally the tangled causal texture of the environ-
ment" (1943: 261). Brunswick and Kamiya (1953) studied the ecological
cue validity of "proximity of paralleled lines" in pictures with respect
to the subject's distal perception of entities. It was found that proximity
contributed substantially to perception of things as distinct entities.
The focus of research here, it should be noted, is on the organism's
perceptual relation to the environment. As emphasized by Barker and
Wright (1949), "Ecological variables for Brunswick are the perceived
size and distance of objects, not their measured size and distance; or the
judged intelligence and political conservatism of persons, not their
measured intelligence and conservatism" (p. 132). Such usage is found
in no other discipline.
Lewin (1944) used the term "psychological ecology" to refer to
the influence of nonpsychological facts upon the psychological deter-
miners of behavior. Barker and Wright (1949) distinguished two types
of problem in psychological ecology: the manner in which the non-
psychological world is transformed into the psychological world as it
affects behavior; and the manner in which the psychological habitat
itself determines behavior. They defined a "behavior setting" as "a
physical or social part of the nonpsychological world that is generally
perceived as appropriate for particular kinds of behavior." The appro-
priate behavior varies from setting to setting, from children in day school,
to drug store, or basketball. Their principal method of study was that
of continuous narrative records, thereby providing ". . . unanalyzed
specimens of behavior and psychological situation." The minute-to-
minute record of one boy's one entire day was made (Barker and Wright,
1951), with such 20-second sequences as this: "8.34 He announced,
'I'm going to take my belt,' as though this were something very impor-
tant. Then he put on the belt. This completed the dressing. Roy said
proudly and with definiteness, 'I'm going to take my gun, too.' He looked
at me and said, 'The gun is still under my pillow.' He then looked to-
ward his pillow."
Barker (1965) stresses that psychology has virtually no knowledge
of basic data concerning behavior specimens in natural settings, no

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knowledge of how often people say things proudly and with definiteness,
for example; and whether such occurs more frequently in the behavior
setting of dressing in the morning or in the setting of the drugstore at
noon.
Sells (1963) attacked the problem somewhat differently. He
argued that focus on phenomenological data was liable to obscure the
relation between situation and behavior, and that attempts should be
made to dimensionalize characteristics of situations in as objective and
complete a way as personality and ability dimensions of individual
behavior have been established. He proposed that such a program be
started with an outline of "Basic Aspects of the Total Stimulus Situation"
(p. 9), for which measures should be gathered or created, and among
which the major interdependencies should be examined through multi-
variate techniques. His primary heads and major subheads were: (1)
Natural aspects of the environment-(a) gravity, (b) weather, (c)
terrain, (d) natural resources; (2) Man-made aspects of the environ-
ment-(a) social organization, (b) social institutions, (c) transitory
social norms; (3) Description of task-problem, situation, and setting-(a)
factors of the focal task situation (for example, hazards and risks in-
volved, permitted procedures, skill required), (b) factors of the indi-
vidual's relation to the situation (for example, status hierarchy), (c)
factors defined by other persons in the situation (for example, new or
previous acquaintances), and (d) factors of the setting (for example,
physical restraints, habitability); (4) External reference characteristics
of the individual-(a) biological, (b) social (for example, group member-
ships); (5) Individuals performing relative to others-(a) togetherness
(primary groups), (b) group situation (formal structure, control, and
so on, and intergroup considerations), (c) collective situations. The work
has been pursued; dimensions of ordinary social groupings have been
obtained, for example (Sells, 1965). Sells (1966) has advocated that
psychologists generally pay much greater attention to behavior in
natural settings and focus upon the "ecological niche" as a source of
substantial contributions to behavior variance.
It is apparent that psychologists ultimately have in mind the
study of individual behavior, whether they study distal perceptual
achievement (like Brunswick), ongoing individual behavior in behavioral
settings (like Barker and Wright), or the dimensions of situations (like
Sells).

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ANALYTIC SCHEMA
The schema in Table 1 directs attention to the different settings,

entities, and relations upon which ecological variables may be measured;
and to various characteristics of the measurements, analysis, and
interpretation of results obtained.
The Entities
The first item checks whether the variable as measured refers to

individuals, groups, or species; and to the numbers which, if plural,
can reflect interrelationships. The fallacy of inferences from group data
to individual data without special precaution can be avoided right at
this check point. The decision may not always be easy in respect to
entities and numbers; for example, tone-hundred boys in fourteen
gangs might be one-hundred individuals or fourteen gangs, except that
some boys might be felt not to be real members of the gangs to which
they claim adherence, and other problems arise in deciding who is and
who is not a member of the gang entity.
Entitativity. Campbell (1958) argues that all entities vary in
degree of entitativity. Tagging the molecules of a stone, the locus of each
molecule is recorded on a series of occasions, as is the locus of molecules
of other adjacent substances. "From these records let us compute
between each pairing of the units a 'coefficient of common fate' which
will be larger the more frequently the two units have been in the same
general region at the same time . . . the coefficients will be very high
among those bits of substance which we may subsequently identify as an
entity, relatively low between those bits 'of it' and other bits which are
parts of other 'things' . . . . Let us similarly tag a sample of persons,
large enough so that all members of one group are included and many
more. Let us observe the locations of these persons on a broad sample of
occasions, and compute between each person and each other an index of
common fate. Such indices could be similarly used to delineate entities.
To be sure the intra-entity coefficients would never run as high as those
within the stone, and the inter-entity coefficients would run higher for
small groups sampled within a complex western society . . . . The use
of coefficients of common fate, differing from zero to unity, enables us to
deal with entitativity as a matter of degree . . ." (1958: 18).
It is evident that the constituents of an entity are elements

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TABLE 1
A Schema for Analytic Consideration of Studies in Ecology
1. The Entities:
How Many?
What?: 1 2 ..... N
Species:
Groups:
Individuals:
2. The Setting:
Dimension: 2 3--; 4
Duration: Short__; Decades-_; Centuries _; Millenia
Size: Micro__; Meso ; Macro
3. Entities as Components of the Setting:
No entities considered components
Some entities considered as components of the setting:
How Many?
What? 1 2 ..... N-1
Species:
Groups:
Individuals:
What entity considered as target entity?
4. Informational Content of Variables:
Descriptive__; Inferential_-
Denotative__; Abstract
5. Measurement Procedures:
Basis: None ; Counts Order-_; Interval ; Ratio

Summary: Means Medians ; Rates__; etc.
Presentation: Graphs ; Maps-; Tables_; etc.
Distribution: Modality_; Skew-_; etc.
Transformations:
6. Relation of Measures to Variables:
None ("predictive validity") -; Direct ("content validity")
Measure chosen to "indicate" variable ("construct validity")
Measures in search of variables (exploratory factor analysis)
Measure has known correlation with variable (known loading from prior
factor analytic work).
7. Type of Covariant Relation Sought:
Association ; Difference
8. Type of Substantive Relation Sought:
Endoplastic ; Juxtaplastic
9. Type of Nomological Relation Sought:
Sufficiency: Absolute ; Alternate
Utility ; Contingent control__ Chaining_ ; Confluence___
None ;

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grouped together by prop

as witnessed by an observer.
The Setting
The setting is the particular environment studied, the ecological

niche, the habitat, the areal unit.
Entitativity of the Setting. The setting is like the "molecules of
other adjacent substances, or the other bits which are parts of other
'things.' "Sheer spatial proximity usually constitutes a defining support
for the entitativity of the setting, though outer boundaries may be
defined in political or other terms, and the spatial proximity principle
does not hold across such boundaries.
Dimension. In many studies of human geography (such as
Palmer, 1966, Brookfield, 1966) height above sea level or altitude of
mountain habitat plays an important role. In ecological studies from a
biological viewpoint also, altitude plays an important role in many cases
(Grahn and Kratchman, 1966, for example). However, most studies of
urban ecology have been concerned with only a two-space habitat,
disregarding altitude. While this approach is obviously sensible in a flat
area, in a city like San Francisco crests of hills, intermediate valleys, and
the slopes in between may offer very different microecological settings.
In addition, there are man-made altitudes to be considered, both under
the ground (as in basements, subways, manholes, or an entire shopping
area as in Madrid), and over it, in skyscrapers and high-rise apartments.
Cities differ in average and maximum height of building above ground
level. This provides a further exception to the notion put forward by
Eyre and Jones (1966) that land cannot be made. A twenty-story
building on one square block gives twenty blocks of areal space. Doub
less the population density of Manhattan would decrease sharply if
account were taken of the total actual areal space in layered three
dimensions instead of two. More generally, it would probably be better
to compute urban population density figures on a base of residential
areal space rather than the usual square mile.
Duration. Studies clearly vary in duration covered. Dorf (1966)
covered a span of millenia, Palmer (1966) centuries; Mayhew (1861)
treated the decade 1841 to 1851. This fourth dimension brings numerous
measurement problems associated with evaluation of change. Duncan
et al. (1961: 62ff.) treat the problem of change in a universe mean, for
example. They show that it equals change in areal distribution plus

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change in areal unit means plus interaction between the changes in areal
distribution and areal unit means.
Numerous limits are placed on measurement procedures if
changes are to be studied; for example, the correlation between initial
values and changes must be taken into account (see Lord, 1956, for
example); measures with ceilings pose the special problem of limiting
change effects in the ceiling (or floor) direction for values initially close
to it. In fact, the topic is so complex that an investigator without
previous experience in measuring changes should probably consult some
sources devoted to the problem: Duncan et al. (1961: 62ff., 84-90, 160ff.),
Harris (1962).
Size. It might be useful to distinguish between macroecological
settings (for example, Dorf (1966) on terrestrial climate in the northern
hemisphere); microecological settings, like a city street; and meso-
ecological settings, which would include tracts and cities and counties
and states, but not continents, which would be macro. One implication
of size differences is that presumably the homogeneity of units is more
difficult to establish for larger units.
Entities as Components of the Setting
Dorf's study of the relation between temperature and man's

adaptive ability (1966) focused on a variable of the setting and a
variable of the entity, and in this sense was uncomplicated by variables
pertaining to other entities as parts of the setting. The entity that is the
focus of the study, the target entity, is not viewed as adapting to other
entities which are treated as parts of the setting for the target entity. In
many studies of ecology, plant, animal, or human, the interrelations of
species or subgroups are considered, as in competition for limited re-
sources offered by the common habitat, for example. These latter studies
have settings that are complex from the present point of view. Most
human ecology is complex.
Entitativity of Complex Settings. In the complex situation, the
distinction between setting and entity may easily become blurred. For
example, consider the multivariate studies in urban ecology. Does the
variable of socioeconomic status describe the various tracts as settings,
as ecologic areas to which incumbent or immigrant entities must adapt?
Or does that variable describe rather the incumbent entities only? If an
economic measure (such as median family income) is employed, pre-
sumably the variable can equally well describe a setting (the newness and

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nicelless of clothes the immigrant enitities might see, for example) as all
entity (such as the richness of the occupants). If a demographic measure
is used (such as median age), it has the same double interpretative
possibility.
Now a measure of distance from the central business district, or
distance from workplaces, or age and condition of housing, seems to
reflect more evidently a variable pertaining to the setting only; while
measures of psychopathology incidence or prevalence seem to have a
greater applicability to the incumbent population only. And yet such
measures may be used by the researcher to reflect the character of areas
to which newborns or young children must adapt. Any subgroups might
be treated as the target entity, faced with the characteristics (such as
psychosis rate) of the ambient population just as much as with those of
the surrounding buildings and spaces. Therefore we must conceptualize
the setting as at times including certain entities; the target entity under
focus must adapt to its entire setting, including other entities within it.
It is a matter of figure and ground, and of degree of entitativity.
One difficult problem with complex settings arises from the
movements of entities in migration, transiency, and mobility. In using
entities to characterize areas, migrants from other areas may provide
false characterization (cf. Fletcher's attempts to adjust for migration).
Influence of setting upon entity may also be misunderstood if selective
migration to or from the setting is not examined closely.
Ross (1933) comments especially on the problem of transiency,
and notes that in an area where transient persons reside for an average
of three to four months only, it makes no sense to use Average Daily
Population (ADP) as a base for an Annual Commitment Rate since the
population at risk is several times larger than the ADP. In an area with
little transiency the base figures will be correct and the Commitment
Rate not inflated. Comparisons between the two areas on that rate will
obviously be affected more by the base than by the real proportions of
persons committed. A similar condition attends resort areas. In Aspen,
Colorado, for instance, the resident population is 1,500, according to the
1960 census, but it is estimated that 25,000 persons are there during the
ski season, staying for anywhere from one day to the whole season.
Arrest figures for juveniles would clearly have to take account of these
differences in population figures before appropriate rates could be
computed.
Mobility provides problems of very many kinds for ecological

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research. Schmid (1960) notes the great importance of distinguishing

between place of residence of criminal and place where the crime is com-
mitted. Characterization of areas is affected also by mobility. For ex-
ample, Douglas County, Colorado, had four manufacturing establish-
ments in 1960, compared with 136 in adjacent Arapahoe County, yet
Douglas County had 24 per cent of the labor force employed in manu-
facturing-mostly employed in Arapahoe and Denver County
establishments.
More extensive treatment of these problems may be found else-
where (for example, Duncan, 1966). But it is clear that in the age of the
automobile the study of human ecology is more complicated than ever
before. The entity often moves more or less rapidly from one setting to
another; as entities that are also parts of settings move, so the settings
change.
Complex Settings and Problems of Inference. Many variables used
on complex settings, as in urban ecology, leave the investigator free to
decide whether they will be considered as referring to settings or to
entities.
Insofar as they are treated as characteristic of settings in which
the adaptations of focused target entities are examined, many of the
existing variables leave much room for slippage. For example, Cartwright
and Howard showed that in Chicago, in 1960, Socioeconomic Status
factor scores (Borgatta and Hadden, 1965) of neighborhoods correlated
+.64 with the scores of gangs (mean values) on the Authority Protest
factor of delinquent behaviors (Short, Tennyson, and Howard, 1963).
The implied connection was interpreted in terms of Cohen's (1955)
thesis that these kinds of behavioral adaptations were subculturally
developed in response to status dilemmas of lower-class boys confronted
with standards of a middle class world, especially at school. It was
reasoned that, within the range from very low to middle income neigh-
borhoods considered, lower-class boys living in neighborhoods of higher
socioeconomic status will more likely encounter middle class standards
and be more likely to experience attendant frustrations associated with
the status dilemma. Although in accord with Cohen's theory, such an
explanation is only one of many. A specific problem was pointed out to
the authors by Borgatta: If the relation is causal, the influence might
come from the families (Cartwright and Howard, 1966: 367, footnote 14).
Cartwright and Howard (1966: 367-368) elaborated the logic
of the issue as follows: "Do the gang members' families share the charac-

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teristics of their neighborhoods? . . . Ecological correlations are sub-

ject to several entirely different bases of explanation: (a) ecology produces
the response phenomena either by shaping or by selection; (b) individ-
uals of specified characteristics move into a suitable ecologic niche (the
'drift' hypothesis); (c) individuals produce an ecologic circumstance
suitable to their characteristics . . . ; (d) interactions among some or
all the above processes. In the present context there is a Third Estate of
Influence: the 'portable' environment of the family. Let characteristics
of the ecology be called Set E; of the responses of children Set R; of the
family Set F. Correlations between Set E variables and Set R variables
could reflect simply that Set F influenced Set R and also drifted to or
produced Set E as a suitable habitat."
It is evident that data bearing on the socioeconomic status of
the gang members' families in relation to the socioeconomic status of the
neighborhood (with values for the gang families excluded from neigh-
borhood computations) would greatly clarify the viability of the Cohen
theory in this instance. But the more general problem of slippage is of
even sharper concern. For any specified target entity, Set T, correlations
between Set E and Set T may primarily reflect the influence of some other
Set F (families), Set C (competitive group), or generally, Set J. In the
case of neighborhoods or tracts or cities, those components of the settings
which are also entities (groups) are very complex.
Thus it must be recognized that where urban ecologic settings are
characterized by variables pertaining to entities which are also treated as
part of the setting, the evaluation of discovered relations between varia-
bles of the (now complex) setting and variables of the target entity re-
quires a great deal of caution. More to the point, less global variables
should be used to follow up initial findings. Stringent would be the
requirement that researchers seek variables of settings which do not
include reference to included entities; but it would probably be a desirable
direction in which to proceed.
Some readers may have wondered why so often the literature
(for example, Van Arsdol, 1967) refers to "demography and ecology" all
in one phrase. The reason appears to be that previous work on ecology
has so often used demographic variables to characterize human ecologic
settings. The same feature appears to account for the usual complexity
of settings (in the sense given above) in human ecological research,
and for the further fact that such settings ordinarily are characterized

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by many Set J possibilities, that is, by multiple subgroup composition.

These aspects of human ecological studies offer abundant potential for
erroneous inference.
Informational Content of Variables
Descriptive or Inferential. The "annual mean temperature" of

an area or the "proportion of children under five" of a population are
descriptive properties of the setting and entity respectively. Other terms
may be used rather to indicate explanatory principles or hidden in-
fluential factors. Joseph Fletcher's variable of "the moral state of the
community" (see above) was eminently inferential, as was Lander's
variable "anomie." Inferential variables imply some explanatory princi-
ple beyond and behind any immediately observable data. They might
imply something that could be observed under appropriate conditions
(as in the notion of "hypothetical constructs" put forward by
MacCorquodale and Meehl, 1948), such as an underground organization
responsible for crime or sabotage, or they might imply something that
is not really observable in principle: an example would be "ecological
expansion" which, according to Duncan (1964), ". . . is used as an
interpretive variable, under one name or another, in most efforts to
discern a general pattern in social evolution beyond the point of the
initiation of the first civilized societies."
In the context of attempts to interpret the factors obtained in a
factor or cluster analysis, the two possible kinds of variables present the
researcher with alternative types of interpretation. The descriptive type
requires only that the measures be summarized: common elements of the
high-loading measures that are not also shared by measures having low
or zero loadings yield the basis for a summarizing statement of what
the common elements are, that is, the factor interpretation. Thus
Per cent payroll wholesale employees, Per cent amount of wholesale
sales, and Per cent wholesale establishments all load .73 or better on
Factor IX in the Hadden and Borgatta study of cities; Per cent manu-
facturing establishments, Per cent retail trade establishments and Per
cent employed in finance, insurance, and real estate all load between
.19 and .29; Per cent in labor force, Per cent labor force male, Per cent
in white collar vary between -.18 and .23. The evidence is that the
factor is one kind of industrial specialization, not many kinds; and that
it is specific to a kind of industrialization rather than to a characteristic

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of the labor force. Hadden and Borgatta interpreted the factor as "whole-
sale concentration," and it appears to be a straightforward descriptively
summarizing variable.
By contrast, Schmid's (1960) interpretation of his Factor I as Low
Social Cohesion-Low Family Status is mainly inferential. Some of the
salient measures are: Per cent families in labor force (.94), Fertility ratio
(-.93), Per cent married (-.91), Per cent Housing units built prior to
1920 (.89), Per cent population sixty years old and over (.87). Measures
with much lower loadings are: Per cent male, Median school grade
completed, Per cent professional workers, Per cent proprietors, manag-
ers, etc., Per cent laborers, all with factor loadings between - .35 and
+.24. The interpretation of Low Social Cohesion seems entirely in-
ferential; the interpretation of Low Family Status is probably inferential
too, unless it means mainly Low Married Status. Indeed, under the
circumstances of the given collection of measures that the factor analysis
has brought together, it would be difficult to assign any one clearly and
purely descriptive summarizing variable name to cover all the high
loading measures.
Denotative or Abstract. The interpretation of a factor as "residen-
tial mobility" refers to some definitely observable behaviors and numbers
of persons engaging in them. The variable of "dominance" refers to one
species or group winning out in competition with others. These types of
variables are denotative. By contrast, the variables of altitude or
latitude do not denote any particular events or processes or entities;
rather they refer simply to certain dimensions of an arbitrary framework
of reference axes: they are abstract. As defined, abstract variables can
be neither causal nor caused.
Measurement Procedures
Most of the matters here referred to in Table 1 are well known

and not peculiar to ecological studies at all, except for use of maps,
which has been discussed in several places above. The different bases of
measurement are thoroughly discussed in Stevens (1951). Matters of
distribution are possibly given too little attention by students of ecology
(witness the clean separation and bimodality of the Mercantile Develop-
ment cluster discussed earlier); and the importance of cutting points in
general for correlational studies is emphasized and illustrated by Gordon
(1967). The matters of transformations are evidently of great impor-

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tance, as discussed above at several points, especially in connection with

the base used for computing percentages or rates or density ratios.
Another example of the problem of bases may be given, namely
in the comparison of air and auto travel for fatality rates. For jet air
travel, fatalities per passenger-hour would be 600 times larger than
fatalities per passenger-mile; for autos, the passenger-hour rate would be
forty to fifty times larger than the passenger-mile rate. Comparison of
the two types of travel would yield quite different results depending
upon the base chosen: even the ordinal position might change.
Relations of Measures to Variables
The earlier discussion of "construct validity" and of measures in

search of variables and variables in search of measures is pertinent to
this section. Additional important references are Campbell and Fiske
(1959), Lazarsfeld (1959), and Jessor and Hammond (1957).
Types of Relation Sought
Covariant. Most studies of human ecology have used correla-

tional procedures, with regression, multiple-regression, factor analysis,
and related techniques (Cattell, 1966). The possibilities of experi-
mental designs to test hypotheses concerning differences for non-
randomized contrasts (Keyfitz, 1964), and of quasi-experimental
designs specially constructed for field experiments (Campbell and
Stanley, 1963) await extensive use.
Substantive. Studies of covariant vectors both or all of which
pertain to the setting are presumably made in preparation for studies
relating entities to settings-if they are studies in ecology at all, of
course. Two kinds of substantive relations between a variable of the
setting and a variable of the entity can be distinguished.
In the first type, endoplastic, the measured influence is presumed
to act directly upon the superficies or interior of the organism; in the
juxtaplastic type, the measured influence is presumed to act upon the
immediate surrounding of the organism in such a way as to effect a
behavioral adaptation (but not a physiological or anatomical one
primarily). Mayhew's discussion provides an example of each type.
Quantities of atmospheric granite providing a hazard to health are
breathed in by humans, and the evaporation of wetted dung is oppressive

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to susceptible persons: these are endoplastic relations. By contrast,

pulverized horse-dung, as dust, dirties clothes and furniture: this is a
juxtaplastic relation.
The impact of radiation on birth weight is manifestly an endo-
plastic relation. The impact of encounters with middle class standards
upon delinquent behaviors by gangs would best be classified as a juxta-
plastic relation. However, the impact of those same encounters upon the
internal organization of the gang would be endoplastic. Thus it is im-
portant to cross-tabulate, as it were, the entity under scrutiny with the
type of substantive relation sought. In general, endoplastic relations
where individuals are under study are probably not of much interest to
sociologists; they would be of interest to psychologists and biologists.
By contrast, juxtaplastic relations involving human groups would be
of interest to sociologists, probably not to psychologists.
Nomological. Nomological relations are lawlike. To exemplify, if
life is to be sustained, an increment in the number of red blood cells must
necessarily follow a decrement in oxygen partial pressure. The decrease
in oxygen is sufficient to produce an increase in red blood cells; and
the relation is one of absolute sufficiency. According to Burt (1965:
602) a subset of nine or ten "subversive conditions" in a child's life will
produce delinquency; thus the set is sufficient, but the relations between
any one of the "subversive condition" variables (some 170 of them in
Burt's study) and delinquency is that of alternate sufficiency: given
any eight or nine others, a particular additional condition will be
sufficient.
Not all relations are causal; not all noncausal relations are simply
coincidental. Utility relations are a case in point. For example, in the
study of American cities (Hadden and Borgatta, 1965), Per cent retail
trade establishments correlated .60 with Per cent wholesale establish-
ments. The most reasonable conclusion to draw is that retail outlets
typically use wholesale outlets to supply them with goods.
A great deal of ecological research seems to assert that the en-
vironment "'sets metes and bounds," in Park's words. Opportunity theory
(Cloward and Ohlin, 1961) makes a similar emphasis. If a variable of the
setting operates in this manner, providing the limits and opportunities
to the entity for behavior of certain kinds, then, if the entity is otherwise
so instigated and the behavior ensues, the relation would here be classi-
fied as one of contingent control.
In a chaining relation one variable affects another which affects
a third, and so on. A good example is given by Bird (1966), in which

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increased salinity of a lake increases the die-back of swamp reeds on the

lake's edge, which reduces resistance to erosion by waves, which allows
the water to push back the shoreline . . . . To keep this kind of linkage
separate from interactions between setting and entity it is desirable to
apply chaining analysis only to series that contains no entity variable
except the very last, at least in ecological studies.
Confluence relations apply when one setting variable joins with
others to produce or provide utility or contingent control for some
variable of the entity. In an earlier discussion of contingency, chaining
and confluence relations (Cartwright and Reuterman, 1966: 26-27),
the latter were described as follows: "In a confluence relation, one factor
joins with one or more others; as when junking is made possible by the
junction of individual instigation, social instigation and social facilita-
tion." The latter two terms might well be considered aspects of the
setting, the former an aspect of the entity. The context there was a
multiple-factor approach to delinquency, and the target variable would
always be one of delinquent behavior, and therefore both social and
individual contribution factors are legitimately examined as precursors.
This observation provides a possibly useful contrast with the situation
in ecological studies, in which, as with the chaining relation, one might
well wish to allow confluence relations to obtain only among variables
of the setting. Individual variables of predisposition and of action would
not be related to each other; rather both or either would be examined
in relation to sufficiency, utility, control, chaining, or confluent sets of
variables pertaining to the ecologic setting.
The problem of delimitation for ecological variables is in urgent
need of solution. Duncan and Schnore (1961) suggested that the "eco-
logical perspective" be distinguished from two others: the "cultural"
and the "behavioral." This recommendation should be explored in detail.
Wirth (1945) emphasized that human ecology studies only one segment
of the group life of man, different from either social psychology or the
study of social organization. The delimitation recommended by Wirth
should also be more fully explored.
GRO UP CORRELA TIONS
Robinson (1950) called the correlation of group data (means,

proportions, and so on) "ecological correlations," thereby giving rise to
the problem of the "ecological fallacy." The fallacy applies to any group
data, and is therefore not ecological in nature.

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Robinson correctly point

used as substitutes for ind
conditions will they be the
Selvin (1958) observes tha
but was aware of it and at
and smaller units, (see Durkheim, 1951).
Existing Solutions
Duncan and Davis (1953). These authors developed a method of

estimating bounds for the individual correlation from group data
treated as marginals of a complete cross-tabulation. Consider the
following:
I II Sum
A 95
B 782
Sum 638 239 877
Only one cell needs to be estimated in ord

the fourfold-point correlation. Focusing
B Sum (marginal) value, evidently the largest value that could be
found in BII would be 239. Since the A marginal provides the only
competition for space in the II category, and since the most it could
provide would be 95 in the AIl cell, therefore the remainder, 144, must
be the smallest possible value that the BII cell could have under condi-
tions of the given marginals. Thus a maximum and minimum frequency
have been established for cell BII, and corresponding phi-coefficients
may be computed.
Duncan and Davis recommend using large numbers of smaller
units where possible. Then the maxima are summed over units, also the
minima. This provides a closer estimate of the individual correlation
coefficient. They compare results of several subdivisions of a city. Using
only the city marginals, the bounds were 0.00 to 1.00. Using seventy-five
community areas, followed by summing maxima and minima, the
bounds were .211 to .445. Using all city tracts, followed by summing, the
bounds were .251 to .407. They write: "The individual correlation is
approximated most closely by the least maximum and the greatest
minimum among the results for several systems of areal subdivision"
(p. 666).
Goodman's Procedure. Goodman (1953) developed an interesting

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method to estimate the contents of the total individual fourfold table

cells using data from marginal values of several groups. For example,
given only the proportions of A and of I in each of several groups, by
using regression analysis techniques one can estimate the probability
that an individual classified as A is also classified as I: and the proba-
bility that an individual classified as B is also classified as I. Given these
estimates and the assembled marginal frequencies from all groups, the
fourfold cell entries and the phi-coefficient can be estimated.
Specifically, let p be the average probability that an individual in
A is also in I; and let r be the average probability that an individual in
B is also in I. Both p and r are unknown parameter values. The theo-
retical situation is represented as follows:
I II
A p 1-p
B r 1-r
Sampling n + m individuals, let n be classified as A, m be clas-

sified as B. Let the expected numbers of individuals in both A and I be
expressed as E{u}, in both B and I be expressed as E{v}. Then:
E{u} = np (1)
and
E{v} = mr (2)
The total sample of (n + m) individuals would have an expected number

E{u + v} in the category I:
E{u + v} = np + mr (3)
Expression (3) may be converted from numbers to proportions. Letting

E { Y} be the expected proportion of the total sample which is classified
as I, and dividing both sides of (3) by the total sample size of (n + m),
we have
E{Y} = np/(n + m) + mr/(n + m) (4)
Since (m/(n + m)) + (n/(n + m)) = 1.00, and letting X = n/(n + m),
we have
ElY = Xp + (1-X)r (5)

Rearranging (5) yields:
ElY} =r+(p-r)X (6)

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To complete the transformation to a familiar regression form:
E{Y}=a+bX (7)
where a = r and b = (p - r). If several samples are obtained with

different values of X (different proportions of individuals in classificatio
A), then values for Y (proportions of people in category 1) can be
plotted against those for X. A least-squares estimate of a, the Y-inter-
cept, can be accepted as an estimate of r. A least-squares estimate of b,
the slope, leads to an estimate of p, since p a + b. The estimates of p,
called p*, and of r, called r* are unbiased.
Finally the several samples are combined into one, and the esti-
miated numbers in the four cells can be found from the p* and r* values:
I II Sum
A p* Sum A (1-p*) Sum A Sum A
B r* Sum B (1-r*) Sum B Sum B
Sum Sum I Sum II
It is unfortunate that a great many restrictive assumptions

condition the use of this technique; for example, that the two population
parameters p and r do not differ from sample to sample. In a later paper,
Goodman (1959) develops the procedures for the case when the values
of p and r are not constant over samples; but where the relation of p
to X may be constant, and similarly r to X. Assuming constancy of these
adjusted parameters, the analysis may proceed as before, again with
numerous assumptions. (The present writer has found it hard to use
the method without running into evidence of some violation of assump-
tions.) Essentially the procedure provides for development of a regression
coefficient between variables over group data from which the individual
and the group correlations both may be computed, using appropriate
ratios of standard deviations. Goodman, in the same paper, extends the
formulas to quantitative variables and other situations. Also, he intro-
duces a useful simplification into the Duncan-Davis procedure for esti-
mating bounds through use of many small subdivisions. He shows that
the subdivisions can be grouped into not more than four collections,
such that, for:
I II Sum
A n
B m
Sum h k

86.187.235.210 on Sun, 23 Oct 2022 15:34:20 UTC
those areas having similar relations among m, k, and n yield identical

bounds. Specifically, placing all areas in a square diagram, and considering
all values as proportions, and inserting the main diagonals, we have:
m~~
A < k > n
C 22
/~~~ > k <
All points plotted in the diagram and falling in a given sector,

such as A, represent areas which share the sector characteristic, such
as m < k < n. Such areas are similar in that sense and may be pooled.
Bounds then may be computed from these (at most) four pooled points.
(Plotted points falling on a diagonal line are assigned at random to one
or the other sector.)
A New Solution
Estimating Total Correlations from Group Data. Let the total

population under study have a grand mean XT. The Total Sum of
Squares of Deviations (TSSD) about the mean is:
TSSD(T) = (X - XT)2 (8)
where subscript (T) refers to the total population.

If the total population is split into g groups, TSSD is composed
of a Between-Group Sum of Squares of Deviations (BSSD) and a
Within-Group Sum of Squares of Deviations (WSSD):
BSSD(T) = (Ng)(Xg- XT)2 (9)

U7

86.187.235.210 on Sun, 23 Oct 2022 15:34:20 UTC
where Ng is the number of individuals in group g;
Ng
WSSD(T) = E (X, - Xg)2 (10)

g i
If two measures, X and Y, are taken on individuals, the gen-

eralized coefficient of correlation is
r = Covariancexy/\/(Variancex X Variancey) (11)
which also equals
r = TSCDxy/V/(TSSDx X TSSDY) (12)
where TSCD means the Total Sum of Cross-products of Deviation

scores. TSCD may be decomposed in a manner similar to TSSD.
TSCD(T) = E (Xi - XT)(Yi - YT) (13)

i
BSCD(T) = E (Ng) (Xg - XT) (Yg - YT) (14)

U
Ng
WSCD(T) = E (Xi - X0)(Yi - Y0) (15)
The following relations hold:
TSSD(T) = BSSD(T) + WSSD(T) (16)

TSCD(T) = BSCD(T) + WSCD(T) (17)
Group correlations are expressed as
rb = BSCD(T)xY/V\(BSSD(T)X X BSSD(T) Y) (18)

Individual correlations uninfluenced by differences between
groups are expressed as:
rw = WSCD(T)xy/V\(WSSD(T)X X WSSD(T)Y) (19)

Total correlations, combining both group and individual rela-
tions, are:
rt = TSCD(T)xY/V\(TSSD(T)x X TSSD(T)Y) (20)
If only rb is known, what inference can be made to rw or rt?

Suppose TSSD(T)x and TSSD(T)y are known (by calculation from known
population variances). Since the BSSD(T) values must be known to

86.187.235.210 on Sun, 23 Oct 2022 15:34:20 UTC
compute rb, the WSSD(T) values may be obtained by subtraction

TSSD(T)X- BSSD(T)X = WSSD(T)x. Now -/(WSSD(T) X WSSD(T,Y)
is the limit to the absolute value of WSCD(T)Xy, and BSCD(T)XY is
known for rb. Hence, limits may be set upon rt using:
TSCD(T)XYma = BSCD(T)XY + /(WSSD(TX X WSSD(T)Y) (21a)

TSCD(T)XYmin = BSCD(T)xY - /(WSSD(TX X WSSD(T)y) (21b)
For dichotomous data and proportions in place of means, the
relevant expressions are:
TSSD(T) = NP(T)Q(T) (22)
where N is the grand population, P(T) the grand proportion, Q(T) =

1 - P(T)
BSSD(T) = E (Ng)(P(g) - P(T)) (23)

U
WSSD(T) = (NgP(g)Q(g)) (24)
TSCD(T) = E (Xi - P(T)X) (Yi - P(T)Y) (25)
BSCD(T) = E (Ng) (P(g)x - P(T)X)(P(g)Y - P(T)Y) (26)

Ng
WSCD(T) - E (Xi - P(g)x)(Yi - P(9)Y) (27)

g i
In the case of dichotomous data and proportions over which rb is

known, TSSD(T) can always be found. Limits for rt can be found as
before.
Relation between Group Correlations for Smaller and for Larger
Groups. In the main, ecologists are not much interested in individual
correlations. Group correlations have been shown to have extremely
stable patterns of factor interpretation (Hadden and Borgatta, 1965;
Borgatta and Hadden, 1965), and to be robust enough to remain stable
in most instances across varying sizes of unit (from larger to smaller
groups, as when SMSA's are compared with the cities contained therein;
Hadden and Borgatta, 1965).
However, it is of interest to examine the correlational dynamics
involved when smaller groups are combined into larger ones.
Let there be two groups G and H, of size Ng and Nh, with means
on X of X, and Xh, on Y of Y, and Yh. Let IX, - Xhl > 0 and jY,-

86.187.235.210 on Sun, 23 Oct 2022 15:34:20 UTC
YAI > 0. If now a single group K is made from the combination of G

and H, then it can be shown that;
WSSD(K)X = WSSD(G)X + WSSD(H)X + Nu(Xk - X)2 + Nh(Xk - Xh)2

(28)
which means that the pooled Within-Group Sum of Squares of Devia-

tions either stays the same or increases when smaller groups are com-
bined into larger groups.
Also,
WSCD(K)xy = WSCD(G)XY + WSCD(H)XY + Ng (Xk - Xg) (Yk - Yg)

+ Nh(Xk - Xh) (Yk - Yh) (29)
which shows that the new pooled Within-Group Sum of Cross-products

will increase in size if the old Between-Group Sum of Cross-products was
positive, and will decrease if it was negative.
For three or more groups, the combination of any two has the
results specified above. Thus, if combination of G and H in a set of two
groups (G and H) subtracted 18 from WSCD, then the combination of
that G and H in any set of S Groups G, H, I, . . ., S would continue
to subtract 18 from whatever value WSCD had in the set S. Similar
considerations apply to the WSSD values.
Since the TSSD and TSCD values are constant for a given
population, complementary effects will be seen in the BSSD and BSCD
values. It is instructive to see how this works. If G and H have a nega-
tive group correlation (that is, BSCD(GXH) is a negative number say
- B), the combination will decrease the value of WSCD; it will reduce
- B to zero for the BSCD associated with G and H alone. But it will
also add that same quantity, B, to the BSCD value of the entire set of
groups containing G and H. Thus, combination of smaller groups having
negative group correlations into larger groups increases the resulting group
correlation over the larger groups. Precisely this phenomenon may be
seen in Robinson's (1951) data for per cent illiteracy and per cent Negro
in the U.S. Across the states the correlation was .773; across nine geo-
graphic divisions it was .946. Evidently states with negative group cor-
relation were combined into divisions.
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Ecological Variables

Author(s): Desmond S. Cartwright

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/270884

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Time for the preparation of this

A literature search of materials on ecological variables leads the

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different disciplines specializing in ecology, but also the fundamental

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In this section the focus will be on early work in the analysis of

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years up to 1830. Guerry interpreted these differences as related to

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"Pauperism," and "Deposits in savings banks in proportion to the

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understanding of the index he uses, and also to interpretation of the

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health, Mayhew writes:. in every 24 hours an adult breathes

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The Chicago School

In this section ecosystem theory as developed by the Chicago

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influences of sympathy, rivalry, and economic necessity tend to control

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made by drawing a series of concentric part-circles with center on the

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Thus they compared (1942: 60 if.) the delinquency rates by square-

In this section focus will be on modern ecosystem theory, recent

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Ecosystem analysis is applied to a wide range of topics: the

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tion at an accelerated rate; intensified exploitation of the environment;

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set of homogeneous units; but that destroys the comparability of units

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subject to proper statistical treatment onily through unitizing. (The

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terized by the feature located in it (as that Colorado contains fifty-four

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Nebraska 6-Y = 96, Y* = 97, X1 = 24, X2 = 16, X3 = 28, X4 = 120

Such a pair might be grouped together in a region on any of the three

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Kentucky 9-Y = 43, Y* = 51, X1 = 37, X2 = 19, X3 = 26, X4 = 0

This pair would be grouped if the independent variables or the predicted

Ohio 6a-Y = 88, Y* = 87, X1 = 47, X2 = 16, X3 = 40, X4 = 77

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instance, to show two area

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comitance among entities. In terms of the mathematical development

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is evidently closely similar to the socioeconomic status dimension of

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Table 3 (Tryon, 1967) shows the increase of prediction (in comparable

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Status, with education, median income, and percentage of professional

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The correlation matrix evidently can be closely approximated by

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Factor I is called Socioeconomic Status, and is defined by these

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The fifth factor represents the percentage of foreign-born, with