ENVIRONMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Environmental Psychology

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Abstract

Environmental psychology is the interrelationship between humans and their surroundings. It aims to study and scrutinize the relationship between human and their surroundings. Since, a major part of human personality is contributed by the environment they live in, environmental psychology analysis human's cognitive behavioral pattern with response to a particular environment. There are several theoretical approaches to environmental psychology; two major approaches are discussed in the paper, ecological psychology, and conservation psychology. Ecological psychology works on the notion that human behaviors can be understood and predicted largely by their environment. In other words, they claimed that it is not possible to establish theories about human behavior without knowing their surroundings. The study of conservation psychology defines the reciprocal relationships of humans and rest of the nature. It largely focuses on conservation of the rest of the natural world. Further, conservation psychology makes use of psychological principles, theories, or methods to understand, interpret and resolve issues regarding human aspects of conservation. Introduction

Overview - Environmental Psychology

Environmental psychology is the interrelationship between humans and their surroundings. The initial impetuses of environmental psychology lie in architectural psychology. About fifty years ago, in a campaign to develop and improve mental hospitals, psychologists were pursued for help in determining and understanding the cognitive and social behaviors of human beings and their relation to their surroundings (De Young, 1999). The field of environmental psychology was born with the interaction of psychologists with social scientists and designers, specifically architects in other fields such as park designs, color coordination, and furniture arrangement.

Environmental psychology aims to study and scrutinize the relationship between human and their surroundings. Since, a major part of human personality is contributed by the environment they live in, environmental psychology analysis human's cognitive behavioral pattern with response to a particular environment. The term environment broadly refers to everything that naturally exists on planet; it includes social settings, learning environments, built environments, and informational environments (Clayton, 2009). The field aims at resolving problems relating to local or global human-environment interactions with a model of human nature while maintaining broad and inherently multidisciplinary focus. The model is designed to predict situations and conditions under which humans behave in a decent, predicted, and creative way. These models offer aid to design, control, manage and restore environmental conditions and elements that ensure rational, sensible behavior and predict the probable outcome if those conditions are not been met, while identifying problem areas. Further, the implications of environmental psychology can be found in other disciplines as well, such as anthropology, history and sociology as well as geography and architecture.

There are several key elements to observe and determine human behavior;

Attention

In order to understand human behavioral patterns, it is essential to examine how people notice the environment and formulate thoughts about it. This brings us to two distinct types of stimuli: those that are involuntarily and sometimes occurs distractingly, and those that are voluntarily such as places, things or ideas to which human react deliberately. Attention span is a major factor restoring ...