ENVIRONMENT PSYCHOLOGY

Environmental psychology is an interdisciplinary field focused on the interplay between humans and their surroundings. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. Since its conception, the field has been committed to the development of a discipline that is both value oriented and problem oriented, prioritizing research aiming at solving complex environmental problems in the pursuit of individual well-being within a larger society. *When solving problems involving human-environment interactions, whether global or local, one must have a model of human nature that predicts the environmental conditions under which humans will behave in a decent and creative manner. With such a model one can design, manage, protect and/or restore environments that enhance reasonable behavior, predict what the likely outcome will be when these conditions are not met, and diagnose problem situations. The field develops such a model of human nature while retaining a broad and inherently multidisciplinary focus. It explores such dissimilar issues as common property resource management, wayfinding in complex settings, the effect of environmental stress on human performance, the characteristics of restorative environments, human information processing, and the promotion of durable conservation behavior. This multidisciplinary paradigm has not only characterized the dynamic for which environmental psychology is expected to develop, but it has been the catalyst in attracting other schools of knowledge in its pursuit as well aside from research psychologists. Geographers, economists, geographers, policy-makers, sociologists, anthropologists, educators, and product developers all have discovered and participated in this field. * Although "environmental psychology" is arguably the best-known and most comprehensive description of the field, it is also known as human factors science, cognitive ergonomics, environmental social sciences, architectural psychology, socio-architecture, ecological psychology, ecopsychology, behavioral geography, environment-behavior studies, person-environment studies, environmental sociology, social ecology, and environmental design research. It is the link between the person and the built environment.
The origins of this field of study are unknown, however, Willy Hellpach is said to be the first to mention “Environmental Psychology”. One of his books, Geopsyche discusses topics such as how the sun and the moon affect human activity, the impact of extreme environments, and the effects of color and form.
The end of World War II brought about a higher demand for developments in the field of social psychology particularly in the areas of attitude change, small-group processes, and intergroup conflict. This demand caused psychologists to begin applying social psychology theories to a number of social issues such as prejudice, war, and peace. It was thought that if these problems were addressed, underlying notions and principles would surface.Although this time period was crucial to the development of the field, the methodologies used to carry out the studies were questionable. At the time, studies were being conducted in a laboratory setting, which caused some doubt as to their validity in the real world. Consequently, environmental psychologists began to conduct studies outside of the laboratory, enabling the field to continue to progress. Today environmental psychology is being applied to many different areas such as