Place-Centered or Person-Centered? Considerations about the Behavioral Mapping Approach

Abstract

This paper focus on the technique of Behavioral Mapping (BM), and discusses about its application objectives face to the nomenclature it receives. Therefore, presents a review of empical studies conductec between 2005 and 2015. Through technique of agreement among evaluators, the fourteen selected papers were examined according to the following criteria: the department that held the research, theoretical framework, objectives and hipothesis, content of the discussion and content of final considerations. From that, the judges defined the emphasis of the articles (person or environment) and evaluated the BM design developed compared to the research goals. This paper also discussed the employed nomenclature, considering that international studies only use “behavioral mapping” and not use the complements “place centered” or “person centered”, commonly found in the national literature. International studies are concerned to define the research problem, and the instrument of BM is built based on the research objectives, assuming varied designs and application modes. Finally, it was proposed to adopt the nomenclature “behavioral mapping” since it shows up enough and wide, so that allows the creation of instrument designs adapted to the demands of the research.

Keywords:
Behavioral mapping; observational method; person-environment studies