Environmental psychology

Environmental psychology is a fairly new sub discipline of psychology that is interdisciplinary and very applied. It looks at the relationship between humans and the environment that they live work and play in including the built environment but also the natural environment. Environmental psychology looks at ways in which we can improve the natural and the built environment to make it more optimal for the humans that live there or work there or play there and it incorporates subfields of psychology like social psychology and health psychology cognitive and neuroscience as well as some of the natural sciences like biology and chemistry looking at ways in which we can make the environments better for.

Let's say learning in a classroom considering how students are sitting and how close they are to their classmates and how accessible they are to the teacher may ultimately impact their learning or taking a walk out in nature might actually improve your mood and reduce your stress simply by being exposed to the natural environment itself and so we can think about ways in which we can improve our environment by applying the principles of environmental psychology to the many settings that we go through in our daily lives.

The American Psychological Association describes it as a multidisciplinary field that investigates the effects of the environment on human behavior and welfare. We will focus on interactions between individuals and their settings by examining how physical features of the natural and built environment impact our cognition, behavior, and well-being. Environmental psychology also explores how natural settings can foster healing and promote stress reduction. In fact, a landmark study published by Roger Ulrich in 1984 found that patients who were recovering from surgery spent far less time in the hospital when they had a view of trees outside their window compared to patients who had a view of a brick wall.

So how do we study EP?

Laboratory experiments may be the gold standard for psychology, but EP often relies on field research methods such as naturalistic observation and field experiments. With naturalistic observation the researcher may try to conceal their presence so as not to interfere with the behavior of those being observed or eliciting a response. This method may have a higher degree of external validity because the observation occurs in a real-world setting. A field experiment is one that is conducted in a naturally occurring setting, for example researchers have tested whether using a virtual reality simulation can reduce anxiety in patients before a dental procedure believe it or not. environmental psychologists also conduct survey research, the use of surveys in environmental psychology may yield valuable insights about how people perceive or utilize their surroundings.  







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