Ecological Assessment of Child Problem Behaviour By R.G. Wahler, A.E. House and E.E. Stambaugh Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1976, 87pp - $ 4–50.

Abstract

The second part of the book turns to important technical matters such as the appropriate level of analysis of social behaviour and ways of trying to quantify salient variables. Both the social-drive model of Gewitz and Baer, and the social-learning (modelling) model of Bandura are criticized on the grounds that they each present a one-directional model of children's social learning. What is needed is a model which recognizes the reciprocity of social learning, and what such a conceptualization needs is adequate statistical models allowing such interactions to be analysed sequentially. Having raised these valuable criticisms, the authors somewhat naively turn to the currently popular field of ethology and herald it as containing some of the tools they see as needed in this field of enquiry. This reliance on a technology not noted for its concern with either the reliability or validity of its observations unnecessarily weakens the arguments put forward.