Explanatory Theory of Environment Behavior Relations

Amos Rapoport
(b. 1929- )
Source: http://www.arch.usyd.edu.au/research/env_events.shtml


Summary:
Amos Rapoport was born in 1929 in Poland and graduated from the University of Melbourne at Australia in 1955. He is one of the founders of the Environment-Behavior Studies and studied cultural variables and cross-cultural theory. His seminal book, House, Form, and Culture is one of three books he has authored.


Explanatory theory of environmental behavior is focused on the study of environmental patterns and human relations. Rapoport defined built environment as (1) organization of space, time, meaning & communication; (2) setting systems; (3) cultural landscape, and the make up of fixed, semi-fixed & non-fixed features in order to figure out relationships between society and any built environment. More concrete and detailed settings can easily access environmental behavior and related issues. Dismantled cultural dimension should also clearly be defined in the housing environment. He considers environment as a system of settings.


Specific activities are interpreted within a particular system of setting. Housing as a system of settings is explained by dismantling of culture. “Cultural” is too broad to apply only to housing issues. Dismantling cultures, such as family structure, status, or ideal images, should give details to housing environment. His theory makes it easier to figure out housing environment in the dismantling of culture and concrete housing settings.


Rapoport categorized two parts of the dismantled cultural area. One is social domain and the other is ideological domain. Dismantled social parts described kinship, family structure, roles, social network, identity, status, and institutions, etc. Dismantled ideological expression is in values, ideals, images, norms, standards, expectations rules, life styles, and active system.


Level of Analysis:
Cultural group, individual.

Methods:
Content analysis, behavioral mapping.

Application:
Various housing environment and human activities occur in a complex cultural context. In order to analyze and figure out housing environment and its’ activities in different cultures, we put the environment in new settings and systems to define the housing environmental behavior. In addition, we dismantled cultures as another setting. Or we may place new setting to understand new social environment. For example, sustainable housing concepts are a new setting of systems.

References:
Rapoport, A. (2001). Theory, culture and housing. Housing Theory, and Society, 17: 145–165.
Rapoport, A. (1995). Environmental quality and environmental quality profiles. In A. Rapoport Thirty-Three Papers in Environment-Behavior Research. Newcastle: Urban International Press, pp. 471-488.
Rapoport, A. (1997). Theory in environment-behavior studies: Transcending times, settings and groups. In S. Wapner, et al. (Eds), Handbook of Japan-U.S. Environment-Behavior Research (Toward a Transactional Approach) New York: Plenum, pp. 399-421.

Rapoport, A. (1998). Using ‘culture’ in housing design. Housing and Society 25 (1 and 2), 1–20.