"Ecological psychology did not emerge as a component of the "ecological movement". It arose much earlier and owes its existence to Barker's idea that psychology - in analogy to biology - needs an ecological subdiscipline or an ecological perspective, as an indispensible complement to experimentally oriented methodology. Ecological psychology nevertheless also has good reasons to ascertain, in "looking back", that its hopes had been somewhat too optimistic. Why did they to some extent remain unfulfilled? Wat is our present point of view? What are our plans and expectations for the future? The symposium will be focussed on Barker's "behavior setting" concept which, in the meantime, has undergone various further developments, though less than would have been possible and desirable. Most of these trends and attempts appear, on the whole rather incidental, sporadic, nonsystematic. However, due to their respective independence they reveal the multiplicity of potentialities and tasks for further progress in ecological psychology. As a complex systemic unit, the "behavior setting" lends itself to extentions in quite different directions. At least five main tasks or trends seem to be taking shape so far: 1. "Psychological ecology" aims at taking a descriptive-taxonomic inventory of all naturally functioning systems of person-environment-interrelationships. What are "natural units" above and below the "behavior setting" level? How are they defined and delimited? 2. The "behavior setting" itself, as the basic unit of Barker's "ecobehavioral" approach, deserves further elaboration. Is there any news about it? 3. The individual participant of a behavior setting system can (while actually participating in it) be viewed in traditional or current psychological terms. How does this enrich and differentiate behavior setting theory and research? How does the systematic context determine details of the individual's participation processing? 4. The individual as a whole, viewed in different longitudinal perspectives, overarches, as a different kind of "natural" systemic unit, all his/her various actual behavior setting participations. How can (individual) behavior setting participations be integrated into an ecological personology? 5. Although points 1 to 4 figures as issues in basic research they nevertheless can also raise questions of practical applicability."