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Summary of Environmental psychology (0HM260)
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Summary Environmental Psychology (0HM260)Workshop 1
Environmental psychology is concerned with the role of the environment in human behavior.
Behavior is both a function of the person and the environment B=f(P,E)Lewin’s formula. So,
environmental psychology aims at understanding the function between the person and environment
to better predict human behavior. No explicit definitions:
- Behavior: movement (leaving the house vs waiting for a bus), intentional (signing contract vs
sneezing), controllable (having a heartbeat vs signing a contract), observable (shooting a gun
vs doing mental arithmetic), demarcated in time and space (going for a walk vs staying
healthy), molar (doing groceries) vs molecular (buy eco products)
- Action: is not the same as behavior, behavior that is intentional and controllable, criticism:
you cannot see the underlying goal or intention behind and action “a single action cannot
reveal its motivational basis”look at patterns of behavior to investigate motives
- Environment: Immediate vs distal (ATLAS 4.215 [your present location] vs. ATLAS 6.225 [two
floor up]), physical or socio-physical (ATLAS 4.215 vs. this workshop), scale (your
neighborhood vs. your home, Netherlands), recurrent or singular (your local supermarket vs.
brother’s wedding party), molar or molecular (The Netherlands vs. climate), average vs.
specific (climate vs. it is raining), person (in)dependent (my home vs. a house), factual or
perceived (gun fired at a distance vs. I believe I heard a gunshot)
Theories environment:
- Pervin
o Stimulus: molecular part (noise light), objective (DB, Lux), subjective (noticeable,
noxious)
o Situation: singular or recurring molar event, objective (what your boss said),
subjective (what it means to you)
o Environment: universe of situations the organism encounters in daily livingour
ecological environment/niche
- Bronfenbrenner’s hierarchical model of environments: characteristics of higher level
environments may affect your behavior in the immediate situation (e.g. country you live in)
Cassidy: behavior is explained neither from inward perspective (person based), nor outwards
(environment), but a function of bothB=f(P,E)
Worldviews (Thomas): set of beliefs and assumptions describing the universe and life within it
- Trait/personalism: person determines individual’s behavior PB (e.g. Allport’s personality
psychology)
- Consequence/situationism: environment determines individual’s behavior EB (e.g.
Rijswijk & Haans, perceived safety influenced by 3 characteristics of environment)
- Interactionist: behavior results from the interaction between the separate entities person
(attitude, motives) and the environment (behavioral constraints/opportunities, social norms)
(e.g. Rijswijk, Rooks & Haans trait anxiety affects the effect of 3 environmental
characteristics on perceived safety, Campbell paradigm, Lewin’s field theory)
- Organismic: the system of person and environment is more than the sum of its parts, the
relationship is important, but it still consists of 2 entities (Barker?, behavioral settings are
independent of specific individuals and behaviors, but still need persons in the environment
to exist). Person and environment are influencing each other in time
, - Transactional: there is no difference between the person and environment, unit of analysis
are phenomena involving person, environment, and time as parts of inseparable holistic.
(e.g. place, home, place attachmentmeaning of environments is highly personal) This view
is rare since:
o It does not seek generalizable rules or principles behind human behavior
o It does not fit well with the antecedent-consequent type of causality that is
dominant in science
Lecture 1 Introduction to environmental psychology
History environmental psychology:
- Roots in building engineering
- Thinkers arguing against explaining behavior by either characteristics of the individual
(personism), or of the situation (situationism)
- Wundt: first person starting experiments, empirical psychological laboratory, psychology as
study of mind
- Titchener’s structuralism: structuralismuses introspection, reflect on processes going on
in the mind, brought structuralism (identifying molecules of the mind) to US
- Behaviorism of Watson, Pavlov and Skinner: had critique on introspectionintrospection
itself is a conscious process, thus interfering with describing the process of the mind. They
proposed behaviorism: study of behavior as mind cannot be studied objectively, no focus on
mental processes (mind as ‘black box’), but on stimulus-response relationship (behavior)
- Gestalt Psychology of Werheimer, Koffka, and Köhler: criticism on behaviorismtoo much
focus on behavior. Mental processes are involved in behavior (figures), the whole is more
than the sum of its parts; totality as psychological phenomenon
- Trait perspective of personality research/personality psychology, Allport: traits are
relatively stable personal dispositions that make up one’s personality, personality describes
how a person acts
- Lewin: different individuals display same behavior in certain environments, behavior is a
function of person and environment (B=f(P,E)), applied research should answer the question
what the function isaction research
Field theory Lewin: life space is the totality (Gestalts) of psychological forces affecting
behavior, the forces can come from within the person or are perceived to be present in the
environment by the individual (psychological environment). Behavior is determined by the
totality of internal and external psychological forces. Criticism Barkerlife space is a
psychological variable and thus dependent on the individual, don’t look at the
subjective/perceived environment
- Behavioral setting theory/ecological psychology Barker: the role of environment should be
described independent of the individual or his behavior (psychological variables involved in
behavior) (objective environment), observe people in real environment. People share
common behavioral attributes resulting in standing patterns of behavior in specific settings.
Behavioral settings; self-regulating, active systems, composed of people and objects, that
coerce behavior in predictable ways. The setting in behavioral settings is an independent
system (organismic worldview, system of person and environment). Properties of behavioral
settings:
o Has both structural and dynamic attributes
o One or more standing patterns of behavior
, o Consists of standing patterns of behavior and milieu, the milieu of a behavior setting
exists independently of the standing pattern of behavior or anyone’s perception (so
also when there is no one there)
o The milieu is circumjacent (surrounding) to the behavior
o The milieu is synomorphic to the behavior=similar in structure, fittingness between
components creates the milieu
o The behavior milieu parts are called synomorphs
o Synomorphs have a specified degree of interdependence
o Synomorphs have a greater degree of interdependence amongst themselves than
with parts of other behavioral settings
- Brunswick’s functionalism: since the mind is developed in and adapted to our ecological
environment (functionalism), we cannot understand human psyche without taking into
account the ecological environment (worldview interactionist). Lens model, experiments
should be representative to ecological nicherepresentative design
Principles environmental psychology discipline: behavior shaped by both person and environment,
holistic/totality viewenvironment not as set of isolated stimuli but totality (molar), several
research methods (eclectic methodology, qualitative, correlational, and experimental research, both
in field and laboratory), ecological validity through representative design, combination of
fundamental and applied research
Fundamental research: conducted with the sole aim of understanding human-behavior
interrelationships, but results are not necessarily directly applicable. Applied research: direct
solution, most used in environmental psychology
Reciprocal human environment interrelationships: we alter the environment to meet our demands
(e.g escalator to walk faster), and the environment changes our behavior (but we stand still on
escalator), also related to affordances
Holistic view of environment dealing with the molar environment, molar: environment is more than
the sum of its molecular parts (molecular research looking at the reactions of neurons when a
person looks at an image of a nightly urban environment to investigate feelings of safety vs
molecular looking at factors such as environmental cues and personal traits in safety)
Critique experimental psychology: bad ecological validity and generalizability, Wickermethods
show how people could behave, not how people do behave in reality
Needed for ecological validity: it is more than doing research in the natural environment.
Implication both study physical characteristics of ecological environment and persons’
characteristics, as human mind is adapted to ecological environment (functionalism). Ecological
validity is maintained when all aspects of a studies design from stimulus materials to the observed
responses is representative to the situations a participant’s encounters in his daily life
Brunswick’s representative design of psychological experiment:
- Stimuli should not be abstractions or simplifications of reality
- Stimulus materials should be sampled from the participant’s ecological niche (random
sampling of stimuli is as important as sampling participants)
- Observed behavior should be natural as well: natural behavior not button presses or tick
marks on a questionnaire
, - Observations should be sensitive to the wide range of behavioral options people have
(vicarious mediation of behavioral responses)
Problem with factorial designs: choosing the levels of factors (e.g. range in prospect) is difficult,
researcher may pick larger or smaller factors, the design dictates what types of scenes are included
(even though they occur less in ecological environment’bearded lady’), ignores that factors are
correlated in ecological environment. Focusing on extremes may artificially increase predictive
power of a theory (so for example increase the importance of prospect)
Lecture 2 The person in the environment
Functionalist perspective: human behavior and psychological mechanisms are highly adapted /
functional to our environment
We altered the environment to survive, natural selection might have installed a homocentric view
on naturecognizing nature solely as a utility for human beings as a species, this view leads to
exploitation. Results:
- Resourcism: we need to conserve natural resources for future generations
- Conservation: we need to save the environment (our ecosystem) on which we depend for
our survival as a species
- But these concepts are still based on the view that nature is merely a utility for humans
Ecocentrism/biocentrism/deep ecology: view that nature has value on its own even in the absence
of the human species. Might involve egalitarianism: view that animals (and plants) are equal to
humans, this advocates preservation: protection of the environment not because of its utility to the
human species, but because of nature’s intrinsic value
Evolution of place preference:
- Evolutionary theories on place preferences conjecture that people prefer environments that
are survivablefunctionalistic view
- Appleton’s prospect-refugee theory: People prefer environments that offer “the ability to
see” (prospect) and “the ability to hide” (refuge), both of which are “important in calculating
a creature's survival prospects
- Kaplan & Kaplan information processing theory: People have a preference for
environments that are information rich, immediately comprehensible or easily predictable. It
is important for survival that people prefer what is safe, not only perceive what is safe
- Ulrich: found in a field study that patients with a view on trees, compared to patients
looking at a wall were hospitalized shorter and received less weaker painkillers
- Biophilia hypothesis Wilson: we have an innate/evolved need for contact with nature
- Schultz connectedness with nature: adapted the Inclusion of Self in Others scale (IOS) to
measure a person’s connectedness with nature to assess its relation with environmental
concern and self-reports of pro-environmental behavior (both correlated significantly)
- Nisbet et al. Nature Relatedness Scale: evidence that being connected to nature is positively
related to not just environmental concern but wellbeing as well
Place attachment: the affective and / or symbolic bond between an individual and a specific place
and/or the people living in that place
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