Methodology in Environmental Psychology

Methods in Environmental Psychology Does environmental psychology need unique methodology? Environmental psychology uses methodology drawn from a variety of different disciplines and areas of psychology: –Clinical psychology –Social psychology –Perception –Sociology –Epidemiology –Geography –Architecture

Methods Projective techniques –Rationale –Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) –Cognitive mapping (developed by Kevin Lynch, geographer) –Social schemata, figure placement, dolls, cutouts etc.

Methods in Environmental Psychology Does environmental psychology need unique methodology? Environmental psychology uses methodology drawn from a variety of different disciplines and areas of psychology: –Clinical psychology –Social psychology –Perception –Sociology –Epidemiology –Geography –Architecture

Methods Projective techniques –Rationale –Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) –Cognitive mapping (developed by Kevin Lynch, geographer) –Social schemata, figure placement, dolls, cutouts etc.

Methods Observational techniques –Behaviour mapping –Ecological psychology (Roger Barker) –Self-observational techniques (time budgets, diaries, etc.)

Ecological Psychology (Roger Barker) Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis Behaviour Settings Staffing Theory –Overstaffed Setting –Understaffed Setting

Methods Unobtrusive measurement –Rationale –Triangulation: using different types of measures to see if the same relationship is obtained with both reactive and nonreactive measures. If several imperfect measures provide the same result, then there is confidence that the relationship really exists and is not an artifact of the measurement process. By using both reactive and nonreactive measures, one can estimate the distortion caused by reactivity.

Types of Unobtrusive (nonreactive) Measures Erosion: the wearing away of a substance Accretion: the depositing of a substance (e.g., litter, fingerprints,) Archival data: any sort of recorded information (e.g., government records, cartoons, photographs, newspaper articles, public health data, etc.) “Hardware” assisted observations (e.g., hodometer in art gallery study)

Unobtrusive/Nonreactive Measures Erosion (examples: wearing away of floor tiles, ruts in campus paths, seating patterns of Type A cardiac patients, etc.) Accretion (examples: litter left on roads, garbage, fingerprints on glass museum cases, etc.) Archival (examples: OPP database, newspaper photographs, suicide trends, lunar cycles and murder, aggression and heat waves, etc.) “Hardware” (examples: hodometer, video recording, sound recordings, night vision photography, etc.)

Methods Simulation –Drawings –Retouched photographs –Specialized simulation equipment (Berkeley simulator) –Computer simulation (Club of Rome’s “Limits to Growth” study

Methods Correlational techniques –Urban sociology –Correlation (association) does not imply causation –In some areas of investigations, there is simply no alternative methodology (e.g., community noise)

Methods Experimental methods (importance of random assignment of subjects to treatment conditions) –Laboratory –Field