The Field of Environmental Psychology



The Field of Environmental Psychology

Introduction

With constant development in the Science and Technology, humans have been able to alter their way of life up to a huge extent. The introduction of a life style that involves using cars as a means of transportation, living in tall and bizarre apartments, working in close air-conditioned offices and spending time in places like malls, cinemas etc although have reduced our interaction with the environment. However, nature and environment are inevitable to avoid. Therefore, because of the fact that humans and nature are two entities that are bound to collide, hence many fields have been introduced and developed that would help humans to study the natural environments. One of such filed is Environmental Psychology.

Discussion

Considered as one of the most significant filed currently, Environmental Psychology has a major role to play in making sure that humans do not cause any further damage to their surroundings. Therefore, Environmental Psychology can simply be defined as a discipline that focuses on the interplay and interaction between the humans and their environmental surroundings (Arkkelin, 1995). This is important to note that this is very broad filed that encompasses many other aspects that include social settings, natural environments, built environments, learning and informational environments.

Theoretical Approaches to Environmental Psychology

Environmental Psychology utilizes various aspects of human psychology to define their interaction, behavior, and experiences with the environment. Hence, out of the many, the two most known theories that best explains the human perspectives towards the environment are the Arousal Theories and the Stimulus Load Theories.

Arousal Theories

The theories that explain and discuss the existence of an inverted-U relationship between the performance and arousal are defined to be the Arousal Theories. This simply refers to the fact that performance will increase or improve along with the arousal provided that this phenomenon ...