Blackwell Reference Online

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Environmental resources are aspects of the environment that promote healthy functioning and growth of individuals. Assessment of such resources is a vital component of the four-front approach to psychological assessment and can provide valuable information to practitioners throughout the conceptualization, diagnostic, and treatment planning processes. Indeed, capitalizing on environmental resources is useful in a therapeutic context, as well as educational, vocational, social, and familial arenas. To date, however, there is a dearth of scholarship focused on the identification and empirical examination of environmental resources. Despite the fact that psychologists, especially behaviorists, largely agree that behavior can be shaped by the environment, research seems to stop at a description of the principles by which the environment can shape behavior, rather than continuing on to identify the specific environmental variables that do the shaping. The fact that environmental contexts are difficult to operationally define is one factor that contributes to the research problem. Additionally, researchers who subscribe to an individualistic framework, in which the individual is viewed as being the responsible agent of behaviors and behavior change, may also contribute to the lack of environmental research. Finally, those who perceive that assessing the environment is not useful due ... log in or subscribe to read full text