Psych 372 Environmental Psychology (6 Env & Personality)
Transcript of Psych 372 Environmental Psychology (6 Env & Personality)
8/11/2019 Psych 372 Environmental Psychology (6 Env & Personality)
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Environment and Personality
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Overview
• The ancient roots – Murray and Lewin
• A few models
• Locus of control• Introversion
• Noise, furniture, office environments
• More comprehensive survey instruments
• ERI• Application- where will people live? Who should make policy
decisions for us? How does an architect fit place to person?
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Older ideas were not really rooted inenvironmental psychology
• Kurt Lewin
• Remember B=f(P, E)
• Well this is the P part
• Lewin talked about the “foreign hull” – that part of theenvironment that is outside of the life space
• Division between the life space and the foreign hull ispermeable.
• Much discussion in env psych can be characterized as a debate
about this permeability
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Another older idea
• Henry Murray’s “personology”
• Pioneer of personality theory
• Talked about “press” – the power of the environment to
influence well-being• Alpha press – influence of objective external environment
• Beta press – perceived effects
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Locus of control
• Locus of control -> are you the master of yourdomain?
• Locus of control measures have been found to
correlate with a vast number of things• For us, some important ones are:
• Environmental attitudes – internal locus of control makes pro-environmental attitudes more likely
• Health care – those with internal locus of control are more likely to
want to feel like collaborators in their care. Externals would ratherleave everything to the experts
• Education – in measures of scholastic achievement, open,unstructured environments favour internals. Structuredenvironments favour externals
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Introversion-Extraversion
• This was an old measure of Eysenck
• Has received a great deal of scrutiny lately, especiallyin the context of the environment
• Note that Gifford’s claim that introverts “don’t enjoybeing with others” is a fallacy
• Introverts give energy to people rather than take itfrom them
• Introversion is not the same as shyness
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Introversion-Extraversion and noise
• Numerous studies have shown increasedsensitivity and decreased tolerance for noisyenvironments in introverts
• Slight differences in resting pulse
• Introverts more disturbed in reading comprehensiontasks
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Introversion-Extraversion andfurniture placement
• One well-cited study shows that professorshave office arrangements related to personality
• Extraverts sit on same side of desk as visitors
• Introverts place desk between selves and visitors
• Another study showed differences in livingroom furniture related to personality
• Extraverts had more seats, closer spacing, group
seating• Introverts favoured more spacing and individual
chairs rather than group seating
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Environmental Response Inventory
• George McKechnie
• First really comprehensive inventory of personalityrelated to environmental preferences
• 184 items divided into 8 categories, but eventuallyshortened to 20 items per category
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Pastoralism
• Opposition to land development, concern aboutpopulation growth, preservation of naturalspaces
• Sample items
• “Our national forests should be preserved in theirnatural state, with roads and buildings prohibited”
• “Birth control practices should be accepted byeveryone”
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Urbanism
• Enjoyment of high density living, appreciationof varied stimulus patterns
• Examples:• “I would enjoy riding in a crowded subway”
• “I like the variety of stimulation one finds in the city”
• “Cities bring together interesting people”
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Environmental Adaptation
• Opposition to government control over privateland use, preference for highly designedenvironments
• Examples
• “A person has a right to modify the environment tosuit their needs”
• “I like to go to shopping centres where everything isin one place”
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Stimulus seeking
• Interest in travel and exploration of unusualplaces
• Examples• “I would enjoy travelling around the world on a sailing
ship”
• “I like to ride on roller coasters”
• “Alleys are interesting places to explore”
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Environmental Trust
• General environmental openness,responsiveness and trust, security of home
• Examples• “I often have trouble finding my way around a new
area”
• “I’d be afraid to live in a place where there were nopeople nearby”
• “I shudder at the thought of finding a spider in mybed”
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Antiquarianism
• Enjoyment of historical places, preference fortraditional design
• Examples• “modern buildings are seldom as attractive as older
ones”
• “I am quite sensitive to the “character” of a building”
• “I enjoy browsing in antique shops”
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Need for Privacy
• Need for physical isolation, freedom fromdistraction
• Examples• “There are often time when I need complete silence”
• “I get annoyed when people drop by without warning”
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Mechanical orientation
• Interest in mechanics, technology, thefunctional properties of objects
• Examples• “I enjoy tinkering with mechanical things”
• “I usually save spare nuts and bolts”
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Communality
• A validity scale testing honesty in test-taking
• Examples
• “I like to visit historical places” • “As a child I was taught respect for all living things”
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Uses of the ERI
• Migration
• It used to be that we only moved if we had to but nowthere is “free” migration. Some of us can move if we
want to.• Kegel-Flom showed that scores on the ERI were
significant predictors of where graduatingoptometrists would eventually practice
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Kegel-Flom’s main finding
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Uses of the ERI
• Architectural assessments
• McKechnie and others have said these all too oftenproceed clinically rather than actuarilly .
• Having an easy-to-administer scale might make iteasy for someone not versed in individualpsychoanalysis to make sense of a client’s needs
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Uses of the ERI
• Policy formation for environmental decision-making
• It’s very possible that there is implicit value bias in
different professions• We’ve already seen a form of this in action in our comparison
of architects and laypersons
• Such biases could form important barriers to
interdisciplinary decision-making that’s inevitable inenvironmental decision-making
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An example of possible implicit valuebiases
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Summary
• Roots of personality and environment lie inearly history
• Only recently have there been scales directlydesigned to assess personality variablesrelated to the environment
• The most comprehensive is the ERI, which has
been shown to have predictive value
• Many more ideas in the textbook