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Two ecological approaches in social psychology.
Youngjae Cha1, Maya Ingram1, Shigehiro Oishi1
1The University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, US yjcha@uchicago.edu mayaingram@uchicago.edu soishi@uchicago.edu https://psychology.uchicago.edu/directory/shigehiro-oishi.
The Behavioral and Brain Sciences
|June 2, 2026
Summary
This study contrasts evolutionary psychology with socio-ecological approaches to understanding how environments influence the mind. It highlights how both top-down and bottom-up strategies offer complementary insights into ecology-mind interactions.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Environmental Science
Background:
- The affordance-management framework offers a top-down perspective on how distal environments shape psychology via evolutionarily recurrent problems.
- Socio-ecological approaches provide a bottom-up view, focusing on current environmental arrangements and their psychological impacts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To contrast evolutionary and socio-ecological approaches to understanding environment-mind interactions.
- To highlight the complementary nature of top-down and bottom-up research strategies in this field.
Main Methods:
- Conceptual analysis and theoretical comparison of two distinct research frameworks.
- Examination of the affordance-management framework (top-down) versus socio-ecological approaches (bottom-up).
Main Results:
- The affordance-management framework emphasizes evolutionary influences on psychological adaptations.
- Socio-ecological approaches focus on the immediate impact of environmental structures on psychological processes.
Conclusions:
- Both evolutionary (top-down) and socio-ecological (bottom-up) perspectives are valuable for a comprehensive understanding of ecology-mind interactions.
- Integrating these complementary strategies can lead to richer insights into how environmental factors shape human psychology across different timescales.
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