Personality

Environmental Psycholog

PSY/460

August 1, 2011

Edward Muhammad

Environmental Psychology

Environmental psychology is a field of psychology that focuses on human beings and their surroundings. The field of environmental psychology studies the term environment broadly, and explores natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments and informational environments (Stokols, 1995). From the very beginning this field has always 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 (Stokols, 1995). The science of environmental psychology includes a number of areas some of which are ecological psychology, sociology, and social ecology. In order for one to be an effective practitioner in the field of environmental psychology will typically draw from information from many areas, such as anthropology, architecture, political science, psychology, and urban planning and design (Fisher, 2007).

The purpose of environmental psychology is to help different design professionals come together and work toward making an improvement in overall human environment, both at the personal living space level known as micro level and at the larger, all-encompassing level known as macro level (Fisher, 2007).

Two of the major theoretical approaches to environmental psychology are arousal theories and the stimulus loads theory (Barker, 1968). Arousal theories indicate that an inverted-U relationship exist between performance and arousal. The curve shows that a persons productivity will elevate as arousal is heightened to a certain level and then will decline if arousal is continues to increase beyond that point (Barker, 1968). This arousal performance law is referred to as the Yerkes-Dodson law (Barker, 1968). Research and studies have proven to support the inverted-U...