Environmental Psychology
This domain tests the two-way relation between people and their physical surroundings, and the concepts used to describe and change that relation.
Key concepts
- Personal space: the adjustable bubble a person keeps around the body; its size varies with culture, relationship, gender and setting.
- Territoriality: marking and defending a place; primary territories are personal and permanent, public territories temporary.
- Density versus crowding: density is a physical ratio; crowding is the subjective sense of having too many people, and its stress effects depend on control and predictability.
- Noise: unwanted sound; chronic exposure impairs concentration and reading and can reduce helping.
- Pollution and heat: poor air quality and high temperature affect mood, health and aggression.
- Restorative environments: natural settings can restore attention fatigued by prolonged demands.
Attitudes and behaviour
Environmental attitudes do not automatically translate into action - the attitude–behaviour gap. Interventions that work include prompts, feedback on consumption, incentives, descriptive social norms and making the desired behaviour convenient.
Worked example
A school finds litter in a corridor. Adding bins alone changes little. Adding bins near the exits and a sign reading 'Most students here use the bins' cuts litter sharply, because it supplies a descriptive norm and reduces the effort needed to comply, closing the attitude–behaviour gap.
Traps
Treating density and crowding as synonyms; assuming information alone changes behaviour; forgetting that design features can be manipulated as independent variables in a field experiment.