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Psychology and Life
Environmental psychology deals with various psychological issues pertaining to the human-environment interaction in a very broad sense of the term,
Environment refers to everything that surrounds us, including the physical, social, work and cultural environment. In general, it includes all the forces outside human beings to which they respond in some way.
Ecology is the study of the relationships between living things and their environment.In this context, a distinction can be made between natural environment (that part of nature which remains untouched by human hand) and built environment (created by human beings within the natural environment).
• Creativity of the human mind as expressed in the work of architects, town planners and civil engineers.
• The sense of human control over the natural environment.
• The influence on the kind of social interaction that takes place in the designed environment.
Human environment relationship views of Stokols
The psychologist Stokols describes three approaches that may be adopted to describe the human-environment relationship:
• Minimalist Perspective assumes that the physical environment has minimal or negligible influence on human behaviour, health and well being and that the physical environment and human beings exist as parallel components.
• Instrumental Perspective suggests that physical environment exists mainly for use by human beings for their comfort and well being.
• Spiritual Perspective refers to the view of the environment as something to be respected and valued rather than exploited. It implies that human beings recognise the interdependent relationship between themselves and the environment (human beings will exist and be happy only as long a the environment is kept healthy and natural).
Noise, pollution, crowding and natural disasters are some examples of environmental stressors (stimuli or conditions in the environment that create stress for human beings).Noise is any sound that is annoying or irritating, and felt to be unpleasant. Exposure to noise for a long period of time may lead to hearing loss. Apart from that, noise has negative effects on mental activity because it reduces concentration. Three characteristics of noise have been found to determine its effect on task performance: intensity,
predictability, controllability.
• When the task being performed is a simple mental task, noise does not affect overall performance. In such situations, people adapt to the noise.
• If the task being performed is very interesting, the presence of noise does not affect performance.
• When the noise comes in intervals in an unpredictable way, it is experienced as more disturbing than if the noise is continuously present.
• When the task being performed is difficult or requires full concentration, then noise reduces the level of task performance.
• When tolerating or switching off the noise is within the control of the person, the number of errors in task performance decreases.
• In terms of emotional effects, noise above a certain level causes annoyance, and can also lead to sleep disturbance. These effects are also reduced if the noise is controllable, or is necessary as part of the person’s occupation.
Crowding refers to a feeling of discomfort because there are too many people or things around us, giving us the experience of physical restriction, and sometimes lack of privacy. The experience of crowding has the following features:
• Feeling of discomfort
• Loss or decrease in privacy
• Negative view of the space around the person
• Feeling of loss of control over social interaction
Crowding is related to density, which is the number of persons within the available space. The effects of crowding and high density are as follows:
• Crowding and high density may lead to abnormal behaviour and aggression. Based on a study of rats, this was found to be true among humans as well. An increase in population has sometimes been found to be accompanied by an increase in violent crime.
• Crowding leads to lowered performance on difficult tasks that involve cognitive processes, and has adverse effects on memory and the emotional state.
• Children growing up in very crowded households show lower academic performance. They also show a weaker tendency to continue working on a task if they are unsuccessful at it, and experience greater conflict with their parents, and get less support from family members.
• The nature of social interaction determines the degree to which an individual will react to crowding.
• Individuals differ in the degree to which they show negative effects to crowding, and also in the nature of these reactions. Two kinds of tolerance can be mentioned:
1. Crowding tolerance refers to the ability to mentally deal with a high density or crowded environment. People who are used to an environment containing more people around them develop more crowding tolerance than people who are used to only a few people around them.
2. Competition tolerance is the ability to put up with a situation in which individuals would have to compete with many others for even basic resources, including physical space.
• Personal space is the comfortable physical space one generally likes to maintain around oneself, and this is affected by a high density environment. In a crowded context, there is a restriction on personal space, and this can also be a cause of negative reactions to crowding.
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