Experiencing the Environment PDF
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Experiencing the Environment Experiencing the Environment Edited by Seymour Wapner, Saul B. Cohen, and Bernard Kaplan Clark University PLENUM PRESS· NEW YORK AND LONDON Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Main entry under title: Experiencing tile environment. Papers from a conference held by Clark University at the Warren Center, Ashland, Mass., Jan. 7·8, 1975. Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Environmental psychology-Congresses. I. Wapner, Seymour, 1917· n. Cohen, Saul Bernard, nI. Kaplan, Bernard, 1925- BF353.E9 155.9 75-37839 ISBN-13:987-1-4613-4261-8 e-ISBN-13:987-1-4613-4259-5 DOl: 10.1007/987-1-4613-4259-5 Kenneth H. Craik and the publisher gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint ma terial quoted in Chapter IV, ''The Personality Research Paradigm in Environmental Psychology." "Franklin Jones" (p. 58) from Edgar Lee Masters' Spoon River Anthology is reprinted by permission of Ellen C. Masters (Mrs. Edgar Lee Masters) and The Macmillan Company. The extracts (p. 58) from H. Nicolson's The Development ot English Biography are reprinted by permission of me aumor's literary estate and me Hogarth Press. The extract (p. 66) from I. L. Child's "Problems of personality and some relations to anthropology and sociology," which was published in Psychology; A Study of Science, Volume 5, edited by S. Kock, is reprinted by permission of McGraw-Hill Book Company. The extract (p. 69) from R. G. Barker's Ecological Psychology; Concepts and Meth ods for StUdying the Environment ot Human Behavior is reprinted by permission of Stanford University Press. The extract (pp. 69-70) from N. S. Endler's ''The person versus me situation-a pseudo issue? A response to Alker," Journal ot Personality 41, 287-303 (1973), is reprinted by permission of Duke University Press. ©1976 Plenum Press, New York Softcover reprint of the bardeover 1st edition 1976 A Division of Plenum Publishing Corporation 227 West 17th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 United Kingdom edition published by Plenum Press, London A Division of Plenum Publishing Company, Ltd. Davis House (4th Floor), 8 Scrubs Lane, Harlesden, London, NWI0 6SE, England All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, witltout written permission from the Publisher Contributors Saul B. Cohen Brian R. Little Clark University University of British Columbia Worcester, Massachusetts Vancouver, British Columbia David Lowenthal Kenneth H. Craik University College London University of California United Kingdom Berkeley, California Albert Mehrabian Karen A. Franck University of California The City University of New York Los Angeles, California New York, New York Timothy J. O'Hanlon The City University of N.ew York William H. Ittdson New York, New York The City University of New York New York, New York Hugh C. Prince University College London Bernard Kaplan United Kingdom Clark University James A. Russell Worcester, Massachusetts University of California Los Angeles, California Robert W. Kates Clark University Seymour Wapner Worcester, Massachusetts Clark University Worcester, Massachusetts Sandra Kirmeyer Allan W. Wicker Claremont Graduate School Claremont Graduate School Claremont, California Claremont, California Imre Kohn Joachim F. Wohlwill Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania State University University Park, Pennsylvania University Park, Pennsylvania v Contents I. Introduction ............................................ . The Editors II. Some Behavioral Effects of the Physical Environment. . . . . . . . . . . . 5 James A. Russell and Albert Mehrabian III. Dimensionalizing the Environmental Manifold. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 19 Joachim F. Wohlwill and lmre Kohn IV. The Personality Research Paradigm in Environmental Psychology 55 Kenneth H. Craik V. Specialization and the Varieties of Environmental Experience: Empirical Studies within the Personality Paradigm . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 81 Brian R. Little VI. Transcendental Experience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 117 David Lowenthal and Hugh C. Prince VII. Experiencing the Environment as Hazard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 133 Robert W. Kates VIII. From Church to Laboratory to National Park: A Program of Research on Excess and Insufficient Populations in Behavior Settings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 157 Allan W. Wicker and Sandra Kirmeyer IX. The Nature of Environmental Experience ..................... 187 William H. luelson, Karen A. Franck, and Timothy j. Q'Hanlon X. Exploratory Applications of the Organismic-Developmental Approach to Transactions of Men-in-Environments ............. 207 Bernard Kaplan, Seymour Wapner, and Saul B. Cohen XI. Afterword............................................... 235 The Editors Author Index 237 Subject Index 241 vii I Introduction The purpose of this volume is to explore theory, problem formulation, and methodology in "experiencing the environment." In this embryonic field, the writings of a number of individuals already stand out as representative of dis tinctive viewpoints. In order to facilitate further development of the field, a conference! was proposed to gather in one place representatives of a number of major viewpoints with regard to the embryonic field of "environmental psychology." It was hoped that a colloquy among such representatives would facilitate a clarification of the similarities and differences between the various perspectives, and might enable proponents of any given point of view to benefit from the insights of others with different orientations. Hopefully, it might also promote a greater articulation for this emerging field of inquiry. With these ends in mind, the sponsors of the conference asked the various prospective participants to present their theoretical positions and representative research illustrative of those positions. Some of the perspectives represented at the conference emphasized the point that the construal of phenomena depends heavily on the values and needs of perceivers. Implicit in this kind of position is the thesis that anyone who seeks to describe a complex happening is likely to shape it in terms of presup positions, biases, etc., that may not be shared by others. With this caveat in mind, we present here for the convenience of the reader brief synopses of the positions taken in the papers that are presented in the chapters that follow. These synopses are intended solely as a provisional guide to the body of ma terial presented at the conference. Any of the authors, including ourselves, might take exception to our preliminary summary of what they have written. The first paper, by James A. Russell and Albert Mehrabian, offers an assessment of the individual's experience of environments in terms of his responsivity to three personally determined aspects of physical environments, viz., pleasantness, arousal quality, and dominance-eliciting quality. In the I This book consists principally of the papers presented at the conference devoted to the theme "Experiencing the Environment." This conference, held under the auspices of Clark University and supported by funds from a NSF Department Science Development Grant to the Psychology Department (GU 03173), took place on January 7-8, 1975, at the Warren Center, Ashland, Massachusetts. 1 2 INTRODUCTION study they report, these qualities of environments are determined by judgments made on rating scales with regard to photographic slides of various physical en vironments. Their guiding thesis is that environmental settings elicit emotions, describable in terms of the three dimensions, and that these emotions mediate other behaviors, e.g., affiliation with others, exploration behavior, the desire to stay or the desire to leave. The second paper, by Joachim F. Wohlwill and Imre Kohn, is chiefly concerned with the establishment of functional relationships between attributes of the physical environment and particular aspects of behavior. The main goal guiding their research is the generalization of laws and relationships es tablished under highly controlled, artificial laboratory settings to complex nonlaboratory environmental settings. In the paper, they discuss and illustrate the problems involved in such an attempt at generalization with regard to envi ronmental preferences; the relationship between levels of stimulation, preference, and maximally effective behavioral functioning; and the evaluation of new environments in terms of adaptation level to prior environments. The next paper by Kenneth H. Craik, focuses on the role of personality variables and dispositional properties of environments in determining the modes of behavior manifested by individuals in different settings. Craik's main thesis seems to be twofold: that a knowledge of personality dispositions enables some degree of prediction as to behavior in everyday environments; and that behavior in everyday environments may serve to advance the understanding of personality dispositions. He proposes an analysis of person-environment interaction in terms of variables constituting three abstractly distinguishable systems, viz., personal system, societal system, and environmental system. In his work, he emphasizes that features constituting the different systems may be viewed now as independent variables and now as dependent variables. Brian R. Little, in his paper, takes off from the work of personologists such as Craik. His main thesis is that individuals may be categorized in terms of their specialized cognitive, affective, and behavioral relations to the persons and things comprising environments. In his article, he distinguishes thing-spe cialists, person-specialists, generalists who are oriented to both persons and things, and the nonspecialist who has apparently no developed orientation toward either persons or things. He devotes some attention to the development of specialist orientations, and discusses the application of his typology to students, scientists, schizophrenics, and researchers into environmental psychology. The paper by the geographers, David Lowenthal and Hugh C. Prince, provides a markedly different perspective for examining environmental experience. They are chiefly concerned with "transcendental modes of experience," with the search for environmental pleasures that go beyond utili- INTRODUCTION 3 tarian satisfactions, pleasures that serve to enhance rather than ref/ect ordinary life. In their work, they consider both individual modes of transcendence and forms of projected environments preferred by different national groups. Eschewing survey techniques and other social science instruments, they look at art, music, and literature to provide-insights into the search for environmental pleasure, which they take as a fundamental striving of the truly human being. In his paper, Robert W. Kates considers the implications of the long-range work of a group of geographers on environmental hazards for the problem of experiencing the environment. The principal focus in Kates' paper is on the factors that contribute to the experience of environments as hazardous. He em phasizes the role of the perceiver in determining whether a given environment is to be taken as hazardous or not, and also deals with the attempts of those oc cupying a hazardous environment to cope with the dangers of such an environ ment. He examines the measures that are taken by occupants of a hazardous environment to forestall the effects of hazards, to share losses, to modify the events, etc. The paper by Allan W. Wicker and Sandra Kirmeyer stems from the ecological perspective of Roger Barker. Using both laboratory and field techniques, the authors examine the effects of different conditions of manning in behavioral settings on the subjective experiences, levels of performance, and the character of the verbal interaction of group members. Their work is chiefly directed toward a better understanding of the role of overmanning and under manning in behavioral settings on inner psychological states and overt behaviors of individuals operating or participating in such settings. The next paper, by William H. Ittelson, Karen A. Franck, and Timothy J. O'Hanlon, is rooted in the transactional framework and argues that it is specious to separate environmental experience, agent's action, and the environ ment in itself; the individual is part of the system he experiences. This viewpoint is taken to entail a general methodological standpoint: One cannot generalize from one system to another, but is enjoined to use a variety of dif ferent kinds of approaches. The individual in any system is a continuing product of his own active endeavors to create a world for himself in which he can function optimally and achieve his own pattern of satisfaction. Because of the transaction character of experience, it is not possible to come to any defini tive picture of environments without considering the needs and actions of indi viduals engaged in transactions with environments. In the last article, your editors and their collaborators illustrate the application by psychologists and geographers of the organismic-developmental approach to the issue of experiencing novel environments. We discuss and criti cize a number of different methods we have used in a variety of studies, ranging from orthodox investigations of group differences to clinical studies of individual 4 INTRODUCTION experience. The paper discusses the relationship between these different methods and presents tentative conclusions as to the nature of concrete environmental experience of individuals on the basis of a collocation of the different techniques. So much for our synopses, our provisional map .... We hope that our readers will now turn to each of the papers to derive their own understanding of the different viewpoints presented herein, and to construct their own more refined maps of those sectors of the field of environmental psychology represented in this work. We wish to acknowledge the efforts of the following institutions and indi viduals who have made both the conference and this book possible: The Na tional Science Foundation, whose Departmental Science Development grant to the Psychology Department of Clark University supported the conference; Clark University, which served as the host institution for the conference; Patricia Dandonoli, Shinji Ishii, and Steven Schwartz, Clark students who helped with conference organization and preparation; Mary O'Malley of Clark University for her aid in transcribing the proceedings; and Emelia Thamel for her indefatigable managerial efforts in supervising all the work connected with the preconference planning, conduct of the conference, and organization of this book. We are also indebted to Joanne Bennett for her imaginative approach to the preparation of the index. SEYMOl'R WAP:\ER SAUL B. COHE1\ BERNARD KAPLA:\ I I Some Behavioral Effects of the Physical Environment JAMES A. RUSSELL and ALBERT MEHRABIAN Abstract: It was hypothesized that the physical environment elicits an emotional response, which then influences subsequent behaviors. Settings presented by photographic slides were first rated on their pleasantness, arousing quality, and dominance-eliciting quality. A separate sample of subjects was then asked to rate their desire to drink, smoke, affiliate, explore, and stay in those settings. As hypothesized, pleasure due to the setting increased affiliation, exploration, and stay ing. The familiar inverted-U hypothesis, that these three behaviors are all maximized at moderate levels of arousal, must be modified to include an interaction effect with pleasure: The optimum level of arousal is positively correlated with pleasure. It was found that dominance mediated the effect of the setting on affiliation and that smoking and drinking occurred while in a mood created by having been in undesirable settings. The results confirmed predictions based on a review of studies that used diverse methodologies, and thus indicated that slides provide a valid method of studying the effects of environments on behavior. The present study investigated the effects of the physical environment on several behaviors, and explored the validity of using photographic slides of en vironments to assess those effects. A review of the available literature suggested that the effects of the physical environment on behavior are mediated by emo tional responses to that environment. Mehrabian and Russell (1974, chap. 2) proposed three independent and bipolar dimensions to summarize the emo tional impact of physical settings: pleasure-displeasure, degree of arousal, and dominance-submissi veness. Analogues of these emotional dimensions were repeatedly identified in JAMES A. RUSSELL and ALBERT MEHRABIAN • Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles, California. 5
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