ABSTRACT
Three themes that appear in Heft's work – affordances, values, and agency – are explored and elaborated. Ecological psychology is a natural science, but one that Gibson understood to be centered on meaning and value. Heft has worked diligently to address ways in which affordances are systemic, relational, and social (e.g., postal systems, linguistic systems). Affordances also demand agency, and Heft has encouraged researchers to attend more closely to the social, cultural, and historical nature of agency, rightly noting that Gibson intended for ecological theory to address collective, cultural skills and practices, such as conversing. Furthermore, Heft explored how agency and affordances function in a larger intentional context in which behavior is directed and situated, more of an extended inquiry than a reaction to local and immediate stimuli. These various themes are elaborated in terms of ecological values-realizing theory, with special attention paid to the question of how cultural, historical variation relates to an ecological understanding of values, ecosystems, and the nature of skilled, situated action.
