Methodology in Environmental Psychology

1
Methodology in Environmental Psychology
2
Methods in Environmental Psychology

• Does environmental psychology need unique
  methodology?
• Environmental psychology uses methodology drawn
  from a variety of different disciplines and areas
  of psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Social psychology
• Perception
• Sociology
• Epidemiology
• Geography
• Architecture

3
Methods

• Projective techniques
• Rationale
• Thematic Apperception Test (TAT)
• Cognitive mapping (developed by Kevin Lynch,
  geographer)
• Social schemata, figure placement, dolls, cutouts
  etc.

4
Methods

• Observational techniques
• Behaviour mapping
• Ecological psychology (Roger Barker)
• Self-observational techniques (time budgets,
  diaries, etc.)

5
Ecological Psychology (Roger Barker)

• Frustration-Aggression Hypothesis
• Behaviour Settings
• Staffing Theory
• Overstaffed Setting
• Understaffed Setting

6
Methods

• Unobtrusive measurement
• Rationale
• Triangulation using different types of measures
  to see if the same relationship is obtained with
  both reactive and nonreactive measures. If
  several imperfect measures provide the same
  result, then there is confidence that the
  relationship really exists and is not an artifact
  of the measurement process. By using both
  reactive and nonreactive measures, one can
  estimate the distortion caused by reactivity.

7
Types of Unobtrusive (nonreactive) Measures

• Erosion the wearing away of a substance
• Accretion the depositing of a substance (e.g.,
  litter, fingerprints,)
• Archival data any sort of recorded information
  (e.g., government records, cartoons, photographs,
  newspaper articles, public health data, etc.)
• Hardware assisted observations (e.g., hodometer
  in art gallery study)

8
Methods

• Correlational techniques
• Urban sociology
• Correlation (association) does not imply
  causation
• In some areas of investigations, there is simply
  no alternative methodology (e.g., community noise)

9
Methods

• Experimental methods (importance of random
  assignment of subjects to treatment conditions)
• Laboratory
• Field