1.

ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Course Description
How are people affected by overcrowding, traffic congestion, and noise? Why do people litter or vandalize their environments? How do buildings affect their occupants? Does the architectural design of apartment buildings influence patterns of neighboring and friendship formation? Why do people consume scarce environmental resources? Can residential, work, and neighborhood settings be designed to reduce stress, increase productivity, and promote physical activity? These are some of the questions that have concerned environmental psychologists. Environmental psychology is the study of human behavior and well-being in relation to the large-scale, sociophysical environment. The term, large-scale environment, refers to places such as homes, offices, neighborhoods, and whole communities. These places can be described in terms of several physical and social dimensions, including their geographical location, architectural design, membership and social organization. The term, sociophysical environment, reflects the assumption that the physical and social dimensions of places are closely intertwined. The architectural design of a housing complex, for example, can exert a subtle but substantial impact on the friendship patterns that develop among residents. This course emphasizes the interdependence between physical and social aspects of places, rather than viewing these dimensions as separate and isolated.

2. ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. Since its conception, the field has been committed to the development of a discipline that is both value oriented and problem oriented, prioritizing research aiming at solving complex environmental problems in the pursuit of individual well-being within a larger society.[1] When solving problems involving human-environment interactions, whether global or local, one must have a model of human nature that predicts the environmental conditions under which humans will behave in a decent and creative manner. With such a model one can design, manage, protect and/or restore environments that enhance reasonable behavior, predict what the likely outcome will be when these conditions are not met, and diagnose problem situations. The field develops such a model of human nature while retaining a broad and inherently multidisciplinary focus. It explores such dissimilar issues as common property resource management, wayfinding in complex settings, the effect of environmental stress on human performance, the characteristics of

restorative environments, human information processing, and the promotion of durable conservation behavior. This multidisciplinary paradigm has not only characterized the dynamic for which environmental psychology is expected to develop, but it has been the catalyst in attracting other schools of knowledge in its pursuit as well aside from research psychologists. Geographers, economists, policy-makers, sociologists, anthropologists, educators, and product developers all have discovered and participated in this field.[1] Although "environmental psychology" is arguably the best-known and most comprehensive description of the field, it is also known as human factors science, cognitive ergonomics, environmental social sciences, architectural psychology, socioarchitecture, ecological psychology, ecopsychology, behavioral geography, environmentbehavior studies, person-environment studies, environmental sociology, social ecology, and environmental design research.

Orientations
Problem oriented
Environmental psychology is a direct study of the relationship between an environment and how that environment affects its inhabitants. Specific aspects of this field work by identifying a problem and through the identification of said problem, discovering a solution. Therefore it is necessary for environmental psychology to be problem oriented. The problems identified by environmental psychologists affect all members of society. These problems can be anything from the psychological effects of urban crowding to the architectural design of public schools and extend from the public arena into the individual household.[4] One important aspect of a problem-oriented field is that by identifying problems, solutions arise from the research acquired. The solutions can aid in making society function better as a whole and create a wealth of knowledge about the inner workings of societies. Environmental psychologist Harold Proshansky discusses how the field is also value oriented because of the fields commitment to bettering society through problem identification.[4] Proshansky discusses the importance of not only understanding the problem but also the necessity of a solution. Proshansky also points out some of the problems of a problem-oriented approach for environmental psychology. First the problems being identified must be studied under certain specifications: it must be ongoing and occurring in real life, not in a laboratory. Second, the notions about the problems must derive directly from the source - meaning they must come directly from the specific environment where the problem is occurring.[4] The solutions and understanding of the problems cannot come from an environment that has been constructed and modeled to look like real life. Environmental psychology needs to reflect the actual society not a society built in a laboratory setting. The difficult task of the environmental psychologist is to study problems as they are occurring in everyday life.[5] It is hard to reject all laboratory research because laboratory experiments are where theories may be tested without damaging the actual environment or can serve as models when testing solutions. Proshansky makes this point as well, discussing the difficulty in the overall problem oriented approach. He states that it is important, however, for the environmental psychologist to utilize all aspects of research and analysis of the findings and to take into account both the general and individualized aspects of the problems.[6]

Environmental psychology addresses environmental problems such as density and crowding, noise pollution, sub-standard living, and urban decay.[7] Noise increases environmental stress. Although it has been found that control and predictability are the greatest factors in stressful effects of noise; context, pitch, source and habituation are also important variables [3]. Environmental psychologists have theorized that density and crowding can also have an adverse effect on mood and may cause stress-related illness. To understand and solve environmental problems, environmental psychologists believe concepts and principles should come directly from the physical settings and problems being looked at.[4] For example, factors that reduce feelings of crowding within buildings include:

Windows - particularly ones that can be opened and ones that provide a view as well as light High ceilings Doors to divide spaces (Baum and Davies) and provide access control Room shape - square rooms feel less crowded than rectangular ones (Dresor) Using partitions to create smaller, personalized spaces within an open plan office or larger work space. Providing increases in cognitive control over aspects of the internal environment, such as ventilation, light, privacy, etc. Conducting a cognitive appraisal of an environment and feelings of crowding in different settings. For example, one might be comfortable with crowding at a concert but not in school corridors. Creating a defensible space (Calhoun)

Personal space and territory Having an area of personal territory in a public space, e.g., at the office, is a key feature of many architectural designs. Having such a 'defensible space' can reduce the negative effects of crowding in urban environments. The term, coined by John B. Calhoun in 1947, is the result of multiple environmental experiments conducted on rats. Originally beginning as an experiment to measure how many rats could be accommodated in a given space, it expanded into determining how rats, given the proper food, shelter and bedding would behave under a confined environment. Under these circumstances, the males became aggressive, some exclusively homosexual. Others became pansexual and hypersexual, seeking every chance to mount any rat they encountered. As a result, mating behaviors were upset with an increase in infant mortalities. With parents failing to provide proper nests, thoughtlessly ditching their young and even attacking them, infant mortality rose as high as 96% in certain sections. Calhoun published the results as "Population Density and Social Pathology" in a 1962 edition of Scientific American. Creating barriers and customizing the space are ways of creating personal space, e.g., using pictures of one's family in an office setting. This increases cognitive control as one sees oneself as having control over the competitors to the personal space and therefore able to control the level of density and crowding in the space.

Systems oriented
The systems oriented approach to experimenting is applied to individuals or people that are a part of communities, groups, and organizations. This approach particularly examines group interaction, as opposed to an individuals interaction and it emphasizes on factors of social integration. In the laboratory, experiments focus on cause and effect processes within human nature.[8]

Interdisciplinary oriented
Environmental psychology relies on interaction with other disciplines in order to approach problems with multiple perspectives. The first discipline is the category of behavioral sciences, which include: sociology, political science, anthropology, and economics. Environmental psychology also interacts with the interspecializations of the field of psychology, which include: developmental psychology, cognitive science, organization theory, psychobiology, and social neuroscience. In addition to the more scientific fields of study, environmental psychology also works with the design field which includes: the studies of architecture, interior design, urban planning, industrial and object design, landscape architecture, and preservation.[9]

Space-over-time orientation
Space over time orientation highlights the importance of the past. Examining problems with the past in mind creates a better understanding of how past forces, such as social, political, and economic forces, may be of relevance to present and future problems.[10] Time and place are also important to consider. Its important to look at time over extended periods. Physical settings change over time; they change with respect to physical properties and they change because individuals using the space change over time.[11] Looking at these spaces over time will help monitor the changes and possibly predict future problems. There are a variety of tests that can be administered to children in order to determine their temperament. Temperament is split up into three types: easy, difficult, and slow-to-warmup. Alexander Thomas, Stella Chess, Herbert G. Birch, Margaret Hertzig and Sam Korn created an infant temperament test in the 1950s and rated them using nine temperament criteria.[12] By finding out a childs temperament at birth, it enables us to know what to expect as the child progresses into adulthood.

3. ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Environmental psychology is a field of study that examines the interrelationship between environments and human affect, cognition and behavior (Bechtel & Churchman 2002; Gifford 2007; Stokols & Altman 1987). The field has always been concerned with both built and natural environments with early research emphasizing the former (Stokols 1995; Sundstrom, Bell, Busby, & Aasmus 1996). However, as environmental sustainability issues became of greater concern to society in general, and the social sciences in particular, the field increased its focus

on how humans affect, and are affected by, natural environments. The goals of this paper are to introduce environmental psychology, explain how it emerged from the study of humanenvironment interactions and note how it has redefined what we mean by the terms nature and environment. Special note is made of humans as information-processing creatures and the implications this has for encouraging reasonable behavior under trying environmental circumstances. Finally, two pragmatic approaches to bringing out the best in people are presented. In an effort to promote durable living on a finite planet, environmental psychology develops, and empirically validates, practical intervention strategies regardless of where the foundational science resides. Thus, the field considers as not useful the sometimes artificial distinction among the fields of cognitive, evolutionary and social psychology. In so doing, environmental psychology incorporates the work of individuals who might not otherwise initially be identified with the field (consider, for instance, Cone & Hayes 1980; Geller, Winett & Everett 1982; Katzev & Johnson 1987). Today the fields of environmental psychology, conservation psychology and ecopsychology are helping society to form an affirmative response to emerging environmental and natural resource constraints. This is a grand challenge since the response must plan for, motivate and maintain environmental stewardship behavior through a period of significant energy and resource descent. The initial focus is to pre-familiarize ourselves with living well within the limits of natural ecosystems (De Young & Princen 2012).

4. ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Introduction, principles and theories
The term environment comes from the Medieval French "environ" meaning to form a ring around or to surround. A more modern statement is the environment is concerned with the conditions or influences under which any person lives or is developed. So environmental psychology is concerned with "space" and all of the concepts of we have devised to represent space. Environmental psychology is concerned with space; from the intimate (personal space) through intermediate (proximal) spaces of the built environment (rooms, buildings, towns, cities etc), through to distant space involving study of the natural world, wildernesses and geographical space. Even the influence of weather on behaviour is a valid environmental psychology area. Environmental psychology broadly looks at behavioural responses to

patterns of stimuli that people experience if they selectively move about in the intervals which lie between objects that are desired and those that are not. But it is an important principle that environmental psychology began life assuming that folk are NOT passive puppets determined by their environments. Environmental psychology involves the process of studying the transactions between people and the world that they form and inhabit.

Principles Underlying Environmental Psychology

Holistic Neither people nor the environment is (should be) broken down into small parts for analysis. What is of interest it how we respond in general to a whole setting in which we behave. This contrasts quite strongly with other traditions in psychology. And even those psychologists who think that the "environment" is an important factor in shaping behaviour tend to think in terms of one-way cause i.e. environment determines behaviour. Traditional psychology tries always to simplify in order to investigate and measure. Environmental psychologists suggest that complexity is what is interesting and we need to modify our rather simplistic ideas of cause and effect. This might be a digression but consider the following case (I saw it on a Tom and Jerry cartoon). There is the dog Spike sitting in his kennel and he is looking out. What he sees is Tom the cat chasing Jerry the mouse. These two are running in a circle around and around the kennel, and Jerry is going faster and faster. Butch can only look forwards out of the kennel. Eventually Tom slows and Jerry quickens so that what Spike sees is Jerry running so fast that he is almost up behind the cat, and eventually this seems to be a stable state. What Spike is seeing now looks very much like Jerry chasing Tom rather than the other way around. So is Tom still chasing Jerry? What we have is a complex relationship concerning space and time and place and observation point. How you interpret the scene requires outside knowledge, an understanding of the history of the situation, an appreciation of viewpoint and its limitations and an understanding of "typical" behaviour patterns. If you look at the developed scene from Spike's position you are seeing a (stable) snapshot of the behaviour which seems to suggest that mice chase cats. A partial view may lead to misinterpretation. Environmental psychology suggests we need to

widen our horizons and take a much more elaborated view of the interrelationship of cause/effect/ influence. More and more I find myself liking the term transaction, which I think has the feel of interaction along with transformation. Relations between systems are important. A consequence of the holistic approach means that environmental psychology is looking in the round at more complex issues. Systems (i.e. the interrelation of variables) which seem to work as a whole are more interesting (and difficult to study) e.g. the use of CFCs in fridges may have led to global warming which has led to decrease in ozone in the atmosphere which has led to an increase in UV radiation which has led to an increase in the danger of skin cancer which is perhaps leading to a change in people's use of their environment etc. OK this is just a lengthy chain of things and perhaps not a full example of interacting systems, but I hope this is an accessible example. Free will. Environmental psychologists assume that the behaviour of people is not determined only by their environments. We can change the way we behave (or not many millions of people still pay trillions of pounds/dollars etc to go sun seeking), or we can change the environment that we live in. Perhaps a fundamental aspect of our relationship with the environment is that we are continually transforming it. Everyday natural settings. A crucial tenet of environmental psychology is that behaviour must happen in situ. It makes no sense trying to formulate artificial analogues of the environment which we can control in order to measure how people react within the artificial constraints of control. In practice of course environmental psychologists do produce controlled environments, as part of a methodological bag of tools. But much emphasis is on "real people" in the "real world". This is difficult to do, both practically and can raise some ethical problems (more on this later). "Problem" orientation of research. Much environmental psychology research has been criticised in the past as being problem-oriented or problem-driven. Part of this debate is (I think) sniffy theoreticians who hold pretty tightly to Popper's hypothetico-deductive ideas that theory is paramount. Environmental psychology (in common with lots of other areas of applied psychology) tends to be rather more inductive. That is we tend to work in a bottom-up fashion going from observations up to theory. Also environmental psychology is by its very nature pragmatic. With one or two exceptions environmental psychology has taken

methods and concepts from numerous other disciplines (including non psychological ones like aesthetics, geography etc) and in some cases environmental psychology work is criticised for "not looking like real or proper psychology" it's a point of view. Improving the environment is possible. Following on from the Free Will and Problem Orientation principles it's possible to see a sort of altruistic motive running through much environmental psychology. How can this be done better? How can things be structured to improve? How can we reduce the following aversive situations? Part of environmental psychology is into changing/manipulating the environment for the common good. Inter/multi-disciplinary work. The pragmatic nature of environmental psychology means that environmental psychology has within in it a diversity of approach, and borrows from, and works with, other disciplines.

Basic Assumptions of Environmental Psychology

Different groups are affected differentially by environmental influences. This is tantamount to saying that the environment changes depending on the folk who perceive/transact with it. The same or similar physical/structural environment may be interpreted differently by differing groups of people. The differential nature of the effect may be due to culture, experience, expectation or a variety of other variables. Differential effects and extent of influence occurs. That is some behaviours are more susceptible to environmental influence than others. e.g. In buildings, lighting changes can alter mood simply, rapidly and extensively for many people. Lighting changes on the other hand have little effect on work rate, learning ability, attitudes and values. Many influences are unconscious. We largely go around our environments, blind to the influences and the shaping of our behaviour which happens because of where we live, work etc. The unconscious influence process is one which is often used by environmental manipulators supermarket layout is a good example. Expensive "tempting" items are frequently placed near basic staple items to entice customers. Basic stuff like bread, eggs, sugar is/are nearly always situated in the middle depths of a supermarket so you have to pass all sorts of other tempting goodies whilst doing a basic shop.

Representation involves mental "images". Our understanding of space and spatial concepts is a crucial part of our survival system. Representing a three dimensional system and carrying it with us requires some sort of internal map. The nature of this map seems to have many shared features between individuals, and also has some idiosyncratic properties. What seems to be the case is that the "map" is influenced by personal, psychological factors, and it may or may not reflect reality. Space and place have symbolic meaning for us. Our existence, experience, culture are crammed with symbolic representations to do with space. We seem to hold stereotypes of space. For example West is usually better than East. Our language reflects the notion that top is better than bottom, highlife is better than lowlife, you look up to people you admire and look down on people you despise. The centre is usually a better place to be than the periphery, to be inside is better than to be outside, etc. Culturally significant representations abound, and the bigger something is the more important and significant it is could you imagine putting a statue of Nelson down a mineshaft rather than up on a column? The concept of a millennium hollow wouldn't get a lot of votes. If you want to show the world you are successful you have a big, but empty desk, you drive a BIG car, have a LARGE house, (even wear LOUD clothes?).