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Environmental Psychology

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Title: Environmental Psychology


1
Environmental Psychology
  • 2nd Lecture

2
Introduction
  • ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY studies the
    relationship between environments and human
    behavior as well as how they affect one another.
    These environments include social settings, built
    environments, learning environments and
    informational environments.
  • Why are some spaces comfortable and others
    threatening? How can we enhance our environments
    to reduce stress, create more efficiency, and
    minimize accidents? These are a few questions
    that environmental psychologists work with AS
    WELL AS DESIGNERS.

3
Another definition of environmental psychology
  • The study of human behaviour and well-being in
    relation to the sociophysical environment
    (Stokols Altman, 1987).
  • The branch of Psychology concerned with providing
    a systematic account of the relationship between
    a person and the environment (Russell
    Snodgrass, 1987).

4
  • Humans react both consciously and unconsciously
    to the area in which they live and work. Their
    environment, whether it be natural or man made,
    has a profound effect on
  • feelings,
  • behaviors,
  • general health issues, and
  • productivity.

5
GOAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
  • The goal of the field is to solve problems
    involving human-environmental interactions and to
    create, manage, protect, and restore environments
    that promote proper behavior.
  • Researchers diagnose problem situations and
    recommend solutions.

6
HOW DO ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGISTS WORK?
  • A great majority of research in Environmental
    Psychology is done in the field rather than in
    the lab.
  • Environmental psychologists assess, analyze, and
    advise on personal space and environments in
    general.
  • They usually work in teams with other
    professionals such as urban and city planners,
    architects, economists, engineers, and designers,
    etc.

7
A Brief History
  • Research in Environmental Psychology started in
    1950 with a campaign to improve mental hospitals.
    Architects in charge of building these hospitals
    where more concerned with the structure rather
    than human needs.
  • They turned to psychologists for information on
    cognition and social and human behavior.
  • This collaboration between architects and
    psychologists created a field called
    Architectural Psychology.

8
  • Over the years, problems expanded beyond
    architectural situations to parks and landscapes,
    thus creating Environmental Psychology.
  • Researchers began discovering the mismatches
    between humans and their environment.
  • Psychologists began trying to solve these
    problems through improved design. A field that
    had started with investigating color and chair
    arrangements in mental hospitals moved to
    tracking visitors in national parks and studying
    the stresses associated with urban commuting
    (traffic).

9
Barkers Ecological Theory
  • The first significant findings in environmental
    psychology can be traced back to researcher Roger
    Barker, who founded his research station in
    Kansas in 1947, and ran it for several decades.
  • From detailed field observations he developed the
    theory that social settings influence behavior.

10
  • In a store, people assume their roles as
    customers in school and church, proper behavior
    is somehow coded in the place.
  • Barker spent his career expanding on what he
    called ecological psychology, identifying these
    behavior settings. The "behavior setting" remains
    a valid principle which receives serious
    attention.

11
Architecture
  • provides settings for certain activities (sports,
    education, etc.)
  • It reminds people of what certain activities are,
    (eating, studying, etc.)
  • It signifies power, status, or privacy ( wealth,
    richness, residential)
  • It expresses and supports beliefs (mosques,
    churches).
  • It communicates information (the time a building
    was built, the climate, thickness of the walls,
    etc.)
  • It helps establish individual or group identity
    (Home vs. classroom, studios)
  • And it encodes value systems (Different types of
    buildings in different cultures)

12
  • Designers are liable of designing spaces in
    respect to their prospective users. It is their
    responsibility to enable users where they are and
    how they can reach or use the services provided.
  • Designers need to communicate some messages, in
    order to be able to do this they need to
    understand how people perceive their
    surroundings.

13
Areas of Study
  • Wayfinding
  • Effects of Noise
  • Population Density
  • Effects of High Density on Humans
  • Effects of Density on Social Behavior
  • Effects of Crowding
  • Effects of Urban Life
  • Environmental Solutions to Urban Problems
  • Personal Space and Territorial Behavior
  • Residential Environments
  • Attachment to Place
  • Preferences
  • Satisfaction With the Home Environment
  • Neighborhood and Community Environments
  • Institutional Environments
  • Classroom Settings
  • Hospital Settings
  • Museum Environments
  • Prison Design and Behavior

14
  • When solving problems involving human-environment
    interactions, it is essential to
  • have a model of human nature that predicts the
    conditions under which humans will behave in a
    decent and creative manner.
  • We can use theories in order make assumptions on
    general human behaviour.

15
One of the most important functions of a theory
is
  • to provide generalizations that give order and
    meaning to specific observations about
    person-environment relations.

16
Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
  • Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a theory in
    psychology that Abraham Maslow proposed in 1943 (
    A Theory of Human Motivation).
  • Maslow studied exemplary people such as Albert
    Einstein, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick
    Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic
    people, writing that
  • "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and
    unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple
    psychology and a cripple philosophy."
  • Maslow also studied the healthiest one percent of
    the college student population.

17
  • Maslow has a theory of motivation based on needs
    that people have. He arranges them in order of
    importance that is, he believes you must fulfill
    the lower needs before achieving a higher one. If
    you achieve something near the top first,
    happiness will not last but if you climb up the
    pyramid of needs, you will achieve great
    satisfaction with life.

18
  • While Maslow's theory was regarded as an
    improvement over previous theories of personality
    and motivation, it had its detractors. For
    example, some researchers found little evidence
    for the ranking of needs that Maslow described,
    or even for the existence of a definite hierarchy
    at all.

19
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is often depicted as
a pyramid consisting of five levels
  • The four lower levels are Deficiency needs that
    are grouped together as being associated with
    Physiological needs, while the top level is
    termed as Growth needs associated with
    Psychological needs.
  • DEFICIENCY NEEDS PHYSIOLOGICAL NEEDS
  • GROWTH NEEDS PSYCHOLOGICAL NEEDS
  • Deficiency needs must be met first. Once these
    are met, seeking to satisfy growth needs drives
    personal growth. The higher needs in this
    hierarchy only come into focus when the lower
    needs in the pyramid are satisfied.

20
Growth needs
Deficiency needs
21
Deficiency needs
  • The first four layers of the pyramid are what
    Maslow called "deficiency needs" or "D-needs"
    the individual does not feel anything if they are
    met, but feels anxious if they are not met.
  • The deficiency needs are
  • Physiological,
  • Safety needs,
  • Love/Belonging, and
  • Esteem needs.

22
Physiological needs
  • These are the basic animal needs for such things
    as air, water, food, warmth, sex, sleep and other
    body needs.
  • When these are not satisfied we may feel
    sickness, irritation, pain, discomfort, etc.
    These feelings motivate us to alleviate them as
    soon as possible to establish homeostasis. Once
    they are alleviated, we may think about other
    things.
  • For example if a person is hungry or thirsty or
    his body is chemically unbalanced, all of his
    energies turn toward remedying these
    deficiencies, and other needs remain inactive.

23
The physiological needs of the organism (those
enabling homeostasis) take first precedence.
  • The physiological needs consist mainly of
  • Eating
  • Drinking
  • Sleeping
  • Excretion
  • Sex
  • Warmth
  • If some needs are not fulfilled, a human's
    physiological needs take the highest priority.
    Physiological needs can control thoughts and
    behaviors, and can cause people to feel sickness,
    pain, and discomfort.

24
Safety needs
  • With his physical needs relatively satisfied, the
    individual's safety needs take over and dominate
    his behavior.
  • Safety needs are
  • man's yearning for a predictable, orderly world
    in which injustice and inconsistency are under
    control,
  • the familiar frequent, and
  • the unfamiliar rare.
  • In the world of work, these safety needs manifest
    themselves in such things as a preference for job
    security, grievance procedures for protecting the
    individual from unilateral authority, savings
    accounts, insurance policies, and the like.

25
Safety needs include
  • Personal security from crime
  • Financial security
  • Health and well-being
  • Safety net against accidents/illness and the
    adverse impacts

26
Love/Belonging/Social needs
  • After physiological and safety needs are
    fulfilled, the third layer of human needs is
    social. This psychological aspect of Maslow's
    hierarchy involves emotionally-based
    relationships in general, such as
  • friendship
  • sexual intimacy
  • having a supportive and communicative family

27
  • Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and
    acceptance, whether it comes from a large social
    group (such as clubs, office culture, religious
    groups, professional organizations, sports teams,
    gangs) or small social connections (family
    members, intimate partners, mentors, close
    colleagues, confidants).
  • They need to love and be loved (sexually and
    non-sexually) by others. In the absence of these
    elements, many people become susceptible to
    loneliness, social anxiety, and depression.
  • This need for belonging can sometimes overcome
    the physiological and security needs, depending
    on the strength of the peer pressure. e.g. an
    anorexic ignores the need to eat and the security
    of health for a feeling of belonging.

28
Esteem needs
  • All humans have a need to be respected, to have
    self-esteem, self-respect, and to respect others.
    People need to engage themselves to gain
    recognition and have an activity or activities
    that give the person a sense of contribution, to
    feel accepted and self-valued, be it in a
    profession or a hobby. Imbalances at this level
    can result in low self-esteem, inferiority
    complexes.

29
  • People with low self-esteem especially need
    respect from others. They may seek fame or glory,
    which again depends on others.
  • However, confidence, competence and achievement
    only need one person and everyone else is
    inconsequential to one's own success.
  • It may be noted, however, that many people with
    low self-esteem will not be able to improve their
    view of themselves simply by receiving fame,
    respect, and glory externally, but must first
    accept themselves internally. Psychological
    imbalances such as depression can also prevent
    one from obtaining self-esteem on both levels.

30
Growth needs
  • Though the deficiency needs may be seen as
    "basic", and can be met and neutralized
    self-actualization and transcendence are "being"
    or "growth needs" (also termed "B-needs"), i.e.
    they are enduring motivations or drivers of
    behavior.

31
Cognitive needs
  • Maslow believed that humans have the need to
    increase their intelligence and thereby chase
    knowledge.
  • Cognitive needs is the expression of the natural
    human need to learn, explore, discover and create
    to get a better understanding of the world around
    them.

32
Aesthetic needs
  • Based on Maslow's beliefs, humans need beautiful
    imagery or something new and aesthetically
    pleasing to continue up towards
    Self-Actualization.
  • Humans need to refresh themselves in the presence
    and beauty of nature while carefully absorbing
    and observing their surroundings to extract the
    beauty that the world has to offer.

33
Self-actualization
  • Self-actualization a concept Maslow attributed
    to Kurt Goldstein, one of his mentors is the
    instinctual need of humans to make the most of
    their abilities and to strive to be the best they
    can.

34
Maslow writes the following of self-actualizing
people
  • They embrace the facts and realities of the world
    (including themselves) rather than denying or
    avoiding them.
  • They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
  • They are creative.
  • They are interested in solving problems this
    often includes the problems of others. Solving
    these problems is often a key focus in their
    lives.
  • They feel a closeness to other people, and
    generally appreciate life.
  • They have a system of morality that is fully
    internalized and independent of external
    authority.
  • They have discernment and are able to view all
    things in an objective manner.

35
Other Theories and Approaches
  • Stimulation Theories conceptualize the
    environment as a source of sensory information.
    The stimulation includes
  • Simple stimuli such as light, color, sound,
    noise, heat and cold, and,
  • Complex stimuli such as buildings, streets,
    outdoor settings, and other people.

36
Stimulation varies in amount and meaning.
  • Amount of stimulation includes dimensions such as
    intensity, duration, frequency, and number of
    sources.
  • Meaning of stimulation refers to each persons
    integration and interpretation of the stimulus
    information.

37
Stimulation based theories
  • Adaptation-level Theory Individuals adapt to
    certain levels of stimulation in certain
    contexts, no particular amount of stimulation is
    good for everyone.
  • Arousel Theories These are based on the
    assumption that the form and content of a broad
    range of our behavior and experience are related
    to how physiologically aroused we are.

38
  • Overload Theory concentrates on the effects of
    too much stimulation (noise, heat, cold,
    crowding).
  • Restricted Environmental Stimulation Too little
    stimulation causes problems in some
    circumstances, and has positive effects in others
    such as easy cognitive tasks.

39
  • Barabasz, Antartika'da görevli ABD'li askerlerle
    yaptigi çalismada, uyaranin sinirli oldugu,
    yalitilmis ortamlarda yasayanlarin daha kolay
    hipnotize edilebildiklerini, telkine daha açik
    olduklarini, kolay yönlendirilebildiklerini
    göstermistir.5 Harrison, duyusal yoksunlukla,
    otistik düsünce gelisimi arasinda iliski olup
    olmadigini arastirdigi çalismasinda, 36 denegi,
    belirli ölçüde duyusal olarak yalitmis ve bu
    deneklerde ego gücünün zayifladigini, otistik
    düsünce bozuklugu belirtilerinin gelistigini
    gözlemistir.6 Soutter, durus, yürüyüs, davranis
    ve iletisim bozuklugu gösteren, anne ve babasi
    disindakileri kol mesafesinden yakina
    yaklastirmayan 10 yasindaki bir çocukla ilgili
    vaka analizinde, bu tablonun ilk çocuklarini
    kaybettikleri için, söz konusu çocuklarini evden
    disari çikarmayan, infeksiyon korkusuyla kimseyle
    görüstürmeyen anne, babanin tutumlari nedeniyle
    gelistigini vurgulamistir. Bu vaka, 8 yil süren
    tedaviden sonra yasina uygun insan iliskileri
    kurabilir hale gelmistir.7 Ruhbilim alaninda
    yapilan arastirmalar, insanlarin ruh sagliklarini
    koruyabilmeleri için uyarana ihtiyaçlari oldugunu
    gösteriyor. Psikolog Zubek, 1969 ve 1972'de
    Kanada'da insanlar üzerinde yaptigi deneylerde,
    gönüllü denekleri, fiziksel olarak rahat ama ses,
    isik vb. uyaranlarin sinirlandigi izole
    ortamlarda saatlerce tutmustur. Dayanma süreleri
    farkli olmakla birlikte, deneklerin çogunda
    sikinti, huzursuzluk, kötülük görecegi korkulari,
    sanrilar (hezeyanlar), isitsel-görsel varsanilar
    (halüsinasyonlar) ortaya çikmistir.8 Bir baska
    deyisle kisi, uyarandan yoksun birakildiginda, iç
    dünyasina ait uyaranlari (hayaller, rüyalar,
    bilinçdisi süreçler vb.) dis uyaranlardan yani
    gerçeklikten ayirt edememekte ve gerçeklik
    duygusunu yitirebilmektedir. Her insan, kendinden
    haberdar olan, onu fark eden, etkilesebilecegi
    diger insan veya insanlara ihtiyaç duyar. Çünkü
    ancak onlarin bakislari, sesleri, dokunmalari ile
    benlik sinirlari çizilir. Uzun süre insansiz
    kalmak ben ile ben olmayan arasindaki siniri
    bulaniklastirir, benlik parçalanmasina yol
    açabilir. Bu parçalanmanin nasil bir ruhsal aci
    verdiginin en çarpici kaniti, tecrit
    hücrelerindeki bazi mahkumlarin, iskencecilerinin
    bedenlerine verecegi acilari, hücrelerindeki,
    insansiz, uyaransiz kalmaya tercih etmeleridir.

40
  • Stress is another important concept. When
    environmental stimulation exceeds an individuals
    adaptive resources, behavioral and health effects
    occur.
  • Stressors include air pollution, hospitals,
    offices, extreme temperatures, traffic, noise,
    etc.
  • Acute stressors negative, intense, short
    impacts,
  • Ambient stressors negative, chronic, global
    conditions remaining in the background,
  • Daily hassles negative, nonurgent.

41
Control Theories
  • How much control we have over environmental
    stimulation is very important. We have more
    control at home, and less control outdoors such
    as in traffic jams.
  • Personal Control accounts for the effects of
    being able or unable to influence stimulation.
  • Psychological reactance is a result of lack of
    control.
  • Learned helplessness is the conviction that
    nothing can change or overcome an unpleasant or
    painful situation.

42
  • In everyday social transactions, we attempt to
    achieve personal control through boundary
    regulation mechanisms, such as personal space and
    territoriality.

43
Behavior-Setting Theory
  • This is a concept based on Barkers ecological
    psychology. It tends to explain
    person-environment relations in terms of the
    settings, social features, such as rules,
    customs, and typical activities, and its physical
    features.
  • Consistent, prescribed patterns of behavior
    called programs are found in many places. When
    you enter a certain space you are likely to see
    reccurrent activities, regularly carried out by
    persons holding specific roles. For example,
    every football game has two teams who run, pass
    the ball and score, and a referee. Uniformity of
    actions of certain roles is important.

44
Integral Theories
  • A theory that searchs for a model that captures
    the full complexity of everyday
    person-environment relations.
  • Interactionism People environment are seperate
    entities but are in continous interaction.
  • Transactionism Person env. are inclusive, one
    defines the other.
  • Organismic Dynamic interplay of social and
    individual factors. Person is affected by social
    env. And the society.
  • The Operant Approach Its goal is to modify the
    behavior of individuals whose behavior is
    contributing to some environmental problem.
    Problematic behaviors are identified, appropriate
    positive reinforcements are delivered when
    individuals engage in beneficial behavior. For
    example recycling, littering, energy waste.

45
Environment-centered Approaches
  • These approaches focus on the state or quality of
    the environment without ignoring people. The
    approach may contrast instrumental versus
    spiritual views of the environment.
  • Should the environment be used to support human
    goals such as productivity, or is it a context in
    which human values are cultivated?

46
  • We receive information from the environment all
    through our lives, this affects our behaviors
    physically and psychologically as the brain and
    the body give reactions to the stimuli from the
    environment. These processes are concerned with
    perception, cognition, and cognitive maps.

47
Some related concepts
  • Perception The gathering of information through
    our senses such as seeing, hearing, touching,
    etc. in order to understand the environment. It
    is how we make sense of the stimuli around us.
    The visual field is the area where objects are
    visually perceived, and it is limited with our
    ability to perceive the visual characteristics of
    the environment. We perceive motion, brightness,
    color and form.
  • The environment is filled with various objects
    that we scan and glance at. This process takes
    only a few seconds. Only a very small amount of
    written items can be read in a glance. So,
    information should be grouped and limited.

48
Cognition
  • It is the processing of the information acquired
    by perception through storing, organizing and
    recalling.
  • Spatial cognition is the way we acquire, store,
    and recall information about location, distances,
    and arrangements in the physical environment.

49
Environmental Cognition
  • It is the awareness, impressions, information,
    images, and beliefs that people have about
    environments.

50
Cognitive Maps
  • The representation people have of the surrounding
    environment is called an image or cognitive map.
  • A cognitive map is the mental construct of the
    environment seen from multiple viewpoints. It
    integrates parts into a whole.
  • The way we construct cognitive maps change
    individually.
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