UNIT 7
COMMUNITY ENVIRONMENTAL
PSYCHOLOGY
1
What is Neighborhood?

Is a psychological concept:


Not every physical or legal area is a
neighborhood.
One psychological dimension of
neighborhoods is their spatial-cognitive nature
2
What is Neighborhood?

Neighborhood has boundaries  Within these
boundaries, neighborhood





may be urban/suburban;
may contain industrial, commercial, and/or
residential development;
may have underdeveloped areas and/or developed
parks;
may be old or new, graced with quiet tree-lined
streets or split by major roads;
May include varying percentages of high-rise, lowrise, and single-family as residences.
3

Downtown vs. suburban

Downtown neighborhoods contain more mixed land
uses, traffic and parking problems, noise, crowding,
stress, danger, pavement, and mess. e.g, Chow Kit,
Pudu
4
Types of Neighborhood:



The integral neighborhood
The parochial neighborhood
The anomic neighborhood
5
The integral neighborhood



has much face-to-face interaction
much cohesiveness from neighborhood
support of local interest and values, and
much participation in organizations outside
the neighborhood.
6
The parochial neighborhood


is like the integral neighborhood except
that it has fewer ties to outside
organizations
it is inwardly facing and may even
discourage participation in the wider
community.
7
The anomic neighborhood


has little face-to-face contact,
little identification and few ties to the
outside world.
8
Neighborhood
Satisfaction & Attachment
9
What is Satisfaction?
What is Confidence?

Satisfaction is related to neighborhood
confidence


which is positively related to staying instead of
moving, and
a greater social cohesion among residents.
10

Satisfaction can be measured by asking
about to what extent of positive social
relations, clear and symbolic interaction,
and strong attachment in the
neighborhood.


Asking directly
Ask based on several questions
11

Neighborhood satisfaction is composed of
residents’ satisfaction with the
neighborhoods’:




physical conditions,
political climate,
convenience (e.g., access to schools, work,
and shopping),
and social relations
12
Factors that influence neighborhood
satisfaction:




Personal influences
Physical influences
Social and Security influences
Cultural influences
13
Personal influences






beliefs of the improvement of their current
neighborhood
a higher interest level for their neighborhood
they feel at home
adaptation to the level of neighborhood
ownership or renting
stage of life.
14
Physical influences


Is it noisy, expensive, downtown, split by
major transportation routes, smoggy?
Other key factors



visual quality
Aesthetics
Green space
15
Social and Security influences


Social network can create satisfaction.
Safety fears, e.g:


parental concerns about possible traffic accidents
involving children
widespread fear of crime (theft, rape, drug abuse,
illegal activities such as gambling and prostitution).
 Adakah anda lebih suka membeli rumah di
sekitar Chow Kit atau Taman Universiti?
16
Cultural influences



a congruence between residents’ culture
the era with which they identify
the physical form of the community
17
Place Identity and Place
Attachment
18
Place Identity and Place
Attachment

Refers to:

individual’s incorporation of place into the larger
concept of self.
The special bonds that we develop with certain
settings that have deep meaning for us
19
Sources of place attachment






Genealogy link persons with places through the
historical identification of a place with a family.
Loss and destruction  sometimes build
or strengthen place attachment.
Ownership
Cosmological place attachment refers to a
culture’s religious and mythological views on personplace attachment.
We may attached to a place where we make a
pilgrimage
Narrative: place attachment can develop through
stories
20
Community Urbanization and
Stress
21
Community Urbanization and Stress


Research have found that Urban have higher
rates of mental illness: schizophrenics
William Rohe develop a model of connection
between community design and mental health.

Physical stressors: high density, through streets,
poor upkeep of public places, a lack of community
meeting places, and high-rise residences.
22
Factors affecting anti-social
behavior in the community
1.
2.
3.
Community Design
Weather
Air Polution
23
1. Community Design

Anti-social Behaviour in the community could
be due community design.
 Example:
 Crime and vandalism are linked to or
facilitated by certain aspects of the
physical nature of a community
 Many
through street  easy to escape
 Apartments near parking lots and
recreational areas
 Taller apartments
24
How to reduce crimes through community design?









More residential, with few thru’ streets & little public parking
To reduce passage by strangers through an area
Have less street signs indicate a residential area with more
control by residents
Shorter apartments & less units per floor/total units so that
residents know one another & who lives in the building
Close some of the entrances to the neighborhood, install speed
bumps to slow down traffic, install gates with the neighborhood
logo, divide the community into mini-neighborhoods with
physical barriers
Install lights in the darker areas near the main corners
Have defensible space characteristics/ design
Increases visual surveillability of a building, esp for bank
Diversity increases public social interaction among residents,
which thereby helps discourage crime
25
2. Weather

High temperatures /heat discomfort
causes riots and other social aggression
and violence
26
3. Air Pollution



Bad odors negatively affect mood and
attraction to others.
A moderately bad odor was found to have
facilitated aggression.
Higher levels of photochemical oxidants in
the air were correlated with more
domestic disputes and more instances of
psychiatric disturbance
27
Factors affecting Helping Bevavior
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Weather

We help when the weather is nice (?!)
Noise

Loud noise reduces helping behaviours
Number of People

Number of bystanders and prosocial behaviors
Community Design and the Immediate Surroundings

Women helped more in the complex settings and
men helped more in the simple settings
Gender - Women are more likely than men to be
cooperative & helpful when the population density is
high
Disability - Blind person was helped significantly
more
28
Everyday Behavior in the
community
29
Everyday Behavior in the
community
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Watching
Walking
Hanging Out
Familiar Strangers
Shopping
30
1. Watching
Watching – by three modes 
Responsive mode
 We look in a receptive, passive manner and see people and
things as a sensory experience, almost as a form of
entertainment or recreation
Operational Mode
 We look in a problem-solving way
 We look around with purpose – look for signs and familiar
landmarks
Inferential Mode
 We look at the community as a medium of communication.
 We look for social messages and make our inferences of the
objects different from others.
 We see an empty lot, the developer sees a building site 31
2. Walking



Walking Velocity: V = .86 log P + .05, where V is
velocity in feet per second and P is the population
of the community.
However, pedestrian velocities was found to be
reliably vary from the overall average under
certain conditions.
Making decision:
When people walk, they also make many decisions,
most of which are hardly conscious
 E.g., when and where to cross the street.

32
3. Hanging Out


Often occurs in the fourth environment
(anywhere except home, playgrounds, other
places meant for kids.)
Homeless and poor people also hang out on
the streets
33
4. Familiar Strangers


e.g., commuters, pedestrians, shoppers,
passengers.
Familiar strangers could lead us to help them in
emergency because we know them for years
34
5. Shopping

The Environmental Psychology of Shopping


Shopping is an essential human activity.
It has the following functions:
Social
 Recreational
 Utilitarian

35
Forces that shape our shopping

Location, Size, and Attractiveness




Gravitation Model  If all other factors are equal,
consumers gravitate to larger stores and to closer
stores.
Attractiveness of the product
Layout  spatial layout of supermarket


Most shoppers choose the closest store that stocks
what they want to buy. In general, they will select the
largest store.
Be more sensitive to the social needs of shoppers
Emotional Impact

Store-induced pleasure and arousal
36
Forces that shape our shopping

Density


Display


Crowding in the shopping environment is another
physical setting influence on consumer behavior
Purchasing is affected by how goods are displayed.
Shelf-height, end-aisle placement, and location within
the store may affect normal buying and impulsive
buying
Music

Slow music encourages shoppers to stay longer and to
shop more goods
37
What is Community
Environmental Design?
38
Community Environmental Design

Renovations to reduce fear of crime and actual
crime:



assigned as much public space to the control of
specific families, using both substantial and
symbolic fencing
reduced the number of pedestrian routes through
project and improved lighting along the paths
improved the project’s image and encouraged a
sense of personal ownership by resurfacing the
dwellings, giving different colors to individual
dwellings
39
Plazas as Social Space


Plazas become more useful as the number of
amenities rise
Features of successful plazas:








sittable space,
water (fountains and pools),
food stands, accessible food outlets
trees,
activities to watch (jugglers, mimes, and buskers)
sitting with sunny orientation (or a shady orientation in
hot cities),
provide shelter from wind,
located on busy streets rather than hidden away
40
Bringing a neighborhood to Life
Sidney Brower’s guidelines:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Keep the street front alive
Give residents things to do and places to be
Reduce the speed and number of cars
Residences should open to street, not from
some central courtyard
5. Make parks more attractive to adults
6. Distinguish between home-based recreation and park
activities
41