What Is Environmental Psychology? Paper

What is Environmental Psychology? Paper

What is Environmental Psychology?

When thinking about the environment humans, animals, plants, and other living things come to mind. It can be important for a human to have a relationship with their surroundings; it can be a component that defines them and their growth. There may be a person who lives in a different part of the world where it can be remote and their view on psychological structure can be differently viewed than someone who lives in a society with a more civilized area. The people who live in a remote area tend to eat differently than the people in the more populated area, they region determines how they will eat. If a person lives in an area where they have to kill for their food, they will have to trap it, kill it and prepare it in a way that is safe. For a person living in a civilized society it will be easier to get their hands on food, they may go to a restaurant, grocery store, or get fast food. The difference between the two societies is that their instincts and drives are different from each other. This paper will discuss the definition of the discipline of environmental psychology, compare and contrast two theoretical approaches to environmental psychology, and explain the importance of research in the field of environmental psychology.

Define the Discipline of Environmental Psychology

Environmental psychology is the connection between both people and their physical environments; they can be natural or artificial environments. The difference between the two can be that natural environment is nature, where there are no manmade structures; artificial environment is the opposite, where there are manmade structures. A couple things that may influence human behavior based on their environment may be material objects, plants, animals, and other humans. Psychologists in this field strive to understand the holistic and naturalistic adaptations of humans that occur according to the setting in which they interact (Mathew 2001). Humans may be defined by both internally and externally and the difference is that internally is how a person preserves themselves with their own experience with life personally, and externally it is how a person is linked to the environment and the influences of its elements (Clayton & Myers 2009). The most powerful external force that may change human condition can be society.

Compare and Contrast Two Theoretical Approaches to Environmental Psychology

There are several divisions that this discipline of psychology can be broken into; the two main focuses in this paper will be behavioral geography and environmental aesthetics. Behavioral geography deals with cognitive maps of the individual related to his/ or his environment. Behavioral geography looks