Holland's original environmental formulations proposed that an environment's influence was transmitted through its inhabitants: environments could be classified by the predominant personality type of their inhabitants. But the approach to environmental assessment that relies on a census of inhabitants is only one approach, job analysis is another. The principal prediction that Holland's theory makes about person-environment interactions is that beneficial outcomes follow from congruency between the person and the environment. Congruence leads to stability and incongruence leads to change. Several empirical studies have been conducted which provide evidence on Holland's predictions about person-environment interactions. Although it is expected that some environments exert more influence than others, no satisfactory explanations of the sources of such differences are available. Holland has suggested assessing the consistency, differentiation, and identity of the environment. An alternative set of speculations about the determinants of environmental influence makes use of the notion of proximity. The proximity of an environment refers to the probability that it will reward or punish behaviors. A proximate environment is one in which rewards for behaviors congruent with the environment or punishments for incongruent behavior occur with high probability. The use of the notion of proximity helps to make sense of some disparate results in tests of the congruence hypotheses. (NRB)