Environment Behavior Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Creating “community ” has long been a goal of urban planners. Although such rhetoric abounds in planning circles, what it all means is unclear. In this article, the authors review the community psychology and urban plan-ning literature,... more

Creating “community ” has long been a goal of urban planners. Although such rhetoric abounds in planning circles, what it all means is unclear. In this article, the authors review the community psychology and urban plan-ning literature, defining sense of community within the context of how the built environment might facilitate or impede it. They then present their research, which tests the effects of “main street ” on sense of community in four San Francisco neighborhoods. Results indicate that respondents in neighborhoods exhibiting characteristics of a main street town (Bernal Heights and West Portal) have significantly higher sense of community than do respondents from a high-density neighborhood (Nob Hill) and from a more suburban-style city neighborhood (Sunset).

A social-psychological model is developed to examine the proposition that environmentalism represents a new way of thinking. It presumes that action in support of environmental quality may derive from any of three value orientations:... more

A social-psychological model is developed to examine the proposition that environmentalism represents a new way of thinking. It presumes that action in support of environmental quality may derive from any of three value orientations: egoistic, social-altruistic, or biospheric, and that gender may be implicated in the relation between these orientations and behavior. Behavioral intentions are modeled as the sum across values of the strength of a value times the strength of beliefs about the consequences of environmental conditions for valued objects. Evidence from a survey of 349 college students shows that beliefs about consequences for each type of valued object independently predict willingness to take political action, but only beliefs about consequences for self reliably predict willingness to pay through taxes. This result is consistent with other recent findings from contingent valuation surveys. Women have stronger beliefs than men about consequences for self, others, and the...

The purpose of this article is to explore spatial orientation and wayfinding behavior of newcomers in an unfamiliar environment and to emphasize the importance of landmarks and spatial differentiation in the acquisition of environmental... more

The purpose of this article is to explore spatial orientation and wayfinding behavior of newcomers in an unfamiliar environment and to emphasize the importance of landmarks and spatial differentiation in the acquisition of environmental knowledge. One setting with a symmetrical layout and regularly organized, monotonous units on different floors and another setting with an asymmetrical layout and repetitive units along one side of a linear corridor of one floor were used to explore different strategies for learning about large-scale spatial environments. Wayfinding performance was found to correlate with performances in sketch-map tasks and the answers of a questionnaire about each building. Most of the participants of the asymmetrical setting could complete a sketch map with a minimum of errors. In the symmetrical setting, however, some participants drew incomplete sketch maps but could find their way through the building with a minimum of errors.

This article focuses on the interactions between individual differences and building characteristics that may occur during multilevel wayfinding. Using the Seattle Central Library as our test case, we defined a series of within-floor and... more

This article focuses on the interactions between individual differences and building characteristics that may occur during multilevel wayfinding. Using the Seattle Central Library as our test case, we defined a series of within-floor and between-floor wayfinding tasks based on different building analyses of this uniquely designed structure. Tracking our 59 participants while they completed assigned tasks on-site, we examined their wayfinding performance across tasks and in relation to a variety of individual differences measures and wayfinding strategies. Both individual differences and spatial configuration, as well as the organization of the physical space, were related to the wayfinding challenges inherent to this library. We also found wayfinding differences based on other, nonspatial features, such as semantic expectations about destinations. Together, these results indicate that researchers and building planners must consider the interactions among building, human, and task ch...

Exposure to natural environments can have calming and stress-reducing effects on humans. Moreover, previous studies suggest that these benefits may be greater in areas with higher species richness. Our study took advantage of a... more

Exposure to natural environments can have calming and stress-reducing effects on humans. Moreover, previous studies suggest that these benefits may be greater in areas with higher species richness. Our study took advantage of a "natural experiment" to examine people's behavioral, physiological, and psychological reactions to increases in levels of marine biota in a large aquarium exhibit during three stages of restocking: Unstocked, Partially stocked, and Fully stocked. We found that increased biota levels were associated with longer spontaneous viewing of the exhibit, greater reductions in heart rate, greater increases in self-reported mood, and higher interest. We suggest that higher biota levels, even in managed settings, may be associated with important well-being and health benefits, particularly for individuals not able to access the natural analogues of managed environments.

... 200 evaluation studies related to the design and development of exhibits, educational programs, and ... Study 2, a post hoc survey analysis complementing Study 1, discriminated which particular ... tion is significant because... more

... 200 evaluation studies related to the design and development of exhibits, educational programs, and ... Study 2, a post hoc survey analysis complementing Study 1, discriminated which particular ... tion is significant because immersion may lead to a greater potential for learning and ...

Space syntax research has found that spatial configuration alone explains a substantial proportion of the variance between aggregate human movement rates in different locations in both urban and building interior space. Although it seems... more

Space syntax research has found that spatial configuration alone explains a substantial proportion of the variance between aggregate human movement rates in different locations in both urban and building interior space. Although it seems possible to explain how people move on the basis of these analyses, the question of why they move this way has always seemed problematic because the analysis contains no explicit representations of either motivations or individual cognition. One possible explanation for the method’s predictive power is that some aspects of cognition are implicit in space syntax analysis. This article reviews the contribution made by syntax research to the understanding of environmental cognition. It proposes that cognitive space, defined as that space which supports our understanding of configurations more extensive than our current visual field, is not a metric space, but topological. A hypothetical process for deriving a nonmetric space from the metric visibility ...