The important factors are social class, ethnicity, and stage in the life-cycle. The individual’s behaviour is determined by their economic position, cultural characteristics, and by their marital and family status. The same attributes also determine who their associates are and what social worlds they live in. It is these attributes, not the size of the community or density that shape social and psychological experience.

The compositional approach does acknowledge rural-urban psychological differences but it considers them as reflections of variations in class, ethnicity or life-style.