IAED 410
Environmental Psychology
Asst.Prof.Dr. Deniz Hasırcı
Spring 2009-2010
What is Environmental Psychology?
EP: The study of the relationships between behavior
and experience and the built and natural
environments.
Characterized by the following:
• Study of the interrelationships of environment and
behavior
• Importance on applied and theoretical research
• Interdisciplinary and international context
• Eclectic methodology
CONTEXT
– The role of context is crucial in human functioning.
– Systematic approach to context as a means for identifying new
problems, which may have practical outcomes.
– So, what is context?
• Family?
• Various behavior settings? (home, school etc.)
• Psychological functioning in different cultural contexts? (Turkish,
Japanese etc.)
• Language?
• Natural environment?
• Built environment?
– In general terms: “The interrelated conditions in which something
exists or occurs, the relative environment”.
• Wherever we are, and whatever we are doing, our behavior
is influenced by aspects of the environment.
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Buildings
Scenery
People
Sound etc.
• These influences can be so powerful that they can
completely change the way we behave.
• Holiday, moving, war, recreation time
SOCIAL
BIOLOGICAL
BEHAVIORS
ENVIRONMENTAL
(natural and built)
So, EP is:
• Stokols and Altman (1987): “The study of human
behavior, well-being, and experience in relation to the
socio-physical environment”
• We are dealing with a constant relationship.
– A beautiful park attracting so many visitors, it deteriorates.
What will we cover this semester?
• Definitions of EP
• Adaptation
• Pioneers of EP
• Research approaches
• Environmental Perception (Theories)
• Environmental Cognition (Cognitive maps)
• Environmental Attitudes
• Performance
• Preference
• Crowding, Privacy, Territoriality
• Personal Space, Personalization, Belonging
• Learning environments, Offices, Hospitals
• Environmental Stress
• Basic research methods to approach an E-B situation.
• See you next week!
History of Environmental Psychology and Research Methods
• The Structure of the Ordinary?
• Built environments of great richness and complexity arose
informally.
• Based on common understanding.
• Who had the control?
– patrons, builders, users?
• “Environmental knowing” was never made explicit.
• Gifford: Environmental Psychology: Principles and Practice?
• Both science and application
• Theory + research + practice
• solution of architectural and ecological problems in the world.
* To ease a real-world problem, one must have knowledge to apply.
• Theory: not all-inclusive: provide directions for solutions
• Theory guides both research and practice
• Research findings: critical!
• Common sense can be dangerous in problems of design:
– Variations according to policies/culture/use.
– Variations according to times/trends.
– Individual differences.
(i) This design is satisfactory for me - it will be satisfactory for everyone else.
(ii) This design is satisfactory for the average person - it will be satisfactory for
everybody else.
(iii) The variability of human beings is so great that it is impossible to apply
research- but people are adaptable, it doesn't matter anyway.
(iv)Research-based design is expensive and time-consuming, it may be
ignored.
(v) Research-based design is an excellent idea. I always design with this in
mind - but I do it intuitively and rely on my common sense so I don't need
tables of data.
#
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5362672651425023490&ei=kf2ES8fKF5bu2A
LJ6a3DCw&q=peter+eisenman&view=3#
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5362672651425023490&ei=kf2ES8fKF5bu2A
LJ6a3DCw&q=peter+eisenman&view=3#docid=314217174710611532
• No single factor shapes our experience and/or behavior.
• Understanding and Application  to provide a coherent
framework for understanding problematic EB relations.
Brief History of Environmental Psychology
and the Pioneers of the Field
Alternative Names and Phases of the Field
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Architectural psychology,  narrow
Socio-architecture,
Ecopsychology,
Behavioral geography,
Environmental sociology,
Social ecology,
Environmental design research  sustainability
Environment-behavior studies,
Person-environment studies
• Each advanced by different researchers, overlaps between the
terms.
• The knowledge can be applied to problematic real-world
situations.
• This field feeds from:
– anthropology and ergonomics,
– geography,
– sociology,
– psychology,
– history,
– political science,
– planning,
– architecture,
– urban design,
– aesthetics,
– semiotics,
– engineering,
– public policy
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experiences of recently housed homeless people,
privatization of public space,
socio-spatial conflicts,
children's safety in the public environment,
relocation,
community based approaches to housing,
design of specialized environments (museums, zoos, gardens,
hospitals),
• changing relationships between home, family and work,
• access to parks and other urban 'green spaces'
• diversity, exclusion, and the environment
Environmental
The environment can be a great force
but,
Behavioral
Conditions
people and the environment are often
Consequences
both active.
Environmental
Conditions
Behavioral
Consequences
Adaptive
Psychological
Processes
5 Principles of Environmental Psychology
• Interdisciplinary
• Improves the physical environment (applied)
• Carried out in everyday settings
• Considers person and setting as a holistic entity
• Recognizes that people actively cope with and shape settings
rather than just absorb them
• Lewin (1940’s): Field Theory and Action Research
• Brunswik (1943): “Representative Design”: “Environmental
Psychology” in print: physical environments cn affect us
without our knowing.
• Barker and Wright (1955): “Ecological Psychology”
• Ittelson (1964): “Environmental Psychology”: popularity
• In architecture Sommer and Ittelson (1960’s):
– Not just the aesthetic values, but comfort and needs of
the users are also important.
– Town planners realize that how the town was planned
affected how people used it.
• David Canter (1972): Manual on psychology specifically for
architects:
– “People and buildings: A brief overview of
research”
– “Psychology of Place”
• 1960’s: “Journal of Environmental Psychology” and
“Environment and Behavior”
• 1968: EDRA: Rappoport, Sanoff, Bechtel
* See you next week!
** Do not forget HW1.
*** Form your groups, decide on the topics.
PEOPLE AND NATURE
• Bell:
– The environment is a context,
– Yet a determinant or influence on behavior
(solution also comes from the environment),
– Also, a consequence of behavior.
• Habraken:
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Built environment… can it be perceived as a single artifact?
Grow, renew, endure
Change and adaptation
That is why restoration is:
“a collage of intervention”.
•
… more like an organism.
Musee D'Orsay:
1900 and 1986
Control:
• Defending space against unwanted intrusion.
• Control is not necessarily transformation of space.
• Then it would be to act upon material aspects of space.
• Territorial control is to restrict entry: very instinctive.
• Understanding territorial control through looking at the built
environment (location and designed parts).
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Shifts in territorial claim.
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Margin created by architecture is softened.
• http://arkitekturtv.dac.dk/video/516307/danish-architecture-forpeople
• http://arkitekturtv.dac.dk/video/532080/ole-bouman-future-urbanspace
The Human being in Nature
Is our behavior or fundamental nature affected
by forces of the earth?
•
Human beings are an integral part of nature
Biophilia and Biophobia
• Gibson (1979): “Affordance”: Human affinity for nature.
• Edward O. Wilson (1984): The human need for contact with nature.
• Evolution with a need for survival/ operation in nature.
• To “like” envionments in which we function well.
• Ulrich (1993): “Biophilia and Biophobia”
– “Prepared learning”: easily learning threats
– Liking related to innate characteristics of the environment
– Genetic readiness + own experience or vicarious learning
(someone else’s experience)
• A park is a counterworld of the
completely built urban
environment: a symbol of
nature
How does Nature Restore?
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Kaplans: Attention-restoration theory:
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Nature is inherently fascinating, it attracts our involuntary
attention which requires no effort.
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Cognitive approach (recharging of capacity for attention)
• Experiments: videos, pictures of natural scenes
• Evaluation: individual reports, and clinical numbers
– Phenomenological
– Experimental
• Theories and findings: consultancy to firms.
Stress Reduction
• We give directed attention to tasks requiring mental effort.
• We limit and delay
directed attention fatigue
• We need to recharge by finding an “involuntary attention”
requiring little effort.
• “Soft fascinations” are often in natural settings
http://vimeo.com/3544243
• See you next week!