This woman is an environment.
To the unborn child within her, she is all the world there is.
Everything necessary to his life comes from her.
The dominant sound in his world is the beating of her heart.
At birth, the world becomes the child's environment.
Everything necessary to his life comes from it.
It is not as easy as his mother's womb.
There are the challenges and pressures of survival.
But his relationship with the world he is born into is just as intimate.
His eyes and his ears, all his senses, drink in what the world presents him.
Born at any other point or place in history, he would necessarily become a somewhat different being.
He will learn what our world presents him, and to a large measure, he will become what he Life is composed of actions.
We are always doing something.
Even sleeping is doing something.
To live is to act.
Our lives are a patchwork quilt of all our actions, which psychologists call behaviors.
Traditionally, we think of ourselves as free agents, as actors whose stage is the world.
Modern psychology rejects this traditional view.
In earlier times, most scientists or people studying behavior considered each individual to be an entity in itself, that is, an individual came into the world with certain behaviors, and the environment was viewed as little more than a stage on which these behaviors were carried out.
Today, however, most scientists give the environment a far more active role in determining an individual's behavior.
Some psychologists see the world as an enormous machine that rewards some actions, thus making them more likely to happen again, and structure of consequences, of predictable results that follow from certain actions.
An individual learns what those consequences are and acts accordingly.
Behavior is changed when it has certain kinds of consequences.
We call them reinforcers in the sense that they strengthen behavior, and if in a given situation I do something which has, as a result, a positively reinforcing consequence, I am more likely to do it again.
In the world at large, when you do certain kinds of things, certain kinds of consequences happen.
Some of this is physical, depending upon the physical environment.
Much of it is social, depending upon how people respond to you when you respond to them.
Together, these compose a culture, and they determine precisely what people born into that culture will do.
Well, Dr.
Skinner tends to ascribe enormous potential to the environment as a matter of shaping an individual's behavior.
Taken to its logical extreme, this position means that all behaviors are completely determined by the environment.
We, in our research, do not feel that such an extreme position is tenable.
We can look at some behaviors which will emerge in our animals, regardless of environmental conditions.
It is impossible for us to eliminate any such behavior by simple manipulations of the environment, and the behavior that I'm thinking particularly of is aggression.
Not all psychologists agree with Dr.
Skinner.
Most, however, do believe that a great deal of what we do is shaped by the forces at work in the environments in which we live.
We have a wonderfully warm story for you this evening, a story about the traditional advantages of American ethnic minorities.
We're going to meet in a moment a young man that I personally consider to be the living symbol of our great American melting pot.
Come on, get in there! Jesus Rodriguez, I'm Ralph Meadows, and this was your life! Yes, indeed, Jesus Rodriguez, child of poverty, man of anger, this was your life! Never see me, Jesus.
All these wonderful people have shown up this evening.
Millions are watching at home on television to bear witness to your wonderful lifetime, Jesus.
So why don't we begin your story in the beginning? How's it going, Ralph Meadows? Good.
Jesus, do you recognize what's in this enlarged photograph? That's an empty lot.
That's right, a picture of an empty lot where your home stood before it was torn down for an urban renewal project, Jesus.
It was there that you had grown up with five brothers and seven sisters in a one -bedroom apartment.
Then tragedy struck, Jesus.
Your father passed away and in order to support the family and ladies and gentlemen grasping the ideals of our free enterprise system, Jesus, you decided to start your own business.
And why don't you tell the people what you did? Well, I said to use the automobile parts, you know, up caps, up bucket seats, up cars.
And I understand you had some trouble with overhead? Well, some guy hit me over the head when I was stealing stuff.
It's all Jesus Rodriguez, bent but not broken, you decided to get a job.
Despite your background, you did get a job.
Cleaning toilets at the Greyhound bus station, you were to hear this voice.
Rodriguez, get over here.
It's Mr.
Ferguson, what the fuck's wrong? Mr.
Ferguson is here.
Mr.
Ferguson, what the fuck is wrong? Mr.
Ferguson.
Tell us, Mr.
Ferguson, what happened? Well, I had to let him go.
You had to let him go, how come? Well, we had an overhead problem.
Overhead? Yeah, he didn't like me hitting him over the head.
Oh, thank you.
All right, all right, Mr.
Ferguson, wait backstage, please.
For the wonderful...
I hate to hit him over the head.
Wait backstage for the wonderful party we're going to have after this show.
I'll have to get that guy for the rest of my life.
He's a wonderful fella.
So, Jesus, you were to find yourself back on the streets at age nine.
However, you were to learn that every cloud does indeed have its silver lining, for it was on the streets that you met someone who had a profound effect on the rest of your life.
Hey, man, you want to buy some dope? Oh, that's Derry the Honky! Harry the Junkie! Harry! Dr.
Roger Barker and his wife have spent 25 years studying the environment of a small town in Kansas called Oskaloosa.
Their studies have resulted in a new way of looking at how people are affected by the world around them.
The environment has, you can almost say, in a way, intentions for people, as well as people having intentions for themselves.
The environment which we find here in Oskaloosa is very dynamic.
It pushes people around.
It coerces them.
As you look around and take pictures of the streets, maybe, it looks kind of dead.
Not a lot is going on.
This is one of the contradictions which occur in these little places.
But if you follow a person around, the average person around, you find that he's tremendously busy.
The people in this town, which we have now studied for all these years, have a limited number of times and places for engaging in behavior.
And we have called these behavior settings.
The English class, the committee meeting, the drug store.
These are settings.
They have stability.
They have structures.
And they have forces within them which bend people to their purposes.
A behavior setting is a place where people act, where people do things.
The kind of action is appropriate to the place.
At a soda fountain, we drink sodas and chat.
A baseball diamond.
A post office.
Cheerleader practice.
Choir practice.
In each of these settings, certain actions are appropriate and others are not.
A behavior setting can be seen as the intersection of two environments, the physical and the social.
The physical environment is composed of such things as the room, the stools, the counter, and soda fountain equipment.
The arrangement of these physical objects makes possible certain kinds of actions or behaviors.
The actions we normally perform in any particular place are the social environment, what people do, the pattern to which newcomers are expected to conform.
The essential part of a setting is that there is an ongoing pattern that we call the standing pattern of behavior occurring there.
The pattern has grown up or is established over time.
And when a newcomer comes in, he finds this pattern stable there, very strong very often.
The point being that the setting is a unit of intersecting motivations and habits and desires of people, which tends to be bigger than any one person.
And which tends to, once it gets rolling, push people in certain directions to fulfill its will.
Now any one person may duck those consequences, may leave the setting, but if a classroom needs a leader, it will generate a leader.
Everybody go out long, okay? Two quarter, okay? A football team needs a quarterback or somebody to take that position.
It will press until it gets that sort of function fulfilled.
The view we have is that the person has really two positions in a setting, in an ecological unit.
He is on the one hand an instrument of that setting.
He goes in there and he enacts a portion of the program.
He in a way is legitimately passive to the pressures there.
He follows the laws or the rules, the examples for worship or for commuting or for purchase.
In that sense, he is passive and the environment is controlling him.
He also goes in there as an independent agent.
He has a private agenda.
He has something he wants and he participates in that machine called a setting, at that setting's bidding, and he also extracts from that setting the kinds of gratifications he seeks.
That may be a contradiction, but I think that's how it is.
By age 13, Jesus, you had a $60 a day habit.
More or less.
And in trying to support your habit, you were arrested by the police and at age 16 sent to reform school, the one school you couldn't drop out of, Jesus.
But there was a bright side to your incarceration, for in reform school you made your first very deep personal relationship.
Hey kid, kiss me or I'll kill you.
That's Red Donovan, my old summons.
Red Donovan! Oh, hi, no.
What's up with that guy? Well, I see the party started backstage already, Jesus.
What's up with that guy, boy? At age 20, Jesus, you were released from reform school.
That's correct.
At age 20, I was released.
And at that time, you were given a new suit and a new label, X -Com.
X -Com.
Bitter at what society has done to you.
You cried out for one last chance to work within the system and your plea was not to go unanswered.
Get out of Puerto Rico.
No diploma, no job.
You're going to hell, you're going for wealth.
I know that one, I know that one.
Do you remember this voice? Our state provides equal opportunity for all citizens.
No.
No.
Of course not, hate youth.
That's the governor of our fair state.
And so now, desperate and hostile towards the system, you decided you wanted to change it.
In politicizing your feelings, you joined a radical group where you were to follow the leadership of this woman.
The only way to knock over the kid's power structure is to break down or blow it up.
Stop the under -coveration, and have me bumped it.
Yes! Right on! Yes! Right on! Right on! Right on! Right on! Right on! Right on! And so, hey, Susan, trial for conspiracy and indeed the darkest moment in your lifetime.
These voices were to come to your aid.
Talkfully a guilty, you'll get two years probation.
That's the first year you're a law student at the game.
He finds the defendant guilty.
That's the former in the all -wife jury.
40 years to hard labor.
Oh, that's the all -wife judge.
I know that voice better than anyone.
And this voice...
All right, come with me.
You know that voice.
You should.
That's the guard that's come to take you away.
Jesus Rodriguez, trial of poverty, man of anger, this was your trial.
Oscar Lusa begins to wake up at 5 .30 a .m.
At this point in the day, there are ten public behavior settings available.
The streets, for example.
The telephone booths, parks, playgrounds, and so forth.
Gradually, as the town comes to life, new settings are opened.
Mabel's Beauty Shop opens at 5 .30.
The post office at 7.
The drug store at 7 .30.
Max Mountain's hardware store at 8.
By 11 a .m.
on an average weekday, Oscar Lusa has 175 public behavior settings.
These provide the resources for engaging in various kinds of behavior.
Dr.
Barker believes that the structure and number of these settings, and the number of people there are to carry out the actions these settings require, that all this adds up to the quality of life.
The town is set up so that there is really what we call an undermining of these settings which exist.
One of the features of every setting is that there are certain prescribed jobs which have to be done.
We call these habitat claims.
They're slots into which there has to be a person fitted to carry out the program and the maintenance of the setting.
In Oscar Lusa, there are a lot of jobs that need to get done.
Ten thousand different jobs, chores, or functions.
But there are only 834 people.
This means that the town needs the efforts of all its inhabitants in order to function.
People are important here.
We have figured out the degree to which this town and its functioning would be reduced by the absence of an average individual.
If a pied piper came through here and let's say, take the children and piped away the children, there would be tremendous sadness in the town, of course.
But the town would suffer because the children of the town under 12, especially those between 12 and 18, the adolescents, they fill many of these slots.
And without them, the town would be a much poorer place to live.
C -E -O -R -Y! Bears! Birds! Bears! I work at my father's service station.
I pump gas and wait on cars.
Hey Bears, here! I work at Grace Joy and my feds are past drive -ins, so I have to work there.
I work at my father's law office and I do secretarial work for the Presbyterian Church.
And I'm one of the co -editors for the yearbook.
No American high school is complete without cheerleaders.
But whether the school has 2 ,000 students or 200, the number needed does not change very much.
Thus, a big school tends to have a few cheerleaders and a few big wheels and lots of wallflowers.
You could even think about population per square mile, while ours is in a way population per niche or per behavior setting.
Now once there is sufficient or abundant population available to a setting, then the setting begins to get pretty choosy about who's going to be obligated, who's going to be chosen to take on the more significant tasks in that setting.
If there are only a few people available, one has to use the available people, and they are going to work harder to take more variety of tasks to do more important things.
The small school is like a small engine.
It tries to do everything that a big engine does.
It stretches the efforts of youngsters.
It means that one individual may be called upon to act in a number of different ways.
He may be called upon to be an athlete and a journalist.
Youngsters who have only modest talents are still quite useful and still used.
In the small school the question is not who can do it best, but who can do it.
Students in small schools are called upon to act, to be busy, to carry on the business of the school.
Citizens in Oskaloosa have the same pressures.
The owner of the local hardware store is a fellow named Max Mountain.
Oskaloosa has demanded of Mr.
Mountain a great deal more than hardware.
I've been elected on the township board for several years.
I think I was on the school board for about 15 years.
I was a city clerk for about 15 years.
Of course, it was all intermingled in together.
A town like Oskaloosa demands of its citizens that they be active.
In return for this, they get an environment which they can influence, which is responsive to their needs.
Oskaloosa is a village, a small social unit in which everybody is needed to carry out the necessary and desirable functions of life.
Our big cities are exactly the opposite.
Enormous numbers of people live in one place.
A great many of them are expendable, unnecessary, unneeded, surplus.
Very few of them feel any power to influence their surroundings or that the environment can or will respond to their needs.
You see, because our problem is not among ourselves.
If we don't be living in the environment, in all this filth, and ain't got no jobs, and ain't got no food coming from no place, this is frustration, Jack.
This creates problems.
You understand? If we don't live like we do now, then the little things that we killing each other for right now today wouldn't amount to a grain of salt.
We have an enormous police force and people who then behave, but it's an extremely inefficient society.
A very large number of people have to be committed to making sure everybody else behaves well.
It can be done without that, through education, through provision of goods, so that there is no better deprivation of any kind.
If you ask why does someone steal, then you have to ask is there any other way in which he could get things without stealing them? Is his education, has it been such that he is able to get it and hold a job which would enable him to get these things? Are there jobs available? There must be some reason why a person steals.
Now change those reasons.
From the point of view of modern psychology, behavior is largely a reflection of the structure of the environment.
High crime rates are an indication that the structure is not working.
An environment does not work when people cannot satisfy their needs within it and are powerless to change it.
In Oskaloosa, people have the power to affect their surroundings.
In big cities, people frequently feel overwhelmed.
This is really a chronic problem with all the cities of size.
How do you make people important? Our studies show that it is really much better to have a high school of 200 than a high school of 2 ,000.
Can you have high schools of 200, 300 in the cities? I don't see why it's impossible.
I would propose an index of the goodness of life.
We've called this the Pied Piper Index.
How much would the community suffer if an average man is removed and not replaced? How valuable is a man? What happens in the bigger cities and the bigger schools? There's an overabundance of people for the jobs which have to be done and which are important.
The world we inhabit is increasingly a world of our own making.
We have developed technologies that give us unprecedented power to alter our environment.
This power is like fire.
It can be used for our benefit or it can be used to destroy us.
We are creatures born of the earth and its forests, its waters.
Biologically, we have changed little in the last 30 ,000 years.
There are basic needs written into our being that cannot be erased.
Unless we recognize the needs of life, the need for a hospitable environment where children can act and grow and develop constructively with a sense of significance, a sense of competence and self -esteem.
Unless we recognize the power of the environments we make to shape what we become, we may, in the not too distant future, find ourselves in a world that nobody likes, nobody wanted, and nobody planned.
But just happened that way.
