Cogst 1500 Notes - gary evans PDF

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COGST 1500 Notes Structure Physical environment  human environment relationship (HER) process  human welfare

HER Processes  Environmental stimulation: quantity and quality of stimulation can influence physical development or behavior  Homeyness: physical, design attributes o Design elements  McCraken’s attributes that make a house homey: diminutive, variable, embracing, engaging, mnemonic, aesthetic  A house becomes a home because of cognitive appraisal  various physical forms are symbolic and trigger feelings of familiarity, identity, or place attachment  manifest functions make it a house/shelter; latent functions render a house into a home o religion o gender o culture/ethnicity o eg. Puerto Rican culture and gender roles  home floor plan design  Personal space (interpersonal distance): zone/bubble around your body; when people get too close you feel invaded o Contact vs. non-contact species o Can indicate presence of interpersonal relationships o Factors that influence personal space: age, gender roles, culture, zone density (crowding), physical environment, psychopathology, etc.  Eg. Greece vs. Finland bus stop indicate contact vs. non-contact cultures  E.g. airport seating design  E.g. water fountain proximity (screened vs. not screened)  E.g. ceiling height (higher ceiling  smaller bubble  tolerate smaller interaction distances)  E.g. incarcerated males have bigger bubbles  E.g. anxiety may increase bubble o Theory: bubble gets bigger when crowding density is higher (negative correlation)  paradoxical o Stress and overload  Theory: personal space is a literal buffer  Close interaction  overload of stimulation so personal spaces reduce/regulate levels of stimuli at a level that’s appropriate for you  E.g. galvanic skin response measuring physiological stress o Equilibrium (intimacy regulation)

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When you interact with an individual, you try to maintain an equilibrium of intimacy based on the nature of the relationship  E.g. distance between people and paintings in museums (closer when portrait eyes were closed, vice versa)  eyes open = more intimacy Territoriality: controlling/owning space o Defense and aggression, food supply, marking, dominance o E.g. bird food supply and territory size have negative correlation (more food supply = smaller territory) o E.g. deviation from normal rainfall (e.g. drought, flooding)  interceptor violence (conflict between people)  Drastic changes in rainfall can lead to food supply shortage  conflict o E.g. burglary and territorial sign indicators o E.g. sports advantage at home o Human territoriality that is distinct from above similarities is identity and how our places reflect and reinforce our social identities  Personalizing space with markers  communicate identity  E.g. quality of dorm room personalization has something to do with university students’ performance  E.g UT experiment for personality cues with dorm room  High consensus for conscientious and openness to experience  Highest accuracy for openness to experience o Can be influenced by culture  Eg. Traditional Shi He Yuan: use of multiple gates to demarcate different types of territory  Eg. Native American group territory  E.g. Orthodox beliefs and boundary maps o Feelings of control/ownership in a sorority house Privacy: optimization process of desired social interaction and achieved social interaction o E.g. overcrowding in psychiatrist hospital o Function of self identity, self evaluation and reflection, information regulation and boundary control o Affected by age, culture and ethnicity, design/physical environment  E.g. Indonesia indigenous people housing o Variables: architectural depth, visual exposure vs. access, permeability Housing quality: o Height o Structural quality o E.g. living in a tall/short building may have implications for mental health o E.g. housing quality effects on respiratory problems

 Principles  Person by environment interaction: for most HER processes the effects are not uniform

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o When people respond to the environment, not everyone reacts the same o Eg. Plasticity and critical period  Organism responses to environments are plastic, malleable with respect to environmental influences  Degree of plasticity often varies as a function of particular time periods during development  Critical periods may differ across species and often vary with different environmental dimensions o What is relation between critical period and principle of person x environment interaction?  Eg. cats and altered visual stimulation  Effect of the environment is contingent/moderated/changes based on age of organism (personal characteristic) Environmental determinism: physical environment has direct effect on human health or behavior o Individuals reactions are not influenced by what people think about the environment o Meaning or symbolism of environment does not affect human responses o Eg. Cornell kitchen triangle  has an effect on behavior efficiency  not dependent on meaning or symbolism (cognitive appraisal) o show evidence for environmental determinism and a critical period  eg. hypothetical IQ of first grade children as a function of early lead exposure cognitive appraisal: human reactions to environment are influenced by meaning and symbolism of object or setting o what you think matters (not just influenced by environment) o social identities can alter how we perceived the environment and how it impacts us o eg. architects’ predictions of preference of building structures (designers vs. layperson) o change example (effect of lead on IQ) so that it is influenced by cognitive appraisal  this means that meaning or symbolism re: lead and its impact will create variability in the response  eg. (hypothetical) effect of lead is exaggerated when you have a high anxiety mother as opposed to a low anxiety mother  mechanism might be that high anxiety may change plasticity of your brain and change senses/how you respond to toxins o dual heritage: we’re the products of biological and sociocultural evolution  mechanisms  biological: DNA, genetics, etc.  sociocultural: knowledge, information, etc.

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manifest-latent function o manifest: identified properties, purpose, objective function, explicit meaning o latent: symbolic, sociocultural meanings, values, implicit meaning o eg. manifest functions of home (defense, nutrition, etc.) o eg. latent functions of home (homeyness) o relationship between manifest and latent relates to homeyness  do physical attributes determine homeyness?  no  do other factors influence our cognitive appraisal of residential design o eg. vernacular architecture can lead to gap between designer/architect user-designer gap o incongruence or bad person-environment fit  eg. Brazilian capital design failure due to lack of street life  both latent and manifest  eg. door design  entirely manifest o hypothesis: latent is more likely to lead to incongruence  eg. nursery school toilet design (anthropometric measure of human)  more challenging for more designers (even tho both latent and manifest can lead to incongruence) confounding: some other factor o selection bias as a predominant form of confounding in env psych  how do you know it’s housing quality causing physical and health problems o self selection: to some extent people choose where they live...