What is Environmental Psychology?

Since the first of our ancestors set up a home and cared about the experiences of people living there, there has been environmental psychology.

Whenever people developing or managing spaces have cared about making sure that people, individually and in groups, work to their full potential, get along with others, think creatively, or, in short, do or don’t do a myriad of things, environmental psychologists have been at work. Environmental psychology was formally recognized as a field in the 1960s by the American Psychological Association and others.

Environmental psych was originally known as architectural psychology but changed its name to environmental psych to recognize that some research and practical work involves the design of objects. Today, environmental psychologists study and help create all sorts of areas, indoors and out, all with the goal of helping people live the sorts of lives they have planned, via design.

Environmental psychologists consider issues such as:

How are our emotions and behaviour affected by surface colours? Patterns? Colours of light? What about light intensity?
How do textures influence us emotionally? Are some naturally calming? Is it important whether we see them or feel them?
How do sounds affect our mental state? What sorts of noises delight us? Frustrate us? Help us concentrate?
How can scents help us learn (and remember) technical material? Be creative? Avoid claustrophobia? Feel healthier? Buy more?
How do room and object dimensions influence us psychologically? What about ceiling heights and floor plans?
How should design recognize and respond, in different settings, to our species’ most basic drives to survive and thrive?
How do shapes (seen or felt) mold our experiences? When should they be curvier or more rectilinear?
How should personality and culture inform design decisions? Are there times when they can be ignored?

Environmental psychology has informed the design of:

Workplaces culminating in the current activity-based ones that provide office zones that support collaborating, concentrating, socializing, refreshing and revitalizing . . .
Healthcare facilities, maternity, end-of-life, and cancer treatment areas, for example, as well as patient rooms
Stores that support different sorts of product purchases as well as sales of luxury or more utilitarian goods
Homes for neuro-typicals and neuro-atypicals

EDITORIAL FROM OUR SPACE DOCTOR, DR SALLY AUGUSTIN