Reasonable person model

Last updated

The reasonable person model (RPM) is a psychological framework which argues that people are at their best when their informational needs are met. Positing that unreasonableness is not a human trait, but rather the result of environment (context and circumstances), the RPM attempts to define the environments/actions that foster reasonableness, defining three key areas that assist with this: model building, being effective, and meaningful action.

Contents

The RPM was developed by environmental psychologists Stephen and Rachel Kaplan and integrates principles from environmental, cognitive, and evolutionary psychology.

Overview

The RPM is a psychological framework that posits human functioning is improved when the following three domains of informational needs are met: [1]

RPM states that an environment or context supportive of informational needs can foster reasonable behavior that will "bring out the best in people". [1]

Conceptualizing reasonableness

The use of the term reasonable in RPM has commonalities and differences with the colloquial use of the word. In RPM, reasonableness refers to the ways in which "one would hope people behave". [2] The concept is partially conveyed by what it is not, unreasonable states such as incivility, aggression, irritability and impatience. Examples may also include "...demanding fairness for oneself while denying it to others, displaying intolerance and disrespect for others, willingness to harm or kill because of differences in beliefs, and attempting to extract the earth's resources for personal gain without regard for the needs of future generations". [3]

Comparison to theories on rationality

The RPM may be viewed as a contrary theory to rational man theory (also known as Homo Economicus) or related rational choice theory, in that it describes a landscape of mutual dependencies, such as the manner in which people treat one another. RPM assumes that information is often misunderstood, overwhelming, and unavailable. It also assumes that people are not interested in maximizing personal gain, but rather satisficing. RPM further asserts that people often have multiple concerns which cannot be reduced to a single monetary value. [4]

Comparison to subjective well-being

Reasonableness shares some themes with subjective well-being, including emphasis on positive/negative affect and quality of life. However, whereas SWB addresses self-directed feelings, RPM also considers the contexts that foster civil behavior and improve relationships between people. [5]

Model building

The world, as William James described it, is a "blooming buzzing confusion". [6] Mental models are neural structures, made of neurons and synapses, that organize our experiences into a usable form and allow us to

  1. recognize objects, situations, and other patterns,
  2. predict possible future outcomes,
  3. evaluate those outcomes offline, and
  4. take appropriate action. [7] In 1943, Kenneth Craik described these affordances:

"If the organism carries a "small-scale model" of external reality and of its own possible actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives, conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the present and future, and in every way to react in a much fuller, easier, and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it." [8]

Mechanisms of model building

Mental models are built through repetition, variation, and association. Experiencing something multiple times is said to lead to an internal representation. [9] Experiencing sequences of things associates our internal representations in a mental map according to how those things occur in reality. Donald Hebb's rule put it as: Things that fire together, wire together. [10]

Being effective

This refers to the skills needed over and above basic knowledge to accomplish goals and refers to a state of mind that is capable of attending to and managing information. Lack of clearheadedness is described within attention restoration theory, which states there are two attentional systems: one for attending to naturally fascinating stimuli and another that allows us to intentionally direct our attention. [11] Richard Louv's notion of nature deficit disorder describes some of the symptoms associated with a younger generation who do not spend time outdoors. [12]

Meaningful action

RPM's third domain argues that people have a desire to use their knowledge and skills to make a difference. Fewer people have work that is directly connected to their survival yet the evolutionary desire to make a difference remains. The inability to do so can lead to learned helplessness and feeling hopeless and alone in the face of seemingly insurmountable challenges. Such a state is not amenable to effective human functioning, yet there continues to be, as Kaplan describes, a "pervasive malaise of helplessness". [2] Goldschmidt described what he termed The Human Career as: one in which humans are primarily seeking the respect of others". [13] It is argued that, in participatory contexts, the most effective strategies are ones that help people feel like they can make a difference. [14]

Applications

RPM has been applied to the following domains:

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cognitive science</span> Interdisciplinary scientific study of cognitive processes

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. One of the fundamental concepts of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."

Cognitive psychology is the scientific study of mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, creativity, and reasoning. Cognitive psychology originated in the 1960s in a break from behaviorism, which held from the 1920s to 1950s that unobservable mental processes were outside the realm of empirical science. This break came as researchers in linguistics and cybernetics, as well as applied psychology, used models of mental processing to explain human behavior. Work derived from cognitive psychology was integrated into other branches of psychology and various other modern disciplines like cognitive science, linguistics, and economics. The domain of cognitive psychology overlaps with that of cognitive science, which takes a more interdisciplinary approach and includes studies of non-human subjects and artificial intelligence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Developmental psychology</span> Scientific study of psychological changes in humans over the course of their lives

Developmental psychology is the scientific study of how and why humans grow, change, and adapt across the course of their lives. Originally concerned with infants and children, the field has expanded to include adolescence, adult development, aging, and the entire lifespan. Developmental psychologists aim to explain how thinking, feeling, and behaviors change throughout life. This field examines change across three major dimensions, which are physical development, cognitive development, and social emotional development. Within these three dimensions are a broad range of topics including motor skills, executive functions, moral understanding, language acquisition, social change, personality, emotional development, self-concept, and identity formation.

Evolutionary psychology is a theoretical approach in psychology that examines cognition and behavior from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify human psychological adaptations with regards to the ancestral problems they evolved to solve. In this framework, psychological traits and mechanisms are either functional products of natural and sexual selection or non-adaptive by-products of other adaptive traits.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emotion</span> Conscious subjective experience of humans

Emotions are physical and mental states brought on by neurophysiological changes, variously associated with thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and a degree of pleasure or displeasure. There is no scientific consensus on a definition. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, or creativity.

In psychology, cognitivism is a theoretical framework for understanding the mind that gained credence in the 1950s. The movement was a response to behaviorism, which cognitivists said neglected to explain cognition. Cognitive psychology derived its name from the Latin cognoscere, referring to knowing and information, thus cognitive psychology is an information-processing psychology derived in part from earlier traditions of the investigation of thought and problem solving.

Social learning theory is a theory of social behavior that proposes that new behaviors can be acquired by observing and imitating others. It states that learning is a cognitive process that takes place in a social context and can occur purely through observation or direct instruction, even in the absence of motor reproduction or direct reinforcement. In addition to the observation of behavior, learning also occurs through the observation of rewards and punishments, a process known as vicarious reinforcement. When a particular behavior is rewarded regularly, it will most likely persist; conversely, if a particular behavior is constantly punished, it will most likely desist. The theory expands on traditional behavioral theories, in which behavior is governed solely by reinforcements, by placing emphasis on the important roles of various internal processes in the learning individual. Albert Bandura is known for studying this theory.

In philosophy of mind and cognitive science, folk psychology, or commonsense psychology, is a human capacity to explain and predict the behavior and mental state of other people. Processes and items encountered in daily life such as pain, pleasure, excitement, and anxiety use common linguistic terms as opposed to technical or scientific jargon. Folk psychology allows for an insight into social interactions and communication, thus stretching the importance of connection and how it is experienced.

The psychology of learning refers to theories and research on how individuals learn. There are many theories of learning. Some take on a more behaviorist approach which focuses on inputs and reinforcements. Other approaches, such as neuroscience and social cognition, focus more on how the brain's organization and structure influence learning. Some psychological approaches, such as social constructivism, focus more on one's interaction with the environment and with others. Other theories, such as those related to motivation, like the growth mindset, focus more on individuals' perceptions of ability.

Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of the developed adult brain and cognitive psychology. Qualitative differences between how a child processes their waking experience and how an adult processes their waking experience are acknowledged. Cognitive development is defined as the emergence of the ability to consciously cognize, understand, and articulate their understanding in adult terms. Cognitive development is how a person perceives, thinks, and gains understanding of their world through the relations of genetic and learning factors. There are four stages to cognitive information development. They are, reasoning, intelligence, language, and memory. These stages start when the baby is about 18 months old, they play with toys, listen to their parents speak, they watch TV, anything that catches their attention helps build their cognitive development.

Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental psychology emphasizes how humans change the environment and how the environment influences humans' experiences and behaviors. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. According to an article on APA Psychnet, environmental psychology is when a person thinks to a plan, travels to a certain place, and follows through with the plan throughout their behavior.

Directed attention fatigue (DAF) is a neuro-psychological phenomenon that results from overuse of the brain's inhibitory attention mechanisms, which handle incoming distractions while maintaining focus on a specific task. The greatest threat to a given focus of attention is competition from other stimuli that can cause a shift in focus. This is because one maintains focus on a particular thought by inhibiting all potential distractions and not by strengthening that central mental activity. Directed attention fatigue occurs when a particular part of the brain's global inhibitory system is overworked due to the suppression of increasing numbers of stimuli. This temporary condition is not a clinical illness or a personality disorder. It is rather a temporary fatigue of the inhibitory mechanisms in the brain. According to inhibition theory, it is natural for one to alternate between periods of attention and distraction. Although one's efforts may involve very different tasks, each incoming stimulus calls upon the same directed attention mechanism.

Evolutionary developmental psychology (EDP) is a research paradigm that applies the basic principles of evolution by natural selection, to understand the development of human behavior and cognition. It involves the study of both the genetic and environmental mechanisms that underlie the development of social and cognitive competencies, as well as the epigenetic processes that adapt these competencies to local conditions.

Rachel and Stephen Kaplan are professors of psychology at the University of Michigan, specializing in environmental psychology. The Kaplans are known for their research on the effect of nature on people's relationships and health.

Some of the research that is conducted in the field of psychology is more "fundamental" than the research conducted in the applied psychological disciplines, and does not necessarily have a direct application. The subdisciplines within psychology that can be thought to reflect a basic-science orientation include biological psychology, cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, and so on. Research in these subdisciplines is characterized by methodological rigor. The concern of psychology as a basic science is in understanding the laws and processes that underlie behavior, cognition, and emotion. Psychology as a basic science provides a foundation for applied psychology. Applied psychology, by contrast, involves the application of psychological principles and theories yielded up by the basic psychological sciences; these applications are aimed at overcoming problems or promoting well-being in areas such as mental and physical health and education.

Attention restoration theory (ART) asserts that people can concentrate better after spending time in nature, or even looking at scenes of nature. Natural environments abound with "soft fascinations" which a person can reflect upon in "effortless attention", such as clouds moving across the sky, leaves rustling in a breeze or water bubbling over rocks in a stream. Philosophically, nature has long been seen as a source of peace and energy, yet the scientific community started rigorous testing only as recently as the 1990s which has allowed scientific and accurate comments to be made about if nature has a restorative attribute.

Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development criticize and build upon Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Psychology encompasses a vast domain, and includes many different approaches to the study of mental processes and behavior. Below are the major areas of inquiry that taken together constitute psychology. A comprehensive list of the sub-fields and areas within psychology can be found at the list of psychology topics and list of psychology disciplines.

Social determinism is the theory that social interactions alone determine individual behavior.

Evolutionary psychology has traditionally focused on individual-level behaviors, determined by species-typical psychological adaptations. Considerable work, though, has been done on how these adaptations shape and, ultimately govern, culture. Tooby and Cosmides (1989) argued that the mind consists of many domain-specific psychological adaptations, some of which may constrain what cultural material is learned or taught. As opposed to a domain-general cultural acquisition program, where an individual passively receives culturally-transmitted material from the group, Tooby and Cosmides (1989), among others, argue that: "the psyche evolved to generate adaptive rather than repetitive behavior, and hence critically analyzes the behavior of those surrounding it in highly structured and patterned ways, to be used as a rich source of information out of which to construct a 'private culture' or individually tailored adaptive system; in consequence, this system may or may not mirror the behavior of others in any given respect.".

References

  1. 1 2 Kaplan, Rachel; Kaplan, Stephen (2008). "Bringing out the best in people: A psychological perspective". Conservation Biology. 22 (4): 826–829. Bibcode:2008ConBi..22..826K. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01010.x. hdl: 2027.42/71786 . PMID   18786098. S2CID   2036023.
  2. 1 2 Kaplan, Stephen (2000). "Human nature and environmentally responsible behavior". Journal of Social Issues. 56 (3): 491–508. doi:10.1111/0022-4537.00180.
  3. ↑ Kaplan, Stephen; Kaplan, Rachel (2009). "Creating a larger role for environmental psychology: The Reasonable Person Model as an integrative framework". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 29 (3): 329–339. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2008.10.005.
  4. ↑ Midgley, Mary (1978). Beast and Man: Roots of Human Nature . Cornell University Press. ISBN   978-0203626504.
  5. ↑ Basu, Avik; Kaplan, Rachel; Kaplan, Stephen (2014). "Creating supportive environments to foster reasonableness and achieve sustainable well-being". In Timo J. Hämäläinen; Juliet Michaelson (eds.). Well-Being and Beyond: Broadening the Public and Policy Discourse. New Horizons in Management Series. Cheltenham, United Kingdom: Edward Elgar. doi:10.4337/9781783472901. ISBN   9781783472895.
  6. ↑ James, William (1890). The Principles of Psychology . New York: Dover. ISBN   978-0-486-20381-2.
  7. ↑ Kaplan, Stephen (1973). "Cognitive maps in perception and thought". In R. M. Downs; D. Stea (eds.). Image and Environment. Chicago, IL: Aldine. pp. 63–78.
  8. ↑ Craik, Kenneth J. W. (1943). The Nature of Explanation . London: Cambridge University Press. pp.  61. ISBN   9780521094450.
  9. ↑ Kaplan, Stephen; Kaplan, Rachel (1982). Cognition and environment: functioning in an uncertain world. Ann Arbor, MI: Ulrich's Press. ISBN   978-0030623448.
  10. ↑ Hebb, Donald O. (1949). The Organization of Behavior. New York: Wiley & Sons.
  11. ↑ Kaplan, Stephen (1995). "The restorative benefits of nature: toward an integrative frame-work". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 15 (3): 169–182. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.500.4202 . doi:10.1016/0272-4944(95)90001-2. S2CID   4993000.
  12. ↑ Louv, Richard (2005). Last Child in the Woods . Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books. ISBN   9781565126053.
  13. ↑ Goldschmidt, Walter (1990). The Human Career: The self in the symbolic world . Cambridge, MA, USA: Basil Blackwell.
  14. ↑ Allen, James B.; Ferrand, Jennifer L. (1999). "Environmental Locus of Control, Sympathy, and Proenvironmental Behavior A Test of Geller's Actively Caring Hypothesis". Environment and Behavior. 31 (3): 338–353. doi:10.1177/00139169921972137. S2CID   143690570.
  15. ↑ Kaplan, Rachel; Kaplan, Stephen; Ryan, Robert L. (1998). With people in mind: Design and management of everyday nature. Washington, DC: Island Press. ISBN   978-1559635943.
  16. ↑ Bardwell, Lisa V.; Kaplan, Stephen (2008). "Creating a generation of problem-solvers: A cognitive perspective on service-learning". Information for Action: A Journal for Research on Service-Learning for Children and Youth.
  17. ↑ Phalen, Kimberly Bosworth (2009-06-01). "An Invitation for Public Participation in Ecological Restoration: The Reasonable Person Model". Ecological Restoration. 27 (2): 178–186. doi:10.3368/er.27.2.178. S2CID   84531700.
  18. ↑ "The RPM Project Blog". Archived from the original on 2014-10-30.
  19. ↑ Cimprich, Bernadine; Ronis, D. L. (2003). "An Environmental Intervention to Restore Attention in Women With Newly Diagnosed Breast Cancer". Cancer Nursing. 26 (4): 284–292. doi:10.1097/00002820-200308000-00005. PMID   12886119. S2CID   42921671.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.