Behaviouralism- An understanding Framework

Introduction

It emerged as being based on criticism within spatial science. This starts from s disillusion with
location theories involving the concept of “economic man”. emphasizing the psychological
underpinnings of individual spatial behaviour; in particular, the cognitive and decision-making
processes that intervene between a complex environment and human action. Thus, geography and
psychology became close neighbours…

➢ The roots of behavioural geography are much older- Finnish geographer Johannes Gabriel
Grano and his Estonian student Edgar Kant were attempting a behavoouralist approach in
1920s. Even in USA behavioural and quantitative approaches were contemporary
development- the works of Gilbert White.
➢ Behavioural geography was typically more formal and analytic, drawn into the positivist
paradigm of locational analysis. Its characteristic question was: Given the assumption of
rational behaviour, why did an actual location or pattern of spatial behaviour depart from an
optimal form?
➢ It is a product of decision-making, and notably the human tendency to have only incomplete
information, to make imperfect choices, and to be satisfied with sub-optimal options.
➢ Behaviour was seen to be satisficing rather than optimizing as predicted, for decision-makers
were not only incapable but even unwilling to compromise other values in order to maximize
their utility functions.
➢ Emphasis was upon preference structures in spatial behaviour, modelling such topics as place
utility and residential search:- Mental Maps.
➢ Major works:-
o Wolpert’s (1964) study of Swedish farmers and
o Pred’s (1967) analysis of industrial location
o Robert Kates and Gilbert White analysis of human perception of environmental
hazards
Four distinguishing features of behavioralist movement:

• It started with the premise that the environmental cognitions upon which people act may
differ markedly from the true nature of the real world.

• Space possesses dual character:- one as the objective environment (or reality as
it exists in nature), and the other as a behavioural environment (that is, reality
as it is perceived by the decision-maker).

• The behavioural geographers asserted that the individual shapes, as well as responds to,
his/her physical and social environments.

• Behaviour is not just the end product of a chain of events but also the start of
new sequences.

• Behavioural geographers tended to focus upon the individual rather than to approach
problems at the level of the social group.

• Behavioural geography was "multidisciplinary" in outlook in that as a relative newcomer

to behaviouralism, behavioural geography looked to the other behavioural sciences to
provide insights into behavioural processes.

Major themes in Behaviouralism

• Decision Process in Spatial Context

• Hazard Perception

• Mental Maps- geographies of the mind

 • Voting Behaviour

Achievements of behavioural movement in geography

➢ It asserted the role of the individual in geography which at that time had showed strong
signs of wishing to reduce human activities to point patters and spatial preferences and
indifference curves.
➢ It led to a thorough reappraisal of the methodological approaches to man-
environment relations. It countered the environmentalist and neo-environmentalist
doctrines by recognizing the true complexities of human behaviour.
➢ It acted as a forum for new philosophies, approaches, and methods, and it revived interest
in the study of some older themes, such as cultural landscape, and idiographic analysis
of places.
➢ It opened up new channels of dialogue and debate with other disciplines, and thereby
contributed to a trend toward cross-fertilization of ideas.
➢ Researchers in behavioural geography had contributed much to the debate on social
relevance of geographical research, by helping to explode the myth of value-freedom, by
promoting interest problems of social concern, and by supporting the geographers'
involvement in public policy issues.

Criticism

▪ Behavioural geographers remained as mere observers rather than participants- so not much
work in policy matters
 ▪ Radical geographer critique behavioural geography as yet another instance of bourgeois
thought of the world conceived as totality of things interacting in external cause-and-effect
relations- by portraying social relations as spatial behaviour behavioural geography

Conclusion

▪ Emerged as a result of disillusionment with quantitative geography but didn’t divorced

from the philosophical bases of positivism.
▪ Focused on how individuals perceive and act accordingly.
▪ It involved a shift in the primary source of inspiration from economics to the behavioural
sciences like psychology.
▪ Thus, the rational economic man was replaced with the “satisfying man”.
▪ The focus of the theories shifted to "why certain activities take place rather than what
patterns they produce".

In short: behviouralsim provides a method of mapping spatial behaviour while at the same time
representing a reorientation of scale away from aggregate data towards studies of individual
behaviour.