Lecture 1: Setting the scene
1. Person in environment: There is an attention for theories, methods, and research
designs that take the physical environment into account.
- There is explicit attention to the way thoughts, feelings, and social
behavior are caused, influenced, or moderated by characteristics of the
physical environment.
- It can also be the other way round, how does the person influence the
environment; you can look at people’s rooms, and see what you can say
about the person if you look at their room.
2. The reciprocal relations between persons and environments: Winston Churchill
said: “First we create our buildings, and then they create us”. → what these
buildings do with us in the end; think about future discounting and how living in
nature or in the city can affect this.
3. The social origin and meaning of man-environment interactions
- Think about the home, school, neighbourhood, work, prison, park; they all
describe environments with a clearly social character. → what do they do
with us; they all have behavioral consequences.
- For example; green vs. gray schoolyards and its effect on childrens’
behavior:
- Better well-being of children
- Higher appreciation of the schoolyard
- Less bullying
- Better concentration levels for boys.
4. Opportunities for ‘change for the better’: increased wellbeing, improved
environmental quality by behavioral interventions.
- For example through protesting against environmental injustices. This
takes courage, organization, communication: know what you want to
communicate, and altruism: you should care for others’ sake. → for
instance, climate strike.
Environmental problems: An extremely complex and far reaching problem
- The greenhouse effect is generally considered one of the largest environmental
problems globally.
- Climate change and CO2 concentrations: the more the carbon dioxide increases,
the more the global temperature gets higher; with this getting steeper across the
years.
- Also correlation between the CO2 and summer temperatures here.
, - In line with this temperature increase is air pollution: The Netherlands belongs to
one of the most polluted areas in the world, regarding concentrations of
Particulate matter (fijn stof).
- This of course has very serious health risks; lowering life expectancy by
6-9 months.
- Hurricane Sandy and climate change: when these things really bother us
physically, and are closer to us, they begin to realise that there is something going
on. → problems are starting to be more serious.
- It also helps when celebrities are involved with this (news about celebrities’
houses on fire in the USA), because it creates more awareness of the seriousness
of environmental problems, because many people follow them.
- Good news is that world leaders also became more concerned and aware of these
environmental problems. One of them was Al Gore, who made the famous
documentary about “the inconvenient truth”.
- Also in Paris, in 2015; there was a UN meeting where they set directions and
agreements about how to deal with climate change.
Functions of environmental psychology
- There is still some scientific progress to be made.
- There are many societal important applications and career perspectives
(researcher; basic or applied; consultant, environmental policy maker, and
environmental management).
The seven papers
1. Wohlwill (1970): philosophical introductory paper about the role of
environmental psychology.
2. Goldberg (1969): An observational study of specific urban phenomenon.
3. Kaplan (1995): Theoretical paper about the restorative effects of nature.
4. Goslin, Ko, Mannarelli, and Morris (2002): Systematic approach of using the
environmental design to form a personality impression. What does the room
design of a person say about their personality.
5. Hardin (1968): Descriptive paper about the psychological fundamentals of the
sustainability issues.
6. Van der Wal, Van Horen, and Grinstein (2018): Experimental design testing a
strategy to enhance sustainable behavior. Intervention to enhance sustainable
behavior.
7. Kotler (2011): Research letter to steer marketeers towards a more sustainable
vision and mission.
Paper 1: Wohlwill (1970)
,Main issue: - environmental psychology is a response to concerns about quality of the
environment.
- Environmental psychology is problem oriented, applied, inclined to cooperate in
multidisciplinary projects. A lot of environmental psychologists worked with
architects, etc.
- Environmental psychology has unique potential to ask new questions.
Three forms of relationship between person and physical environment:
1. Environment guides and constrains behavior: barriers, compatibility, fit; if for
instance you go home but your home is very dense and tiny, it’s not a good place
to feel relaxed. In that sense, the environment does not fit with the need to feel
relaxed.
2. Long term exposure to general conditions may exert generalised effects: so if you
live in a dense urban environment that is very crowded, it results in less trust in
neighbors than when you live in a more rural area. → urban lifestyle as a function
of crowding, working day rhythm can result from a function of climate.
3. Behavior can be oriented toward the environment; planting trees, or depleting
our resources. Environment can be focal.
Environment and affect
Different characteristics of the environment can induce different emotions.
1. Affect evoked by stimulus characteristics (e.g. complexity, diversity, novelty,
category can evoke different types of emotions).
2. The environment can determine approach and avoidance reactions (moving,
migrating, holiday destinations).
3. Adaptation: man is at once a seeker and neutralizer of stimulation. People try to
seek an optimal level of stimulation. If you are not stimulated enough, people get
bored. People also get used to the stimulation, and so they may need new ones;
the environment can help there!
Issues not elaborated but important
- There are individual differences in the influences of environment on affect. For
example, some people are more sensation seeking than others, or are more
environmentally concerned and so feel closer to nature themselves already, etc.
- Attitude formation and attitude change regarding environmental problems. If
you want to influence sustainable behavior, attitude change is often necessarily
important.
- Some problems seem to be environmentally related but are actually caused by
other aspects. For example, social, economic, educational factors (slums,
ghettos).
Paper 2: Goldberg (1969)
Premises:
, - Designers like to think about the relation between physical form and social
behavior. They like to think that they know what the influence of the environment
is.
- These insights are based on intuitions rather than on science.
- These insights are often wrong, because:
- Intuition does hardly work
- The scientific approach is shallow; it misses in depth understanding of
social processes.
Goldberg; the present study
- Analysis on specific environmental problems caused by conflicting sociocultural
forces.
- He demonstrates relationships between sociocultural, behavioral, and physical
environments.
- He looked at the problem of adolescents having nowhere to go; they like cars.
Therefore they take the road for social gatherings (cruising, dragging the main,
making the strip). But the problem was that they blocked the roads, they annoyed
others with their noise, and made the roads unsafe.
The issue more in depth
- Goldberg looked at the social interaction of the adolescents.
- They were characterized by 1. peer group influences, 2. sexual activity, and
3. rivalry. → a meeting place to match all these aspects should be a full
blown social arena.
- Adolescents love cars
- Cars are suitable for competition; more easily than sports or intellectual
achievements and hence they have a sexual symbolism.
Observations: cruising has a strict code
Men: - often drive alone, and sometimes in pairs
- They aspire to have expensively altered, hot cars
- Are to be found in places best suited for display. → show off their cars
- Have windows rolled down → calling to girls.
Women: - do not drive alone
- When in pair, seem to be open to a date
- When with threes, are not open to date; they are more out to tease.
- Have windows initially closed → shows control.
Initial outcomes of study (descriptive)
- The car was really important for their activities; all activities take place in or near
the car.
- Cruisers maximize visibility (driving in streets where they were seen well and
parking in visible places)
- Cruising in itself is self-sustaining, no need for other amusement facilities -> just
needs road, parking places, and lights to be seen.
, Goldberg’s unfulfilled promise
- How to solve problems for others mainly after having properly analyzed the
phenomenon.
Paper 3: Kaplan (1995)
Attention restoration theory: nature can help restore attention
- Directed attention: focus to something that you are working with
- Directed attention requires capacity for inhibition of distraction
(inhibitory mechanism)
- When efforts to sustain directed attention are prolonged, the inhibitory
mechanism becomes exhausted.
- Consequences of fatigue
- Have poor concentration
- Easily irritated
- More inclined to make errors
- Unwilling to help others.
- Restoration
- There are psycho-environmental characteristics of restorative
environments
- The sense of being away helps to disconnect from daily activities.
- The environment must be fascinating; that you really find it
attractive or interesting.
- The environment has to match your goals, and what you want to do;
compatibility
- Extent: there needs to be an impression of continuity; enough time
to linger on in this environment.
- Research shows that nature is more restorative than an urban
environment.
Study by Hartig & Staats (2006)
- Researched what happens when students are fatigued.
- 2x2 design (urban vs nature) and (rested vs fatigued).
- How much is the environment preferred.
- Nature was usually more preferred than urban both when students were
rested and fatigued.
- However, when students were fatigued, the preference difference between
urban and nature became larger. → urban was less preferred than in
rested condition.
- Likelihood of attentional recovery. Which environment could help to recover
from this fatigueness.
- Nature is more preferred in both rested and fatigued condition,
