Environmental Psychology

Behaviour and Experience In Context

Tony Cassidy

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135472092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This text contains an up-to-date survey of theory, research and practice in environmental psychology, drawing on international literature. It adopts the perspective that physical and social factors are inextricably linked in their influence on human behaviour and experience and that the world in which we live is changed and often damaged by human action.; Throughout the text, the issues which are important in contemporary psychology, such as levels of explanation, methodological diversity and the relationship between psychology and other disciplines, are brought to the fore. The text covers established areas of environmental concern and also brings together research on rarely covered topics, such as the effects of smell, colour and light, and the way in which physical environments influence social identity.

Chapter One

Environmental psychology: What it is and why you should know about it

The summer of 1995 was unusually hot, and lasted a longer period of time than is customary in the UK. It wasn’t very long after the hot spell began that people began to complain about the heat and hints about water shortages began to appear in the media.

During the summer I was asked by local and national media to comment on stress on farmers, stress on holidaymakers, effects of commuting delays, the problem of noisy neighbours and problems in large housing estates. While on holiday in beautiful North Wales, my peace of mind was disturbed by news that a potential disaster had been narrowly averted at a nuclear powered electricity station nearby. During the same weekend I read of a father who had died as a result of an incident which had begun when his son went next door to complain about the noise being made by a neighbour. On my return I went to my office to discover that the building was being refurbished and the builders were in the process of removing all the suspended ceilings. All of these are examples of environmental factors impinging on human behaviour and experience. They are some of the subject matter of environmental psychology.

Box 1: Reflecting on the environment and you

Take a few moments to reflect on your experiences so far today. You might want to break the day down into specific experiences, such as travelling to work or college, your lunch break, etc., and to focus only on one specific period.

List all the ways in which factors external to you have influenced your thoughts, feelings and behaviours. You might include things that obstructed your progress, things that used up time you wished to use otherwise, pleasant experiences such as a pretty view (human or otherwise!), a positive interaction. In fact the list is endless.

Divide your list into factors to do with other people and factors to do with the physical environment.

Was it easy to separate the influences into social and environmental?

What is Environmental Psychology?

In order to introduce any field of psychology it is common practice to begin with some sort of definition and, indeed, definitions are useful summaries of the basic principles of an approach. However it is also important to recognise definitions for what they are, i.e. over-simplified summaries. This poses a serious problem in a diverse area like environmental psychology since it can lead to the imposition of limitations on subject matter by setting rigid boundaries of the field. One of the lessons that applied psychologists have learned is that a narrow focus which draws only on knowledge and method in one field of psychology is likely to be ineffective. As a result you have the development of approaches which combine several fields such as the area of clinical health psychology, an amalgam of clinical psychology and health psychology. A second problem with definitions is that psychology is a living discipline which is continuously growing and changing as new research is produced. It therefore follows that definitions are likely to become outdated and need to be changed to reflect new developments. This is indeed the case with environmental psychology.

Towards a definition

Burroughs (1989) provides the following definition of environmental psychology as “the study of the interrelationships between the physical environment and human behaviour”. Gifford (1987) provides a similar definition: “environmental psychology is the study of transactions between individuals and their physical settings”. An important aspect of both definitions is that they define the process as reciprocal between the person and the environment. In other words, not only does the environment influence the individual, but also the individual impacts on the environment. Both definitions are based on Lewin’s (1951) famous equation:

where B is behaviour, P is the person and E is environment. The equation states that behaviour is a function of the person, the environment and the interaction between the two and is referred to as a person-in-context approach to understanding behaviour. The basic perspectives in psychology tend to focus on one or other side of this equation in seeking causes for behaviour either in the person or in the environment. It is important to recognise that for Lewin it was not simply an additive effect of person and context. He argued that research should take account of the interaction, something that is accepted as the ideal by many but actually put into practice by few. An interactional perspective is a central principle of environmental psychology.

Both definitions above however focus exclusively on the physical environment in defining environmental psychology. This essentially reflects the roots of the field which had a fairly narrow focus on the effects of building design on behaviour (Ittelson, 1960; Osmond, 1957). In fact the field was initially called “architectural psychology” (Cantor, 1970). What might have been an adequate definition, reflecting the range of topics at the time, is limiting and misleading in the light of the later expansion of the field. A look at the contents page of any current text in the area reveals a much broader range of subject matter. Research into areas such as crowding, personal space, territoriality and urbanisation clearly include both the physical and social environment.

In addition, as we shall see later, understanding the influence of physical settings on behaviour is inextricably bound up with social aspects of the setting. In many cases the main effect of a physical setting on behaviour is through the meaning it has acquired from social interaction. A church in physical terms is just another building. However, people tend to behave in a particular way in a church because its function has been defined in social terms. One of the most prominent American environmental psychologists, Harold Proshansky, in the introduction to a text on environmental psychology (Proshansky, Ittelson, & Rivlin, 1976) concludes that “The physical environment that we construct is as much a social phenomenon as it is a physical one” (p.5). The French psychologist Claude Levy-Leboyer (1982) echoes this:

The physical environment simultaneously symbolises, makes concrete, and conditions the social environment (p.15).

It would therefore seem appropriate to suggest that environmental psychology is as much concerned with the social environment as the physical environment and, although it may not be the major focus at all times it is unavoidably part of its subject matter.

Environmental psychologists have continuously identified this issue of the interdependence between the physical and social environment. As Bonnes & Secchiaroli (1995) suggest, there is currently general agreement that environmental psychology is no longer only concerned with the physical environment but rather with the socio-physical environment. They cite the work of Altman (1976) and Stokols (1978) in support of this.

Indeed this issue is partially responsible for the development of the concept of place by people like Cantor (1977) as a more holistic concept incorporating “units of experience within which activities and physical form are amalgamated”.

If we were to summarise the discussion so far we could postulate a definition of environmental psychology as “the study of the transactions between individuals and their socio-physical environments”.

The principles of environmental psychology

An alternative way in which we might define environmental psychology is to list its basic principles and provide a list of topics or issues to which it has directed attention. We will first turn our attention to the basic principles and in later chapters we will sample a selection of areas which have been researched by environmental psychologists. The basic principles of a field outline the basic assumptions or philosophy of behaviour of psychologists who work in the field and which determine the way in which they operate. This includes their methodology. The basic principles are summarised in Box 2 and will be discussed in more detail in the final chapter.

Box 2: The basic principles of environmental psychology

1. An interactional (or person-in-context) perspective: Behaviour is a function of the person, the environment, and the interaction between the two—(B = f (P, E).
2. An applied research focus in which there is an integration of theory and practice.
3. ‘Multiple levels of analysis: All levels of analysis from individual to societal/organisational (micro/molecular to molar), are used, with a particular emphasis on the molar level.
4. A research base in the field, or natural environment. This is based on a recognition of the poor ecological validity or generalisation of laboratory research on human behaviour.
5. A multimethod approach: Qualitative and quantitative methods are used and in particular the usefulness of the full cycle model (see below) where basic and applied research can be used to complement and validate each other.
6. A model of the person as active rather than passive in interacting with the environment. This raises the issue of determinism versus freewill/autonomy. The person in environmental psychology is given some degree of autonomy.
7. An interdisciplinary perspective.
8. A holistic rather than a reductionist approach. To some extent this is contained within the societal level of analysis but goes further in recognising the limitations of breaking the environment or the person into small parts without reference to each other. A reductionist approach in this area is analogous to trying to complete a jigsaw from the individual pieces with no idea of what the complete picture looks like.
9. A systems model of the relationship between different aspects of the environment and behaviour. In other words the dynamic interrelationship between aspects of the environment is recognised and an awareness of how change in one part will affect others is part of the process.

The Roots of Environmental Psychology

A long history but a short past

The roots of environmental psychology as a separate field were put down in the 1950s although it wasn’t until 1964 that the current title, environmental psychology, was introduced by William Ittelson at the Conference of the American Hospital Association in New York. In the intervening period it was variously called architectural psychology, psychological ecology, and ecological psychology, reflecting the multidisciplinary nature of its inspiration.

In a more general sense psychologists have always been interested in the ways in which the environment influences behaviour and thus the history of environmental psychology is as long as the history of psychology itself.

For a variety of reasons, however, there has been a tendency to acknowledge that environmental factors play a causal role in behaviour, but not to follow this acknowledgement with serious research. In fact the environment referred to was more often than not the confines of a Skinner box or some other limited and highly controlled laboratory context. It is generally accepted that a turning point occurred with the ideas of Kurt Lewin (1890–1947) who developed some of the main principles upon which environmental psychology is based. Lewin’s work is generally claimed to belong to the field of social psychology and it is within this field that we find the first serious stirrings of what was to become the separate field of environmental psychology.

The psychological roots

Lewin’s legacy to environmental psychology can be subsumed under three of his major concerns: First, the interdependence of theory and application. Second, that research should be based on real world situations in terms of action research and his field theory. Third, his interactional model for explanation of behaviour and experience ensconced in his famous equation B = f(P,E).

Kurt Lewin fled Germany to escape the persecution of Jews with the advent of the second World War and like many other Jewish academics, went to the USA. In just over a decade, working first at the University of Iowa and later at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he made some fundamental theoretical contributions to the application of psychology which provided direction for many applied psychologists and were farsighted in that they are considered up-to-date in modern psychology.

While not a prolific researcher himself, Lewin inspired many of his students who in turn became major figures in psychology. Among these were Roger Barker, Leon Festinger and Urie Bronfenbrenner. Lewin’s theoretical contributions were many but three areas of focus are particularly important.

Person-in-context. Lewin was convinced that behaviour and experience can best be understood within an interactional framework. This is reflected in his famous equation B = f(P,E) (see Box 2).

The interdependence of theory and practice. Lewin was disappointed by the way in which academic psychology was carried out, insulated from the real world, in the ivory towers of academia, while those applying psychology tended to ignore the theories of the academics. He felt that theory should be driven by social problems, and the following quote from a book published in 1951 exemplifies his position:

The greatest handicap of applied psychology has been the fact that, without proper theoretical help, it had to follow the costly, inefficient, and limited method of trial and error. Many psychologists working today in an applied field are keenly aware of the need for close cooperation between theoretical and applied psychology. This can be accomplished in psychology, as it has been accomplished in physics, if the theorist does not look toward applied problems with highbrow aversion or with a fear of social problems, and if the applied psychologist realises that there is nothing so practical as a good theory (Lewin, 1951, p. 169).

Research located in the real world. Lewin’s concern for real world research was expressed in his field theory and his action research approach. His field theory provided a model for conceptualising research problems which incorporated person and situation variables in an ecological model of behaviour. His action research was an approach based on the assumption that the best way to understand behaviour was to try to change it.

These ideas provided a working model for applied research which, (a) was macro level and non-reductionist; (b) was problem focused; (c) utilised current theory; and (d) aimed to score high in ecological validity.

Though Lewin’s ideas were not taken on board by most psychologists until the 1970s, they have tended to provide the core principles for environmental psychologists from the beginning.

Lewin introduced the term psychological ecology to describe his field of study and this theme was a source of inspiration to his students, Roger Barker and Urie Bronfenbrenner. It is reflected in Barker and Wright’s (1955) work on ecological psychology, which is the direct forerunner of modern environmental psychology. Bronfenbrenner, though not generally described as an environmental psychologist, provided ideas on the ecology of behaviour which are increasingly being recognised as important in the practice of modern environmental psychology (Bonnes & Secchiaroli, 1995).

The architectural roots

While the direct psychological roots of environmental psychology lie in the work of Lewin and his students, there were also important influences from other fields. The use of the term architectural psychology reflects a trend which unites a number of workers who were concerned with the design of physical environments and subsequent influence on behaviour. In Canada, a psychiatrist (Osmond, 1957) contributed the initial ideas on sociofugal and sociopetal settings which describe the different ways in which seating can be arranged in large spaces and which will b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Environmental psychology: What it is and why you should know about it
• 2. Theory and method in environmental psychology
• 3. The context of behaviour and experience
• 4. The environment through the senses
• 5. The human impact on the environment
• 6. Urbanisation, movement, and space
• 7. Environmental design
• 8. Using and abusing the environment
• 9. Environmental psychology looking forward
• References
• Author index
• Subject index