Methods

One of the key issues which has dogged environmental psychology throughout its past has been the lack of an appropriate or specific methodology. The principles and assumptions underlying environmental psychology all seem to converge on the notion of some holistic, integrating discipline which is rather at odds with reductionist experimental work. However it is the case that vast amounts of research in environmental psychology IS conducted using just those methods. In some ways the best way to avoid criticism is to be a moving target, so environmental psychology has adopted a variety of techniques from other areas of psychology and claims to be eclectic and pragmatic in their use. And, I guess most environmental psychologists would say that looking at the results from a variety of methods and attempting a synthesis or meta-analysis is somewhere along the right sort of lines. 

Problems:

In attempting ot cope with the complexity and richness of environment person transactions, one of the first difficulties is where and what do you attempt to measure? For instance in environmental perception it is hypothesised that there is a sequence of the form: stimulus—perception—feelings/emotions—behavioural expression. If this is so where do you interrupt and do your measures? Are all points/variables equally valid?

Secondly there is the age-old problem of reactivity. If you are measuring real people in real environments there are all the problems of breaking in on, and altering the behaviour which you are interested in, and that can happen just by means of your physical presence or you might have a retrospective effect by making a respondent to an interview etc reconstruct their past experience in the light of their perception of the social situation which you have put them in. If you adopt the method of being a covert/unobtrusive observer, indirect measurer of someone else’s life and behaviour, how do you do this ethically?

The third major problem is that of representativeness. Real behaviour happens in real time and may be very transient. Total recording is impossible, and even with good video recording etc much will be missed. If you could retain all behaviour, then how could that possibly be analysed in any meaningful way in any real time?  Measuring will always involve selection, and environmental psychologists have to make many decisions as to the nature of the sampling procedures which they use.  All decisions will have a down side to them and all decisions made will yield far from perfect data to base theories or decisions upon. 

So in summary, how to measure what, & when; and how do you manage the ethical dimension? These are questions which are hard to answer. The ethical question is one which we will need to consider over a wide variety of research.

a) Types of human response to aspects of the environment

  1. Behaviour (Indirectly recorded)
  2. Observers using rating scales
  3. Official documents/statistics
  4. Information tests
  5. Retrospective case studies
  6. Interest tests
  7. Follow-up of occupancy changes to  houses or rooms
  8. Follow-up of physical modifications to building
  9. Analysis of complaints/suggestions
  10. Wear and tear analysis
  11. Content analysis of newspapers etc
  12. Use of models to reproduce behaviour

 

b) Methods of measuring those responses

Behaviour (Directly recorded at time)

  1. Behaviour mapping Observers using behaviour and position coding
  2. Observation of behaviour settings verbal description
  3. Video/sound recording
  4. Interception and monitoring messages
  5. Hodometer (automatic floor contact record)
  6. Path recording/tracking
  7. Behaviour checklists used by observers
  8. Samples of performance (Psychological tests)
  9. Physiological records
  10. Spatial position analysis (floor grid observation)
  11. Activity self-reports by time sample
  12. Counting classifying dyadic encounters

Verbal report by person (past or current behaviour)

  1. Interviews
  2. Questionnaires
  3. Self-report schedules
  4. Sociometric analyis of reported behaviour
  5. Poll and open-ended survey questions

Feelings and emotions (Directly recorded)

  1. Physiological recording GSR etc

Feelings and emotions (Indirectly recorded)

  1. Inference from behaviour—smiles/sighs/yawns
  2. Inference from performance tasks

Post hoc verbal statement (Verbal unstructured)

  1. Open-ended questionnaires
  2. Interviews
  3. Sentence completion
  4. Story completion

Post hoc verbal statement (Verbal structured)

  1. Scales (Thurstone/Likert etc) Custom built or standardized
  2. Forced-choice instruments
  3. Paired-comparisons
  4. Ranking preferences
  5. Information tests
  6. Sociometry matrices etc

Attention, perceptions & cognitions - Post hoc representation graphic

  1. Cognitive maps
  2. Route maps
  3. Image maps (detail)
  4. Lewin “life space” diagrams
  5. Social schemata (Keuthe)
  6. Selective recall tasks
  7. Image sampling on spatial basis. e.g. street names, room numbers etc
  8. Psycho-physical measures of perceived distance/direction
  9. Reproduction of bodily image
  10. Choice of equivalent structure

Attention, perceptions & cognitions - Post hoc representation verbal

  1. Adjective check list
  2. Semantic differential
  3. Repertory grids
  4. Scales (refined by factor analysis)
  5. Scales cumulative (Guttman)
  6. Psarchigraphs (Canter)
  7. Free description of schemata
  8. Q-sorts

Attitudes/preferences Non-verbal/projective

  1. Binocular rivalry
  2. Tachistoscopic presentation
  3. Cartoons with empty balloons (Rosenweig)
  4. Ambiguous situations (Proshansky)
  5. Models/dolls to elicit attitudes

Attitudes/preferences  Verbal unstructured

  1. Open-ended questionnaires
  2. Interviews
  3. Sentence completion
  4. Story completion

Attitudes/preferences Verbal Structured

  1. Scales (Thurstone/Likert etc) – Custom built or standardized
  2. Forced choice instruments
  3. Paired comparisons
  4. Ranking preferences
  5. Information tests
  6. Sociometry matrices etc
So I guess it would be difficult for anyone to criticise environmental psychology for not being a truly applied area of psychology as it seems to draw on virtually all of the other traditions in the discipline .