"...And knowing is half the battle!": Week Five

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Environmental psychology is the field dedicated to the analysis of the interplay between human beings and their surrounding environments, including natural, social, and learning environments. Factors that can influence the reactions associated with various environments include everything and anything from the color of the walls and pieces of furniture; to how hot or cold the area is; to how much sunlight is let in. Each aspect, no matter how miniscule, plays an important role in how comfortable a person is in his or her living, learning, and working spaces. Accordingly, environmental psychology is most often applied by professional designers, such as architects and urban planners, who are attempting to create an environment that is both effective and inviting for those who exist within it. For example, city officials around the world have recently begun to commission pieces of large-scale street art to be placed throughout the busiest areas so that all citizens can enjoy them, and couples wishing to sell or improve upon their homes hire an interior designer to aid in "maximizing the potential" of each room. The tiniest details can greatly influence one’s reaction to surrounding environments; environmental psychology studies and alters these details to provide the best, most effective and most comfortable outcomes.

Environmental psychology applies to our group project because we're not only improving Rowan University's environment for the wildlife, but for the students, faculty and administrators who make use of the campus as well; to improve the environment strictly for the wildlife would be near-impossible, as most of the changes we wish to enact will affect both human beings and other, "wild" animals. Since human beings and wildlife, specifically birds, need to be considered when the Rowan University Wildlife Conservation Society makes whatever changes to the campus it decides to make, we would most likely do some sort of survey on said changes beforehand - otherwise, if the changes are not as popular as we would have liked, we can alter them before any time or money is wasted. It is likely, in fact, that we will see environmental psychology as it happens as a process: how we, human beings, and how they, wildlife, react to the new changes in our shared environment.

Sources: Wikipedia.org

ü Articles on Environmental Psychology ü

Tonello, G. "Seasonal Affective Disorder: Lighting Research And Environmental Psychology." Lighting Research & Technology 40.2 (2008): 103-110. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Article Summary: In his article, "Seasonal Affective Disorder: Lighting Research And Environment Psychology", Mr. Tonello explains that those affected by Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), a malady in which depression occurs throughout the autumn and the winter due to the lapses in natural light, are often taken into consideration by architects, who attempt to make the whatever buildings they're constructing "friendly" for those who suffer from the disorder. Tonello argues, however, that those afflicted with sub-syndromal Seasonal Affective Disorder (sub-SAD) suffer from symptoms that vary from SAD's and are therefore more "individual" than those found in the latter category. According to the author, many who have sub-SAD go undiagnosed because of those varying symptoms and, in effect, do not gain as much from the architect's considerations as those with SAD do. Tonello believes that architects must abandon this "isolated" approach, the one aimed specifically at those affected by SAD, and adopt a more "holistic" view of the building's environments.

Stewart, Alan E. "Individual Psychology And Environmental Psychology." Journal Of Individual Psychology 63.1 (2007): 67-85. Academic Search Premier. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

DAVID MELLOR, et al. "Environmental mastery and depression in older adults in residential care." Ageing & Society 31.5 (2011): 870-884. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 11 Oct. 2011.