Dreams, Reality, and the Future of Environmental

Dreams, Reality, and the Future of Environmental Psychology by Richard Sommer.

Origins of a New Field

Need to understand social and historical context of the discipline

started in U.S. And Canada and later diffused; related to Roger Barker on psychological ecology and Daniel Berlyne on environmental aesthetics ref to charisma (extraordinary power)

Intellectual climate of the 1960s

challenging traditional assumptions of allocation of power, resources, nature of society behavioral science had not yet predicted

Human Rights Movement

African-Americans and other disenfranchised groups fighting for justice affected ethics and design considerations (eg Brown v Board of Education)

Ecology Movement

Started by Rachel Carson's Silent Spring in 1962 -- impact on policymakers, public, science-refers to pollution-leads to greater protection of wilderness

But this time not just concerned with wilderness but also urban space, population control, energy

Leads to creation of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and 1960s -- the environmental decade.

43.2.3 The State of Architecture

Construction boom after WWII -- putting up buildings anywhere, anywhere

Architects starting to question their role -- new architecture was "faceless anonymous pieces of glass brick skyscapers that few people liked and many resented"

Clients -- anonymous corporate boards, government agencies, misfits, and residential construction for developers, engineers, banks and not residents!

But architecture lacked a research tradition except in structural science, materials, etc. -- no philosophy; no meaning to "architectural research"

43.3 Internal Criticism of Psychology

criticism due to narrowness of problems, too much emphasis on experimental method, neglect of environmental factors

43.4 Response from Organized Psychology and Architecture

leadership in American Psychological Association and American Institute of Architects-started to find common ground and develop training programs together

How to view it? Independent area of study (human ecology, or envirotecture); new specialty; part of existing specialty of psych or existing specialty of design; or none?

Environmental Studies formed as its own interdisciplinary study (reaction to limitations of old field)

Environmental Psychology formed as subdiscipline of psychology

Environmental Design Research Association (EDRA) -- views environmental study as its own discipline

Division of Population and Environmental Psychology of the APA -- environmental psychology is placed within the umbrella of psychology

43.5 Spread of Influence

43.5.1 Within Psychology

Was easy to start new programs in universities at first, but stopped in 1980s with diminishing funds

Has been absorbed into other disciplines

43.5.2 Linkage with Other Professions

link between psychology and architecture peaked in 1970s

interest in environmental issues strong 1970s, 1980s

but widespread belief that architects are not putting research into practice most environmental psychologists do NOT feel their field is linked with architecture now future -- link between environmental psych and other design fields eg interior design, landscape architecture, urban planning

want to have environmental psych that learns from design and vice versa contact with engineering too

43.5.3 Spread to Developing Nations

opportunities but limitations can test validity of hypotheses need to avoid projecting western values on non-western cultures

minimal opportunities to study applications abroad

Research issues include: kinship and space usage, space usage in agriculture, attitudes toward geotypes (tundra, lake), oral histories, animistic perceptions

Issue of literacy -- v- nonliteracy

Need to maintain ethics such as informed consent in research

Reform and Revolution, ethnic, class conflict -- opposition to westerners; the researcher might oppose the government that sponsors them

Poverty has led to hostile view of the researcher, who represents oppressor

43.5.4 Diffusion to Socialist Nations

Eastern Europe, Marxism -- dialectical materialism -- theory of social change emphasizing external economic forces as determinants of experience

Predisposition of Marxist ideology to environmental explanations for behavior; citizens expected to play role

Different view of territoriality

Emphasis on workplace conditions, centralized planning

Political obstacles

43.6 Research Agenda for the Twenty-First Century

Addressing Advocacy (can't be detached from human problems, suffering)

Environmental psychologists need to justify their work, show how it impacts daily life