A perspectiva ecológica em psicologia

Abstract

The author presents in this paper the social conditions for the upcoming of environmental psychology in the last 15 years, relating the emergence of the new field with the general ecological crisis that affects mainly the industrialized countries. The author analyzes next the historical genesis of the ecological attitude in psychology, namely the extension of Kurt Lewin’s field theory and the gestalt concept. The gestalt movement is shortly described and its theoretical principles are reviewed and compared to those of watsonian behaviorism. The epistemological roots of Lewin’s theory are put forth and the impact of Brunswick’s criticism of Lewin on the work of Wright and Baker is also presented. In the last part of the paper, the author expounds the main research trends of contemporary environmental psychology, and the most representative authors of each trend are refered.