Habitats, Environments, and Human Behavior: Studies in Ecological Psychology and Eco-Behavioral Science from the Midwest Psychological Field Station, 1947–1972

The volume's central claim is that the environment of molar human behavior consists of extra-individual behavior settings that coerce and constrain individual action, and that understanding this environment requires a new science—eco-behavioral science—rather than psychological theories of persons. Irwin Altman's review describes it as a sampler of work conducted from 1947 to 1972 under the Midwest Field Station, noting that some articles were previously published while others are abbreviations, rewritings, or extracts . The key shift from Ecological Psychology (1968) is terminological and conceptual: Barker now explicitly calls for an eco-behavioral science, arguing that complete analysis of individual psychology would not account for behavior coerced or forbidden by behavior settings .

The book documents the evolution from specimen records—day-long, minute-by-minute observations of individual children—to the behavior setting survey. Sandra Kirmeyer's review explains that early analyses of specimen records led to the insight that the behaviors of two different persons in the same setting are often more similar than the behavior of the same person in two different settings . This discovery produced a dramatic shift to eco-behavioral science, where the focus is on the extra-individual unit that coerces individual behavior. A reviewer in The Ecology of Behavior notes that only 18 full-day records were collected before the focus changed to studying settings rather than people in them .

Barker founded the Midwest Psychological Field Station in Oskaloosa, Kansas, in 1947 and maintained it until 1972 . The station studied the everyday behavior of children and their ordinary psychological situations through day-long observational records, in sharp contrast to laboratory artificiality . Comparative studies were also made in a Yorkshire village in England after 1954 . The twenty-five-year span allowed Barker and his associates to move from observing individual children to surveying entire communities' behavior settings, accumulating the empirical foundation for behavior setting theory and the staffing studies later published in Big School, Small School.

A reviewer in The Ecology of Behavior argued that the microscopic analysis of behavior units 'sterilized' human activity, removing all trace of participants' feelings. The method divided a child's day into nearly 1,000 separate units, characterizing interactions through modes like dominance, submission, and nurturance without capturing emotional experience . The reviewer concluded that the book 'disappoints me as a clinician' and that predictive power of eco-behavioral science does not exceed its observations . This criticism reflects the tension between Barker's naturalistic aspirations and the reductive coding schemes required for systematic analysis.

The volume's Part 3 presents the theory of behavior settings and includes detailed treatment of individuals' adjustments when setting populations fall below optimum. Kirmeyer's review notes especially detailed chapters by Gump and Wicker on these adjustments . The illustrative studies include Barker and Schoggen's comparison of two small towns—one English, one American—examining differences in the number and kind of settings, their frequency and duration, and the behavioral opportunities they provided . The reviewer in The Ecology of Behavior cites Gump's work with school size showing the benefit of small schools as one of the volume's important observations .

The volume functions as a retrospective synthesis, collecting and reframing work from the entire Midwest Field Station period. Midwest and Its Children (1955) presented the first major behavior setting survey and the specimen record method; Big School, Small School (1964) tested undermanning theory in educational settings. This 1978 volume reprints or rewrites selections from both, placing them in the narrative of ecological psychology's development . Altman notes that while some articles were previously published and some are extracts from books, only a few are original reports, this does not detract from the book, which gives a sense of the range and scope of the ecological psychology orientation .