374 CAREER CHOICE AND DEVELOPMENT
Much of psychology’s theory and systems research in the study
of human environments traces to Kurt Lewin (1936), whose topo-
logical model of behavior broke new ground for psychologists. Roger
Barker, Lewin’s primary student, demonstrated that in large envi-
ronments, as well as in smaller, more encapsulated, environments
such as schools (Barker & Gump, 1964), behavior and social roles
differ, depending on essential characteristics of the environment (for
example, big school versus small school). This general area of inquiry
has been called ecological psychology. Interest in ecological psy-
chology or person-environment interaction has increased with ad-
vances in environmental measurement (Szapocznik et al., in progress)
and research methodology (Edwards & Rothbard, 1999), as well as
with renewed appreciation for the richness of person-environment
transactions (Tyler, 1995).
In a more-or-less parallel universe, the longstanding tradition of
individual differences (Dawis, 1992; Lubinski, 2000; Lubinski &
Dawis, 1995), bolstered by behavioral genetics (Betsworth et al., 1994;
Gottfredson, 1999; Plomin and DeFreis, 1998), assures us that stable
dispositions such as values, interests, personality, and the behavioral
repertoires associated with these dispositions can be readily identified
and studied. Indeed, such dispositions may dictate which environ-
ments individuals select, thereby multiplying their effects. Individual
diversity, in this view, dictates the lion’s share of human behavior. As
Rene Dawis (1992) reminds us, we have a rich and enduring individ-
ual differences tradition on which we can build future research.
Broader definitions of the nature of interests (Savickas, 1999; Silva,
1999; Hogan & Blake, 1999) are examples of recent developments in
the area of individual differences and vocational behavior.
In vocational psychology, as in other areas of social science, it is
a continuing struggle to study human interactions at the level of com-
plexity warranted by the phenomena under study and at a level of
parsimony necessary to be able to understand the findings. Whether
we choose to emphasize those aspects of behavior that are stable or
those that are fluid, we cannot escape the simultaneous study of indi-
vidual and environmental contributors to behavior in our theory
and research. Person-environment interaction is a fundamental