Living in Cities: Psychology and the Urban EnvironmentThis book covers a large selection of the recent literature on environmental psychology. It defines the discipline and then goes on to provide many examples of its application and controversies. Much of the text consists of critical evaluations of a large number of studies of the relationship between behavior and environment, although more of it seems to be concerned with general person-environment relationships than with the specific effect of the urban environment upon people. The author optimistically suggests that people can learn to adapt successfully to much higher densities if this becomes necessary, yet concludes that environmental psychology cannot yet answer the question of what is an 'optimum' environment for people or what is the 'best' person for any environment. The state of the art is still primitive and the results of studies in environmental psychology are contradictory and open to much interpretation. However, they may delineate the range of possibilities that lie open, and may guide planners to make more rational environmental choices in the future. |
Contents
Important Questions in Environmental Psychology | 11 |
The How of Environmental Psychology | 41 |
Architectural Determinism | 70 |
Copyright | |
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activity adaptation Altman American animal architects architectural determinism architectural psychology areas arousal assertion associated attitudes Barker behavioural scientist building Calhoun cerebral cortex child concept cortex Craik crime crowded room culture ecological psychology effects enclosure environmental psychology example expect experience experimental factors Faris and Dunham feet Festinger Firstly function high-rise homeostasis homogeneity housing human behaviour important individual Journal Kessler Lipman living looking man-environment Masters and Johnson ment mental mice mother neighbour neighbourhood unit Newsons overcrowding pattern people's perception perhaps Perry personal space physical environment planners planning play population density problem proxemic Pruitt-Igoe question rates rats relationship residential reticular formation role schema schemata schizophrenic sensory deprivation situation social class social interaction Social Psychology spatial status stimuli subjects suggests territorial animal theory tion town urban variables Westgate working-class