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