SAL-50806 Environmental Psychology

Course

Credits 6.00

Language of instruction:

English

Contents:

This course focuses on the reciprocal relationship between humans and the built and natural environment. Sometimes these relationships have biological roots, and other times they are the product of of personal experience and of culture.
The course introduces the history and scope of the field of environmental psychology and describes the advantages and disadvantages of the methods used to derive scientific knowledge of environment and behaviour relationships. It juxtaposes innate versus learned ways of dealing with the environment. The students learn how natural scenes and qualities benefit humans psychologically and physiologically, how they assess built and natural environment. The psychological approach describes perceptions and cognitions about the environment - input, storage and retrieval of environmental information, including mapping and wayfinding. The course presents the major theories such as arousal, adaptation level, overload, stress, and psychology of aesthetics. Concerning humans and environment relationships the course deals with disturbed environments, the effects of crowding and how humans use space. It all comes down to the question how we can create liveable environments. Therefore the course addresses questions of how we can use design principles in urban-rural planning and landscape architecture.

Aims:

Upon completion of the course, students will:
- have theoretical and conceptual understanding of how interactions between humans and environment take place and influence people psychologically;
- have knowledge of the main theories of environmental psychology;
- understand how environments influence the use of space and the demands for spatial qualities;
- understand how humans respond to disturbed environments;
- be able to carry out simple experiments;
- understand the usefulness of environmental psychology for analysis for policy, planning and design;
- be able to apply some theoretical knowledge in applied research, planning and design related to spatial problems;
- have insight in societal debates about humans and environment relationships.

Activities:

- lectures;
- discussion and literature study;
- simple experiments.

Examination:

Written exam and assignments.

Literature:

Course outline available. Literature to be announced.