Environmental Psychology Term Paper

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Environmental Psychology

The objective of this paper is to examine the discipline of environmental psychology with an additional goal of defining it and comparing and contrasting some underlying theoretical approaches to environmental psychology. "Developmental psychology, as a discipline, is currently undergoing a paradigmatic/world view change. Consequently, several different theoretical approaches to the study of development and the life course have been proposed and advocated." (Wolf, 2009) There are three major world views and some developmental issues in regard to environmental psychology and this short response will attempt to outline them.

To begin, it is best to define the subject matter. Environmental psychology studies the ways in which humans perceive their environment. Human beings have certain ways in which they interact with their environment. Environmental psychology examines and makes assumptions based on these interactions such as interpretation, evaluation, operation, and response to stimuli. The bulk of environmental psychology focuses on a notion of behavioral geography which tries to understand the processes of interpretation and evaluation. By understanding these areas, environmental psychologists hone in on the description of images, milieus, and other perceived mental maps. Consider how changes in our physical world or our immediate physical space alter our thoughts and behaviors because humans relate to the physical stimuli and therefore our behavior is affected.

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There have been major world views identified that can be considered to influence this specialty. As early as 1942, three world vies were identified and they are the organismic, mechanistic, and contextual world views. "A worldview (or "world view") is a set of assumptions about physical and social reality that may have powerful effects on cognition and behavior. Lacking a comprehensive model or formal theory up to now, the construct has been underused." (Koltko-Rivera, p.1) The approach of environmental psychology has been greatly enhanced since world views can now be distinguished from schemas, there is a more comprehensive collated model of the world view's component dimensions, there are more clear integrated theories and the overall world view function has been outlined through the relations of the 'world view to personality traits, motivation, affect, cognition, behavior, and culture.'

One objective of this piece is to compare and contrast two major theoretical approaches to environmental psychology. The primary approaches are the structural and the information processing/cognitive. The information processing/cognitive approach most often relates to the….....

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