- Behavioral geography is an approach that studies human activity, place, and environment at the individual level. It aims to understand human behavior by examining psychological processes like perceptions, decision making, and environmental images. - Early models in behavioral geography treated humans as rational actors seeking to optimize outcomes. However, researchers like Wolpert found people often make suboptimal choices based on imperfect information. - Key concepts in behavioral geography include mental maps, which represent individual perceptions of space, and models of the relationships between environmental images, decisions, and resulting behaviors. Behavioral geography provided new insights into areas like migration and consumer patterns but was later criticized for oversimplifying human behavior.

1. BEHAVIORALPERSPECTIVE IN
GEOGRAPHY
PREETI DEVI
M.A. (Silver Medalist, MDU)
NET, NFSC
Govt. College for Girls Sector- 14, Gurugram

2. Introduction
• Behavioral Geography is an approach to human geography.
• It attempts to understand human activity in space, place, and
environment by studying it at the disaggregate level of analysis-
at the level of individual person.

3. Against:
• Quantitative Revolution
• Positivism
• Statistical Methods

4. BehavioralApproach
• By the mid-1960s use of statistical techniques in research for
precision has been largely accepted by geographers.
• It was increasingly realized by the geographers that the models
propounded and tested with the help of quantitative techniques,
provided poor descriptions of geographic reality as well as
the man-environment relationship.
• Theories such as Central Place Theory, based on statistical
and mathematical techniques, were found inadequate to
explain the spatial organization of
society.

5. Wolpert Contribution:
• The axiom of ‘economic person’ who always tries
to maximize his profit was challenged by Wolpert.
• Publication: ‘The Decision Process in Spatial Context’,
Wolpert (1964).
• compared the actual and potential labor productivity of Swedish
farmers and came to a conclusion that optimal farming practices
were not attainable. He concluded that the farmers were not
optimizers but, satisfies.
• Thus human behavior was seen to be a product of decision-
making and it was a human tendency to have incomplete
information, to make imperfect choices, and even then be
satisfied with sub-optimal options.

6. Basis
• People Choice Depends on Knowledge.
• Alternative to Spatial Location.
• Cognitive Environment for Decision
making.(Understanding)
• From Aggregate (people) to Disaggregate (Individual)
Scale.

7. Historical Perspective of BehavioralApproach
• The very emergence of behavioral concept had taken place in
1951 when Kirk had used the term “Behavioral Environment” to explain
some complicated socio-economic problems.
• Boulding in 1956 who presented a book titled “Progress in
Geography” in which he expressed arguments in favor of behavioral
explanation of some complicated geographical problems.
• By the end of the 1960s, there was a realization that scientific models and
theories are unable to provide a realistic explanation of several socio-
economic problems and in that situation, behavioral explanations were
sought and it was this approach that provided satisfactory conclusions.
• In other words, behavioral revolution in counter-revolution of
Quantitative Revolution –“ where Quantitative Revolution failed to give a
scientific explanation, behavioral concept solved the problem”

8. What is Behavioral geography?
• The essence of behavioral approach in geography lies in the fact
that the way people behave is mediated by their understanding of
the environment in which they live or by the environment itself
with which they are confronted.
• The behavioral approach has taken the view that a deeper
understanding of man environment interaction.
• Achieved by looking at the various psychological processes through
which man comes to know the environment in which he lives and by
examining the way in which these processes influence the nature of
resultant behavior (i.e. perceptions of man, Downs concept, Mental
Maps, etc.) at the psychological level.

9. Conventional Models of Man-Environment interaction
• Boulding in 1956 presented a model for Man-Environment
interaction.
• The fundamental arguments of behavioral geography are
• People have environmental images (based on perception)
• Those images can be identified accurately by researchers, and
• There is a strong relationship between environmental
images and actual behavior.
• It is completely based on perceptions from the real world
• These perceptions are filtered as per the value systems to
create an image
• Image then helps in taking a decision, which is reflected in
behavior.

10. Boulding Man-Environment Interaction Model
Environment Image Behavior

11. Value system
Perceptual
Filters
Perceptual
Receptors
Information
Real World
Image
Behavior
Decision
Down’s Model (1970)

12. Mental Map Concept:
• Propounded by “Gould” in 1966.
• Defined how people preceived different areas mental maps.

13. Porteous(1977) suggested 3 environments
• Physical Environment (Physical objects),
• Personal Environment (perceived images of
phenomenal or real environment), and
• Contextual Environment (culture, religion, beliefs,
and expectations that influence behavior)

14. Advantages of Behavioral Concept
• Revolution has brought phenomenal changes in the
understanding of socio-economic problems in Geography.
• Olosor (Sweden) has rightly observed that the behavioral
approach has the key of social geography.
• Two important fields which have received greater
advantages from this method –
• Study of movement in Geography (contributors – Wolpert, BJL Berry,
Hagerstrand)
• Study of Locational Decision (contributors – Smith, Gould, Hotteling,
Hagerstrand, Felter)

15. The study of movement can be broadly divided into
• (a). Consumer Movement / Marketing Behavior
(b). Migration, and
(c). Intra-moves (Knox)
• Marketing depends on behavioral perceptions. Hence,
there has been a need to redirect transport system.
• Migration pattern has also the impact of behavioral pattern.
• Knox in his work “An introduction to the study of
Urban Social Geography” developed the concept of intra-
moves
• Intra-moves means residential movements within urban
areas.

16. Limitations /Disadvantages
• Harvey has a famous book to his credit known as “Explanation in
Geography” published in 1969, according to which behavioralism is a
complex phenomenon and has been oversimplified in geographical
explanation. Behavioralism plays a greater role in sociological and
historical events rather than events of geography.
• Herbert Simon “behavioral environment is a hypothetical perception.
It needs satisfying knowledge which is never possible”.
• The information can be irrelevant from Geographical perspective
• If the flow of information is proper, then the behavioral information
may be an instrument of geographical explanations.

17. Criticisms
• Behavioral geography lies in the fact that most of its data are
generated in laboratory experiments on animals and the findings
are applied directly to human behavior.
• Behavioralist theories are elegant but unhelpful when it comes to
understanding the real world man-environment interaction.
• Behavioral geographers remain observers than participants.
• Behavioralism has failed to produce any model or law related to
man.
• Some models that were built have limited credibility
• Due to this, after 1970s, post-behavioralism entered geographic
researches.
• Post-behavioralism is close to humanism in its methods, ideologies
and approaches.
• It finally merged into humanism and welfare geography.

18. Conclusion
• The research methods of behavioral geography vary
substantially but the general orientation – inductive
generalization leading to planning for environmental change
remains. Eventually, it is hoped, a ‘powerful new theory’
will emerge.
• Golledge argued that substantial advances in understanding
spatial behavior have already been made by studying ‘individual
preferences, opinions, attitudes, cognitions, cognitive maps,
perception, and so on – what he terms processes variables.

19. Reference:
• Geography for IAS mains “D.R. KHULLAR”.
• Evolution of Geographical Thought “MAJID HUSAIN”.
• Geographical Thought A Contextual History of Ideas “R.D.
Dikshit”.
• History of Geographical Thought “Dr. SD Maurya”.

20. Thank You