Overview

The papers comprising this second volume of Human Behavior and the Environment represent, as do their predecessors, a cross section of current work in the broad area of problems dealing with interrelation- ships between the physical environment and human behavior, at both the individual and the aggregate levels. Considering the two volumes as a unit, we have included papers covering a broad spectrum of problems ranging from the theoretical to the applied, and from the disciplinary-based to the interdisciplinary and professional. Approxi- mately half of the papers are written by psychologists, with the remainder coming, in part, from such other disciplines as sociology, geography, and from such diverse applied and professional fields as natural recreation, landscape architecture, urban planning, and opera- tions research. The volumes thus provide an overview of work on current topical problems. Yet, as the field is developing, specialization is inevitably increasing apace, and the editors as well as the publisher have become convinced of the desirability for futu're volumes in this series to be organized along topical lines, with successive volumes devoted to different aspects of this rather sprawling field. Thus, Volume 3, currently in the planning stage, will be devoted exclusively to the interaction of children with the physical environment, considered from diverse viewpoints, again including authors from diverse fields of specialization.