Environmental Psychology: Summary & Review of Chapter 5 of Environmental Health: From Global to Local. Daniel Stocols & Chip Clithero. Ed. Howard Frumkin, pgs 96-127. (2005, Wiley)

 

     Environmental psychology considers environmental health to result from harmonious relationships between individuals and groups and the environments they inhabit. That includes the sociophysical environment, which is often more subjectively defined.

“Environmental psychologists study the myriad ways in which sociophysical milieus, or contexts, affect individuals and groups, including affecting their health.”

Perceptions and feelings about the environment or one’s relationship to it are important aspects of environmental psychology. Emotional health or wellbeing is established as a variety of human health or wellbeing. Contexts are considered to be holistic, complex, naturally occurring, and time dependent. Settings are considered to be important in environmental psychology since they influence both physical and psychological wellbeing. Settings refer to the sociophysical environment where physical and psychological aspects are interdependent. Environmental psychology seeks to analyze all influences on health and environmental stress. The field is sometimes referred to as environmental behavior studies (EBS).      

     Settings, or environments, include residential, occupational. Educational, recreational, public, and virtual places. Environmental psychology studies how these settings affect behavior, public health, and wellbeing, including psychological wellbeing.

     The field of environmental psychology began in the 1960s and expanded in 1980s as the social factors of health became more apparent to researchers. It has been noted that one’s ‘sense of place’ can be an important factor in one’s wellbeing. One’s life circumstances are also a major factor in how one responds to environmental stresses. Categories, or levels of environmental analysis are shown in the recreated table below.

 

 

Three Principles of Contextual Analysis

 

1.        The relationship between environment and health is influenced by interdependencies among immediate situations, settings, and more remote environmental conditions. Each of the levels of environmental analysis noted above overlaps to some extent and human environments are environments with many relationships including the social relationships that humans cultivate. People are also affected by regulatory decisions. These policy impacts may be beneficial or detrimental. They are required to be considered at the federal level by the EPA and other federal agencies, as part of the required cost-benefit analyses. Our psychological health can be affected by events from local to global in scale. What is happening in the world causes stress. Environmental stress as I will note later includes stress caused by a physical environment or a social environment.

2.        The different environments in which an individual participates exert a cumulative, synergistic effect on his or her health. When this includes the myriad social environments we encounter, it can be difficult to tease out causes of stress. The combined influence of settings and life domains is often considered.

3.        Health is the result of an interaction among the objective features of the environments in which individuals participate, individuals’ personal perception of those features, and individuals’ personal attributes. This is important. In cases where risk needs to be evaluated, the perception of risk is often a very big factor, whether that perception best supports the facts or not. It is also important that the principle notes one’s personal attributes such as genetic dispositions, psychological dispositions, coping skills and their effect on one’s interpretation of events and situations. An example given is noise and its physiological effect on children. Work-family conflict and work-related stress are other examples.

 

 

 

The Neighborhood as Context

 

     The authors chose to explore environmental psychology through the context of a neighborhood, and to consider its potential effects on health. A neighborhood is a broad concept that often includes multiple stimuli, situations, settings, and life domains. It is a consequential context and a frequent part of people’s day-to-day lives and quality of life. Traditional neighborhoods have changed somewhat as we now have other convenient means of social and work-related interaction from a distance with our smart phones and computers in virtual neighborhoods of a sort. Still, when we think of a neighborhood, we most often mean a geographically constrained place. However, where we communicate from has been radically expanded with technology.

     Place-based neighborhoods have geographic boundaries and identifiable physical features. There are indoor neighborhood settings and outdoor neighborhood settings. The table below gives the common social functions of a neighborhood.

 

 

 

     A demand made on an individual by a physical or social environment is an environmental stress, which may also be considered a stimulus, requiring a physiological or psychological response. “Psychological stress can occur when perceived environmental demands exceed the individual’s perceived ability to cope with them.”  One’s subjective interpretation is an important factor. Again, the example on children of chronic noise exposure is given. Hearing impairments, poor reading skills, lower academic performance, and elevation of blood pressure were noted in multiple studies. Along with noise, crowding, and other challenges to one’s privacy have been found to be environmental stressors, especially in indoor settings. One’s perceptions of one’s ability or lack of ability to control and predict one’s environment is a big factor in environmental stress.  

     Outdoor neighborhood settings are what we usually refer to as the neighborhood and have similar concerns. Some features of a neighborhood, like pleasant places where people could meet, may facilitate positive social interaction and others, such as the presence of traffic, do the opposite.

     The concepts of physical incivilities and social incivilities are introduced in the neighborhood context. The presence of litter, graffiti, or houses, properties, and streets in disrepair are examples of physical incivilities. Social incivilities include things such as public drunkenness, drug dealing, prostitutes, or a threatening atmosphere. Certain neighborhoods may become stigmatized for these reasons. They may have higher crime rates and less investment. The concept of defensible space is also introduced. This involves strategic and practical positioning to allow optimal surveillance of outdoor areas and barriers like fences and shrubbery that may help discourage would-be burglars.

     A neighborhood with positively perceived features might enhance one’s sense of place. Sense of place is a perception often influenced by aesthetics and physical features such as landmarks, distinctness of boundaries, and recreational, historical, and commercial activities. Distinctness of boundaries can enhance the imageability (ability to evoke memories) and legibility, or visual clarity of a neighborhood. Legibility influences the navigability of a neighborhood. Features like path systems, unique cultural or commercial districts, physical landmarks, and nodes where social interaction occurs, influence sense of place.

     A neighborhood’s behavior settings, includes recreational, commercial, educational, cultural, and civic places. These settings are multiple. The ability to accommodate different groups, ages, and ethnicities, etc. enhances a neighborhood’s appeal. The presence of “nature” or natural settings within a neighborhood has long been recognized as psychologically beneficial. When nature is present in a neighborhood there are different sensory stimuli that we encounter. Our physical and virtual environments may interact or overlap. The authors mention real-virtual, or r-v situations where our virtual activities may impact our physical ones. Cellphone use during driving or being overly distracted by virtual activities when trying to multitask them with physical activities are examples. Ideas like stimulation overload and social media addiction are other r-v siuations that can affect quality of life.

     The notion of the digital divide, where people without adequate access or connectivity is less of an issue than it was 20 years ago when this edition came out.

     In conclusion, the authors summarize the topics introduced that need more research: examining the relationships between physical environmental health and social environmental health, incorporating the concept of psychological wellbeing into environmental health, consideration of the subjective aspects of an environment, a revised and expanded understanding of the context of neighborhood, and the analysis of virtual settings and how they interact with physical settings.