Ecological Psychology: in Pursuit of Sustainability

Ecological Psychology: In Pursuit of Sustainability

Rosa M. McDonald

North Carolina State University

DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology

Introduction

This paper provides a brief history of the theoretical influences and notable historical figures that were instrumental in the development of Ecological Psychology, followed by a review of the metaphysical assumptions underlying the Ecological Psychology framework. An analysis of the employability of Ecological Psychology in design and design research is reviewed, along with two environmental design research studies employing the theoretical perspective, to illustrate how the epistemological and methodological approaches of Ecological Psychology fit within design inquiry. The paper argues that although as organisms in our environment we perceive on a limited ecological scale of time and space, this limited scale does not permit humans to take into account phenomena that occur over longer periods of time such as climate change, pollution, and extinctions, yet are directly related to our interactions with our environments. This paper charges Ecological Psychology to broaden its scope of how it defines what is relevant, providing the opportunity for the theoretical perspective to be a lens through which we can better understand our perception of longer-term phenomena as it relates to our interaction with the environment.

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Table of Contents

Historical Background and Theoretical Influences Main Principles of Ecological Psychology Perception-Action Loop and Perceptual Systems Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity Affordances Development and Learning Metaphysical Assumptions Ontological Epistemological Methodological Areas of Concern and Focus Ecological Psychology in Design and Design Research Two Studies Affordances of Ward and Garden in the Restorative Process of Hospitalized Children GIS mapping and analysis of behaviour in small urban public spaces Ecological Psychology in Architecture and Horticultural Design: Energy and Biophilia References Suggested Readings

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Historical Background and Theoretical Influences

Ecological Psychology, pioneered by James J. Gibson in the field of perception, emerged from the influences of several theoretical perspectives and historical figures (Lobo, Heras-Escribano, & Travieso, 2018, p.2). According to Lobo, et. al. (2018) the main theoretical influences that shaped Ecological Psychology were pragmatism, behaviorism, gestalt psychology, and phenomenology (p. 2), and these perspectives developed during early phases of qualitative research history in which the social sciences were still highly influenced by positivist approaches (Patton, 2002, p. 79). The “traditional period,” yielding pragmatism, gestalt psychology, and behaviorism, lasted until World War II, and was characterized by a strong positivist influence for objectivity (Patton, 2002, p. 79). As a student of Edwin Holt at Princeton, Gibson was introduced to pragmatism, a theory advanced by Holt’s professor, William James, beginning in the 1870s. Pragmatism claimed that “knowledge comes from experience, which is taken as the capacity of engaging into meaningful interactions with the world,” and “meaningful interactions include objects of perception, the relations among those objects, and also the relations of those objects to us” (Lobo, et. al, p. 2). Because knowledge comes from meaningful interactions between us and the world, pragmatists claim that “individuals can never know the world independently of their own experience.” (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p. 2). In addition, in contrast to the positivist approach to scientific study pragmatists claimed that “practical consequences should be taken as more relevant than abstract principles to explain scientific practices, ethics, and cognition” (Lobo, et.al, 2018, p. 2). Sharing the view of knowledge through meaningful interactions between the organism and its environment, pragmatism serves as a foundation for Ecological Psychology. Gestalt Theory, established by Koffka in the 1910s, proposed that mental organization mimics the physical properties of the environment, and therefore there is a distinction between the mental and physical worlds. Although Gibson adopted the Gestaltist “ideas of the irreducible aspect of our experience” and “stimulus as having a functional relation with the perceiver,” he refuted the mental/physical distinction that memories of visually perceived forms are mentally reproduced (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p. 3-4). In contrast to Gestalt Psychology, Gibson did not agree that the character of perceived objects is mentally imposed, but instead proposed that they are actually part of the physical world. From this understanding Gibson adopted the idea of the search for an ecologically lawful description, which was not lawful “in the Newtonian sense of being universal in space and time, but in an ecological sense of being regular within an

3 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology ecological context of constraint” (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p. 6). These ideas influenced Gibson’s concepts of affordances and ecological scale, “the psychological level for explaining behavior” (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p.3-4). The Gestalt Psychologist Kurt Lewin (1890-1947) was influential in many concepts that led to Ecological Psychology. Lewin developed Field Theory in the 1940s whose main principle was that “in order to explain human behavior we need to look at the environment where this behavior unfolds” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 19). He claimed that the “stream of activity that we call human behavior results from the continuing interaction of factors within the person with external factors, coming from the environment” and he attempted to capture this concept through what he called “life space” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 19). Illustrating the influence of positivism on social sciences at the time, Lewin proposed a mathematical formula of B = f(PE) to describe behavior (B) as a function of the “interaction of personality and other individual factors (P), and the perceived environment of the individual (E)” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 19). The influence of positivist methodologies illustrated here will develop alongside Ecological Psychology and become a foundation for the epistemological and methodological approaches of the theoretical perspective. The term “ecological psychology” was coined by Roger Barker (1903-1990), a student of Lewin’s at Stanford University. The concepts of Lewin appealed to Barker who had an appreciation for more in situ studies of behavior, but Barker rejected Gestalt Psychology for the more positivist-oriented situational postulates of behaviorism because he was not convinced of the importance of personality. Barker observed that “behavior outcomes of individuals can be predicted more accurately on the basis of the situation in which they are located, rather than on the grounds of their personality” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 19). In the 1960s Barker developed the Behavior Setting Theory which claimed that “the world has a systematic and holistic nature and the different parts of each system can be viewed as sub-systems, too” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 19). He defined a behavior setting as “a standing pattern of behavior-and-milius, with the milieu circumjacent and synomorphic to the behavior so that he can account for the relationship between the behavior that most people reveal in a particular situation and the structural characteristics of that situation” (Popov & Chompalov, 2012, p. 20). It is worth noting that what was initially referred to as Ecological Psychology by Barker, is now commonly referred to as Environmental Psychology, while a slightly different version of Ecological Psychology, which focuses on perception, persists.

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While Holt was not a behaviorist, he did accept the idea of consciousness as an activity, rather than an object of study, and adopted behaviorist methods. Holt had another student, Tolman, who “emphasized purposive behavior” through his idea of manipulanda for explaining behavior-support (Lobo, et. al, p. 3). In 1932 Tolman theorized, “behavior-support were characters in the environment that helped behavior-acts to go without disruption” and “manipulanda were the characters of objects that supported motor activity (properties such as lengths, fluidities, or solidities) that were not defined ‘in themselves’ but with regard to the kinds of manipulations that they support for a given organism (sit-in-able-nesses, pick-up-able-nesses, etc.” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.3). Due to the similarities between manipulanda and affordances Lobo et. al. (2018) deducts that the former inspired the latter (p. 3). Gibson rejected the behaviorist idea of external stimulus, first, because stimuli were measured in units standardized by physics and therefore were unrelated to the capacity of the agent, and second, because of the behaviorist claim that stimuli were received passively by the senses. Instead, Ecological Psychology “emphasized the active exploratory role of the agent” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.3). Phenomenology, proposed by Merleau-Ponty around the mid-1940s, emerged during the “modernist phase,” a period when “qualitative researchers emphasized methodological rigor and procedural formalism” (Patton, 2002, p. 79). Phenomenology offers “a direct description of our experience as it is without taking account of its psychological origin and the causal explanations” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.4). Phenomenologists claim that “perceiving is the primordial way of knowing, but perception is the result of comporting toward the surrounding objects in a meaningful sense” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.4). Exploratory capacities of the agent are active, causing signs to appear that guide action. “The environment also guides and constrains behavior through signs, and those signs are also partially generated by the active capacities of agents” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.4). From phenomenology, Gibson adopted the notion of direct perception of our environment through sensory systems, as opposed to indirect perception through instruments. Gibson rejected the phenomenological notion of perception without taking into account the psychological or causal explanations, as he believed that the perception of the agent and action in the environment were part of the same cycle. Ecological Psychology emerged during the “blurred genres phase,” a period lasting from 1970 until the mid-1980s, when a large number of alternative approaches with overlapping principles, emerged. This blurring of theoretical boundaries is evident in the many influences that led to the conception of Ecological Psychology.

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Main Principles of Ecological Psychology

According to Lobo, et. al. (2018) “the main principles of ecological psychology are the continuity of perception and action, the organism-environment system as unit of analysis, the study of affordances as the objects of perception, combined with an emphasis on perceptual learning and development” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.1).

Perceptual Systems and Perception-Action Loop Ecological psychologists argue that senses should not be thought of as subpersonal systems that are stimulated through receptors to produce a sensory impression or a mental representation, but instead senses should be thought of as perceptual systems. In this way “perceptual systems orient the perceptual organs” such as visual, auditory, and olfactory organs, and helps the organism make adjustments in exploration and the picking-up of ecological information (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p. 5). Lobo, et. al. (2018) explains:

“animals evolved not only to be sensitive to sensory stimuli, but also to detect ecological information. What is needed for this is not only the subpersonal neural pathways and systems, but also a range of behaviors that are instrumental in revealing and picking-up ecological information: these behaviors extend to the eye-brain connection and include movements in the eyes, head, and body that facilitate the detection of ecological information in the array. Thus, a sense modality is considered as a perceptual system when it includes this range of behaviors of the animal taken as a whole” (p. 5).

The picking up of ecological information is the reason why the “organism and environment are entangled in action-perception dynamics” (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p. 5). Gibson disagreed with the cognitivist description of perception for action “as a unidirectional function, in which perception guided action, not as a perception-action loop.” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p. 7) In contrast, “Gibson’s idea of perceptual systems implied that there is an intrinsic coordination of perception and action when one of these systems is functioning,” creating a perception-action loop in which “perception and action are...mutual, reciprocal, and symmetrically constraining” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p. 5).

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Organism-Environment System, Ecological Information, and Specificity Pragmatism and its relation to Darwinian ideas influenced Ecological Psychology to reject positivist organism-environment dualism (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p. 5). Instead Ecological Psychologists claim that the organism and environment are inseparably linked in an organism-environment system. Gibson (1979) wrote: “it is often neglected that the words animal and environment make an inseparable pair. Each term implies the other. No animal could exist without an environment surrounding it. Equally, although not so obvious, an environment implies an animal (or at least an organism) to be surrounded” (p.4).

In the search for an ecologically lawful description, Gibson focused on the language of how we perceive what is meaningful. Lobo, et. al. (2018) explains that: “the difference between world and environment is key, because the world is the surroundings of the animals described in terms of physics, while the environment is the surroundings described in ecological terms: this is, taking them as related to the organism’s capacities” (p. 6).

For Gibson, environmental realities were the relevant realities for a psychological explanation because they related to the organism’s capacities, so they were meaningful. Organisms need to detect meaningful information to behave properly, and the ambient optic array helps facilitate this by showing the organism the different possibilities for acting in the environment (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p. 6). Light is selectively absorbed and reflected by the surfaces of objects. As light reverberates off surfaces, it fills the air, as a medium, with ambient light of various qualities because the surfaces differ in orientation, shape, texture, and pigmentation. Gibson explains that “the information in the array is not located in individual points of stimulation, but in the structure of the whole pattern” (Gibson, 1979, p. 132) The information is ecological because it shows how the surroundings can be utilized based on the perceiver’s point of observation and the capabilities of the agent. According to Lobo, et. al. (2018) “the perceptual system detects information that is specific to environmental properties relevant for the organism” (p. 9, from Turvey, et. al., 1981) In this way “specificity refers to the idea by which the presence of ecological information corresponds to the direct perception of affordances” (Lobo, et. al, 2018, p. 6).

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Affordances In Gibson’s theory of Ecological Psychology, affordances are “the possibilities for action that the environment allows for an organism” and are the main objects of perception (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.7). They are “meaningful objects of perception in an organism-environment system,” because they allow the organism to take action (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.7). For example, humans do not perceive stairs in inches or centimeters, but whether or not we can step on them to get to a higher plane. In addition, affordances are not created, but are instead perceived as a relation between an organism and its environment. So, to perceive an affordance is to perceive meaningful ecological information, and to perceive how the surrounding environment is related to the agent’s capacities (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.7). Affordances are perceived by detecting lawfully structured ecological information that invariantly specifies capabilities of a particular agent in relation to features of a particular object, substance, surface, or event (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.7). Similar to units of measurement, units of time that are imperceptible to the agent are irrelevant through the Ecological Psychology lens, as they are not related to time as perceived by the organism; therefore invariance refers to constants within timeframes relevant to the perception of the agent. Since affordances are based on the capabilities of the agent and the actions that can be taken, the two types of affordances are body-scaled and action-scaled affordances. Body-scaled affordances are related to the body dimensions of the agent because “goal-directed action needs specific dimensions...to fit the action” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.11). Action-scaled affordances are “related to the action-capabilities of the organism” because they “allow action in relation to dynamic properties of the perceiver’s movement” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.11).

Development and Learning Development and learning through the Ecological Psychology lens is defined as “the process of using available information to adjust behavior” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.11). Developed by Eleanor Gibson, wife of James Gibson, “the ecological approach to perceptual learning aims to explain how perceivers take advantage of the specific and redundant information available in the ambient energy arrays” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.8, from E. J. Gibson, 1969). In the theory of direct learning, a perceptual task is defined as an informational space in which each point in the space represents information and the trajectories between points represent the learning process (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.11). The theory concludes that in this way “learning depends on the

8 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology convergent information that (directly) pushes the agent to move from non-specific invariants to (more) specific invariants,” explaining improvements in performance (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.11).

Metaphysical Assumptions of Ecological Psychology

Ontological: Relativism Guba and Lincoln (1998) define the ontological question as, “What is the form and nature of reality and, therefore, what is there that can be known about it?” (p. 201). Patton (2002) explains that ontological debates are concerned with “the possibility of a singular, verifiable reality and truth verses the inevitability of socially constructed multiple realities” (p. 134). Because Ecological Psychology holds that each point in space affords different perceived opportunities, are local and specific, depends on the capabilities of the agent, and are experiential, means that Ecological Psychologists believe that there are multiple (sometimes socially) constructed realities depending on the environment and the action taken on affordances. This aligns with the relativist ontology, in which realities are characterized as being multiple, intangible, socially and experiential mental constructions that are local and specific, although they are often shared across many individuals and cultures. The form and content of the constructions are dependent on the individuals or groups holding the constructions. Because of this constructions are not ‘true,’ in any absolute sense, but are more or less informed (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p. 206). Guba & Lincoln (1998) note that the constructions “may change as their constructors become more informed and sophisticated” (p. 208).

Epistemological: Constructivism Guba and Lincoln (1998) define the epistemological question as, “What is the nature of the relationship between the knower and what can be known” (p. 201)? Groat and Wang (2013) note that “the basic ontological premise of naturalistic [constructivist] research is that there are multiple socially constructed realities” (p.33, brackets added). Ecological Psychology is therefore epistemologically constructivist, claiming that we know by what we perceive through our perceptual systems, our relative ecological level, and the action-perception loop, which are specific to the individual agent, and therefore multiple (Gibson, 1979, p. 27). Guba and Lincoln (1998) describe Constructivism’s epistemological approach as transactional and subjectivist in which “the investigator and the object of the investigation are assumed to be interactively linked so that the ‘findings’ are literally created as the investigation

9 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology proceeds” (p. 207). Constructivists value the interaction or transaction between the inquirer and the people or setting being studied. In adopting a subjectivist stance that there is no objective truth, but only experiences or meaningful interactions that formulate our individual realities, constructivists also “acknowledge the role of interpretation and creation in reporting their findings” (Groat & Wang, 2013, p. 33). Similar to Ecological Psychology’s emphasis on meaningful interactions, Guba and Lincoln (2005) note that “the meaning-making activities themselves are of central interest to social constructionists/constructivists, simply because it is the meaning-making/sense-making/attributional activities that shape action (or inaction)” (p. 197). While the interpretation of meaningful interactions aligns with constructivism, the interaction between the researcher and the people or setting being studied is kept intentionally at a minimal in an effort to preserve objectivity; therefore Ecological Psychology is epistemologically constructivist, but leaning toward objectivism. Again, this harkens back to the positivist social science influences that helped shaped Ecological Psychology. In line with Ecological Psychology’s organism-environment system and ambient optic array, constructivism assumes “that all “parts” of reality are interrelated so that the study of any one part necessarily influences all other parts” (Guba, 1981, p. 77). Constructivism, in support of more in situ settings, criticized positivist approaches for context stripping, arguing that while such exclusionary designs of an experiment increase the theoretical rigor of the study, it detracts from its relevance and applicability of the findings because the outcomes can only be applied to other contextually stripped situations. Since reality is composed of parts that influence each other, which should not be simplified by context stripping, constructivists claim that generalizations are not possible, and that the best one can hope for is a “working hypotheses” that relate to a particular context (Guba, 1981, p. 77). Similarly, Ecological Psychology does not seek a purely generalizable hypothesis, but instead seeks a hypothesis based on a particular context, agent(s), and point(s) of observation.

Methodological: Hermeneutics and Dialectic Guba and Lincoln (1998) define the methodological question as, “How can the inquirer (would-be knower) go about finding out whatever he or she believes can be known” (p. 201)? Patton (2002) explains that methodological debates are concerned with “what kinds of data and design to emphasize for what purposes and with what consequences” (p. 134). The Constructivist methodological approach is described as hermeneutic and dialectic “aimed at the reconstruction of previously held constructions” (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p. 203 and 209). Guba

10 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology and Lincoln (1998) explain that “varying constructions are interpreted using conventional hermeneutical techniques, and are compared and contrasted through a dialectical interchange” with the final goal “to distill a consensus construction that is more informed and sophisticated than any of the predecessor constructions” (p. 207). According to constructivists, individual constructions can only be elicited and refined through interaction between the investigator and those being investigated (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p. 207). This is done through deconstruction “which means to take apart the language of a text to expose its critical assumptions and the ideological interests being served” (Patton, 2002, p. 101). As illustrated by Gibson who emphasized his use of language relative to ecological characteristics, “deconstruction constitutes a core analytical tool of constructivists” (Patton, 2002, p. 101). Thus, Ecological Psychologists begin with thick qualitative descriptions, which are then numerically coded and analyzed statistically, and finally interpreted. (Patton, 2002, p. 119). Guba (1981) notes that for constructivism “both propositional and tacit knowledge types are used and useful” (p. 78). Tacit knowledge allows Ecological Psychologists to utilize commonly accepted norms and language to understand how we interact with our environment, and propositional knowledge allows them to share that information with other institutions and organizations, often numerically. This emphasis on quantitative outcomes illustrates the position of Ecological Psychology’s theoretical influences in the traditional period and modernist phase in which positivist quantitative methods and rigor through methods were highly encouraged in the social sciences. According to Lobo, et. al. (2018) ecological metrics is the mathematical operationalization of affordances. Since the 1970s many efforts to quantify affordances have been made such as the studies of climbability by Warren (1984) in which he developed a mathematical formulation “to identify the possibilities for action allowed by a surface or object for a given organism in relation to its body measures” (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.8). In addition, the Tau Theory “proposed a mathematical invariant specific to time-to-contact, tau (t), defined as the rate of acceleration of optical expansion (Lobo, et. al., 2018, p.9, from Lee, 1976). In contrast to the positivists approach, constructivists “use themselves as the instruments, willingly trading off some objectivity and reliability (in the rationalistic sense) in order to gain greater flexibility and the opportunity to build upon tacit knowledge” (Guba, 1981, p. 79) Ecological Psychologists focus on what can be directly perceived by the inquirer through observation, as opposed to what can be indirectly perceived through man-made instruments. In addition, constructivists prefer to conduct studies in situ, with all the complexities of the real

11 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology world. Guba (1981) explains that “the ‘reality’ of the situation is that many factors, bearing a variety of relationships...to one another, form a ‘whole’ that cannot be understood if dismembered” (p. 84). Constructivists select to deal with the patterns of the situation in their entirety, but to address the issue of credibility, “they adopt certain other procedures which…preserve the holistic situation” and account for the complexities instead of simplifying them (Guba, 1981, p. 84). According to Guba (1981) “Adherents of the naturalistic [constructivist] paradigm prefer to have the theory emerge from the data themselves, that is, they wish the theory to be grounded and typically prefer their theory to be of the pattern type” (p. 78, brackets added). Whereas positivists take a deductive approach to theory building in which they begin with a theory and conduct experiments to support or refute the theory, as constructivists Ecological Psychologists take an inductive approach in which they begin by first observing and rigorously collecting data, then use the data to form the theory. Even the theory building approach ties back to the methodological hermeneutic and dialectic roots of constructivism by using the interpretation of varying constructions to reach a consensus.

Areas of Concern and Focus Ecological Psychology asks the foundational question, “What is the relationship between human behavior and the environment” (Patton, 2002, p. 118). To create new knowledge “Ecological psychologists ask descriptive questions about either individuals' behavior and environment or about the features of behavior settings” (Jacob, 1987, p. 17). Jacob (1987) wrote that Ecological psychologists “see individuals and the environment as interdependent. They assume that there are subjective aspects to behavior which they examine in terms of the goals of human behavior” (Jacob, 1987, p. 17). Ecological psychologists examine goal-oriented behaviors using the specimen record methodology, in which “observers write a narrative description of the behavior of one person over a substantial period of time” and that “stream of behavior” is segmented, coded, and analyzed based on goal-directed actions (Jacob, 1987, p. 17). Ecological psychologists “also assume that there is a subjective aspect to the environment which they usually discuss in terms of a person's emotional reactions to the environment” (Jacob, 1987, p. 17). They examine these subjective aspects using behavior setting surveys that look at “the transindividual patterns of behavior associated with particular constellations of places, things, and times” (Jacob, 1987, p. 17). The focus is on identifying “the

12 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology central features of behavior settings...that constitute a definitive environment” (Patton, 2002, p. 118). Inquiry through the Ecological Psychology lens does not focus on the actual emotions of the person such as happy or angry, as those cannot be consistently observed and interpreted, but instead on the behavioral reactions that make a specific environment. The types of questions asked by Ecological Psychology are those about which relative consensus can be met, so similar to positivism, questions about phenomena that cannot be visually perceived, interpreted consistently, and measured in some way are not of concern, which includes questions about emotions or motives. In addition, Ecological Psychology does not take the position of being a participant observer (Patton, 2002, p. 118) Contradictory to Guba and Lincoln (1998), although Ecological Psychology does strive to understand and reconstruct constructions, and therefore fits within the constructivist epistemology, it does not adopt the voice “of the ‘passionate participant’ “ (Guba & Lincoln, 1998, p. 215). Ecological Psychology is not concerned about expressing the values or beliefs of people, but is concerned with understanding and explaining phenomena to reach a general consensus that can be numerically supported. A significant limitation of Ecological Psychology is the scope of the ecological scale relative to the organism. Because the theoretical perspective is concerned only with ecological levels relative to the perceivable scale of the organism, it is not concerned with extremely short or extremely long time-frames because they are not meaningfulI to the organism. While this is effective for understanding phenomena that occur within our lifetime, this does not consider the cumulative long-term effects of our interaction with the environment, which prevents Ecological Psychology from joining the conversation about phenomena that occur over longer periods of time, such as climate change, pollution, or extinction-level events. In this sense Ecological Psychology is limited to the present, without the ability to project in the future or reflect on our distant past.

Ecological Psychology in Design and Design Research

Due to the theoretical perspective’s interest in the relationship between goal-oriented behaviors, visual perception, and the environment, Ecological Psychology has been widely applied in design and design research and has the potential to move the discipline forward in understanding, explaining, and predicting various phenomena and design outcomes.

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Lang (1987) proposed a positive/explanatory theory in environmental design with the goal of describing and explaining a phenomenon or group of phenomena (p. 13). He wrote, “Positive theory in architecture cannot fulfil the requirements of the philosophy and logical positivism” because architecture has to rely on quasi-scientific methods (Lang, 1987, p. 14). But positive theory in architecture can fulfill the requirements of the constructivist philosophy, and aligns particularly closely with the goals and interests of Ecological Psychology. Lang (1987) notes that “the basic goal of positive theory is to enable people to derive a large number of descriptive statements from a single explanatory statement” (p. 14). He explains that “successful theories consist of simple but powerful generalizations about the world and how it operates that enable us to predict accurately future operations,” following with a charge to the design profession to “tap, make explicit, and disseminate the observations that yield predictable results”(Lang, 1987, p. 14, 16). Lang (1987) further explains that the positive/explanatory theory can be broken down into the substantive theory and procedural theory. Substantive theory “is concerned with the nature of phenomena with which architects and other designers have to deal with in their work” (Lang, 1987, p. 18). One branch of the substantive theory focuses on the natural environment dealing with “the physical, chemical, and geological nature of the surroundings of people and other organisms” with a purpose of providing “the knowledge base for understanding how the environment can be structured in different ways and how the physical nature of these structures interacts with other aspects of the natural environment” (Lang, 1987, p. 18) Another branch of the theory focuses on organism-environment relationships dealing with “the description and explanation of what the three dimensional layout of the environment affords different organisms for their habitats,” with a purpose of enhancing understanding of what architects traditionally have called ‘architectural form’ and its utility for people at both an action level and an emotional level” (Lang, 1987, p. 18-19). The overlap between the areas of focus of the substantive branch of the positive theory and Ecological Psychology, such as the ecological scale of concern, the human perception of the environment, and the interaction between people and the physical environment, suggests that Ecological Psychology has a strong potential for employability in environmental design disciplines and research. The Procedural branch, on the other hand, is concerned “with the nature and study of praxis in the environmental design fields” (Lang, 1987, p. 19), and is more focused on understanding the internal design processes within the disciplines. While Ecological Psychology is interested in how humans process affordances in the environment and therefore the nature of

14 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology human creativity with regard to how we make design changes in our environments, it is less interested in the actual steps and order of the design process on an organizational level. With Ecological Psychology’s interest being in the relationship between human behavior and the environment, it easily lends itself to environmental design disciplines and research, such as architecture and landscape architecture. Research questions should be descriptive, and focused on goal-oriented behaviors and their relationship to the environment, characteristics of an environment that affords a behavior, and social patterns of behavior and how they relate to characteristics of a behavior setting. The following questions illustrate the strong potential for employing Ecological Psychology in environmental design and research:

○ How do people interact with a particular environment or feature of the environment? ○ What characteristics of an environment affords a particular behavior? ○ What characteristics do people identify that makes an environment a particular behavior setting?

The structure of the questions allows researchers to observe the relationship between people and the built environment using inductive, qualitative methods, and translate the data into quantitative results to be shared with the building industry, policy-makers, and other researchers. As mentioned previously, the Ecological Psychology framework is not concerned with the process of how we design, the “voice” of the participants, or questions about phenomena that cannot be visually perceived, interpreted consistently, and transformed into quantitative data. Design questions such as the following are not of interest:

○ What is the design process of a designer? ○ What are the opinions of the users of a space about the design? ○ How does the design of the space make people feel?

While we can visually perceive the person’s behavior (i.e. people tended to stand by the water fountain), we cannot visually perceive and consistently interpret feelings as a part of our environment (i.e. people tended to feel happy). We can make inferences about people’s feelings, but that would call into question the validity, consistency, and credibility of the study, whereas a researcher can more definitely determine through observation if an action was done.

15 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology

Gibson (1979) argued that people do not perceive their environment in empirical units of nanoparticles and lightyears, but instead in affordances. In this vain, tacit knowledge is very important in the formulation of environmental design questions asked through the Ecological Psychology lens because the attempt is to examine how humans perceive, in everyday terms, their environment and its affordances. In addition, propositional knowledge is important in the explanation of the results to a broader audience outside of the design discipline, such as engineers and scientists, that designers may work with. In general, the goals of the positive/explanatory theory align with the goals of Ecological Psychology, specifically to gather qualitative data through observations, transform that into quantitative data, and to form general consensus around a phenomena. But, the goal Lang proposes of developing theories that enable the prediction of future operations is not currently a focus of the Ecological Psychology perspective. Since relative time and space is that which can be directly perceived by the organism, phenomena that occur far away or in the future are not of concern to the organism, which inherently prevents planning and prediction of future phenomena. Ecological Psychology focuses on analyzing phenomena in the present through observation, but is not concerned with future predictions. In light of the global phenomena occurring today such as irregular weather patterns, threats of nuclear war, and environmental pollution, being able to make future predictions regarding our interaction with our environments is very important in understanding the implications of environmental design and research.

Two Studies This section analyzes two design research studies that have employed Ecological Psychology in addressing the study’s research question. In Affordances of Ward and Garden in the Restorative Process of Hospitalized Children, Said & Abu Bakar (2007) examined “the differences between a hospital ward and its garden relative to the restorative care of hospitalized children” (p. 19). The authors begin by sharing the perception that children have of hospitals and explain that “gardens created in hospitals allow hospitalized children to experience the outdoor environment and to mitigate stress. They are open spaces that are equipped with play equipment, garden accessories, vegetation, and wildlife to facilitate play in a safe and secure setting” (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 19). In line with the Ecological Psychology theoretical perspective, the research questions are descriptive and goal-oriented. The first question, “What are the differences of affordances between the ward and its garden as experienced by the pediatric patients, aged 6-12 years

16 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology old?” focused on perceived affordances of the two environments based on the behaviors of the patients in those spaces (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 20). The second question, “Does experiencing the garden increase the cognitive, physical, and social functioning of the patients, thereby leading to restoration?” focused on the patients’ reactions to the subjective qualities of the environment (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 20). The study, consisting of thirty-one, six to twelve year-old patients, used a design called “observation with paired data in which the same patient was observed under two different environmental conditions, the ward and its garden” for eight weeks from mid-January to mid-March of 2004, from 9am to 5:30pm for 5.5 hour play periods (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 23). Multiple methods were employed including observational behavioral mapping in the ward and garden, interviews with patients, parents, and staff, and a survey questionnaire (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 23). In contrast to the positivist approach of focusing on one method, Said and Abu Bakar (2007) note that using multiple qualitative methods offered opportunities for a deeper or more complex view of the physical and social phenomena between the patients and the properties of the ward and the garden” (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 23). The multiple qualitative methods allowed for thick descriptions of the patient’s behaviors and perceptions, which could then be coded and analyzed. Data from all three methods focused on “the patient's movement and physical interaction with the features of the settings” (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 23). Observations of each patient started in the ward with mapping movements and continued into the garden, allowing the research team to collect data on how the patients interacted with the features of the two environments. Behavior maps of all patients were overlaid to form a composite behavior map, which was included in the paper for reference (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 22-23). A forty-two question interview allowed the children to express their perceptual responses to the environments, either positive or negative. In addition, “words spoken by the patient were documented in a pocket journal,” noting the nature and types of play as well as if the patient played alone or with peers, both in the ward and the garden (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 23). The results of the study were documented in the form of numerical tables, photos of the patients and/or affordances in the environment, and quotes by the patients to support the summaries of the findings (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 24-29). To answer the first research question the behavioral responses of the patients towards the affordances were categorized as positive or negative (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 24). Said and Abu Bakar (2007) found that “the ward had 15 positive and 14 negative affordances,” while the garden had 72 positive and 7 negative affordances, providing the patients with “almost five

17 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology times more positive affordances and half as many negative affordances as the ward” (p. 19 and 24). The graphic representation of the results in the form of tables and charts helps illustrate Ecological Psychology’s dependency on quantitative results to reach an informed consensus and to share propositional knowledge. To answer the second research question the authors categorized affordances by type - Utilized, Perceived, Potential, or Shaped (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 28). The results showed that the Utilized affordance type was the most frequently identified as positive across both environments, but were almost five times as frequent in the garden. This difference in the number of positive utilized affordances indicates an increase in the cognitive and physical functioning of the patient, as the patient had to think about how to utilize the affordance and had to take physical action to utilize it. The next affordance type that was most frequently identified as positive was Perceived affordances, which were also five times as frequent in the garden. Positive perceived affordances in the garden were mostly experienced with microclimatic forces, such as wind, sun, and shadows, and during social play, indicating an increase in the cognitive and social functioning of the patient (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 28). These results “suggest that the garden effectively shifted the functioning of the patients from low to higher levels—leading to restoration” (Said & Abu Bakar, 2007, p. 19). Tying back to its constructivist foundation, the methods employed to answer the second question are hermeneutic and dialectic - using induction to interpret patient behaviors and conversation to reach a more informed consensus. In GIS Mapping and Analysis of Behavior in Small Urban Public Spaces, Ghavampour, Del Aguila, & Vale (2017) found that “although design elements are selected for their potential affordance, actualised affordance is defined by the configuration within which elements are embedded in a specific location” (p.349). The authors assert that “affordances, both perceived and actualised, are properties of the setting identified by the individual,” but actualised affordances are those properties of the setting in which people actually take advantage of (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 349). They set out to examine which affordances were actualised with respect to the configuration of the design elements in the space. The research team selected four locations in Wellington, New Zealand’s Central Business District based on their “accessibility, active edge, occurrence of structured social events, and visual permeability,” as well as the mix and proportion of natural and artificial design elements (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 350). The four locations were subdivided according to form, function, and access, identifying natural and artificial elements. Photographs were taken of

18 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology each location’s subspaces, every 12 minutes from 8:12am to 5:00pm on one sunny mid-week day (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 350). The photographs captured stationary users at each location, and that data, along with data from behavioral observations, was input into GIS noting the number of people in the group, gender, age, activity, and first and last time observed. The data was then compiled into nine, one-hour summaries per subspace, and was “analysed in relation to overall use of each location, the design elements, climatic elements (sun, shade) and proximity of other users” (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 350). Aligned with the goals and methodologies of Ecological Psychology, the data from this study was transformed through mathematical analysis from thick, qualitative descriptions of each location’s perceived affordances, summaries of the similarities and differences in actualised affordances, and the elements of the behavior setting, to quantitative data that was used to offer a more informed and sophisticated consensus about the actualisation of affordances in small urban public spaces. The results led the authors to challenge the historical stance that trees and grassed areas are generally viewed as popular features with a more informed conclusion that “actualised affordance is low when an area is enclosed within the site or the element is heavily exposed and proximal to areas and activities external to the site” (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 357). In other words, while it may be true that natural elements like trees and grass are positive, people will not actually take advantage of those natural elements in a public urban space if they are too enclosed within the site or too heavily exposed to the periphery. The results also led the authors to challenge findings from previous research which indicated that water was an attraction in small urban public spaces with the conclusion that “subspaces with water features are less popular” (Ghavampour et. al, 2016, p. 357). While further research may be required in order to confirm or deny the contradictory conclusions on water features, the results presented by Ghavampour et. al. (2016) has led us to acknowledge that not all water features are popular. Both of these conclusions illustrate Ecological Psychology’s constructivist goal of questioning existing constructions to come to a more informed and sophisticated consensus. The environmental design research studies described above employ the Ecological Psychology theoretical perspective to address their research questions. Both studies ask descriptive questions that focus on goal-oriented behavior, and utilize observations and interviews to obtain thick qualitative descriptions of the environments and the behaviors in those environments. Both studies analyzed the qualitative data, transforming it into quantitative data in which more generalized findings were gained. While the first study was interested in the

19 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology patients’ perceptions of the environments, and the second study was interested in the use of the elements in a behavior setting, both studies used inductive reasoning to reach a more informed consensus. Overall the studies provide strong illustrations of how to employ Ecological Psychology as a theoretical perspective in environmental design research.

Ecological Psychology in Architecture and Horticultural Design: Energy and Biophilia Thus far my research interest area has been focused on using vegetation as shading within the building envelope. While my interest initially began as an intervention for sustainability through energy savings and human comfort within heavily-glazed buildings, preliminary research has presented good reason for considering the implications of introducing vegetative spaces inside of the built environment, including the many potential biophilic benefits and design requirements. One possible research question is, “Can vegetation be used as shading for energy saving purposes?,” but unfortunately this is not a question that can be answered through the Ecological Psychology lens. This question is about the relationship between the vegetation and energy savings, and does not take into account the human perception of the the built environment. As energy savings are quantitatively measured indirectly through man-made instruments and analyzed using propositional knowledge, the structure of this question is more in line with the positive theoretical perspective and does not align with the metaphysical approach of Ecological Psychology. In contrast, the question “How do people interact with vegetation for biophilic purposes?” is more in line with the metaphysical approach of Ecological Psychology. Currently the term biophilia is used in a variety of ways, and there is no single interpretation or understanding of what the term means. Biophilia was popularized by Edward O. Wilson (1986) as the innate connection with nature, but the definition of the term has since expanded to be used in a variety of situations ranging from simply the color green to a view of a tree through a window. This innate connection between humans and the environment is a direct parallel to the principles of Ecological Psychology, therefore Ecological Psychology lends itself well to formulate a deeper understanding of what biophilia actually is and how we perceive certain environments with regard to its biophilic affordances. Most humans have perceived that trees and other taller, hanging vegetation have the potential to provide shading, an example of purely tacit knowledge. We cannot explain how we know this, but throughout our evolutionary history we have come to perceive many affordances

20 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology that vegetation provides us, including shading. Recently this “revelation” has been used to develop recommendations for implementation of Green Streetscapes, greenroofs, and green walls in architecture, but these uses of vegetation as shading have been limited to the exterior of the building envelope, and are typically more for function than aesthetic appeal or biophilic connection. The proposal to bring vegetation beyond the architectural threshold and inside the building envelope presents a more intimate relationship between humans and vegetation, and a strong case for more specifically identifying the affordances a user perceives when deciding how to use and interact with a vegetated space. Inquiries rooted in the Ecological Psychology framework are focused on descriptive and goal-oriented behaviors with relation to their environment, characteristics of an environment that affords a behavior, and social patterns of behavior and how they relate to characteristics of a behavior setting. Therefore questions in my research interest area that could be asked are limited to questions about behaviors and the environment in which they occur. Potential research questions are listed below:

○ How do people move through vegetated spaces inside buildings? ○ What characteristics of a vegetated space encourages people to sit? ○ How do people tend to interact around water in a vegetated space?

The structure of these questions allow for observations to be made with robust descriptions of behaviors and their respective environments. That data can then be analyzed quantitatively and summarized into generalized statements about human behavior and affordances in those settings. For example, for the first potential question above of “How do people move through vegetated spaces inside buildings?,” a researcher could observe people’s circulation through a variety of vegetated spaces in a similar setting, taking extensive notes on where people walk quickly, slowly, or pause for observation, sit for rest or waiting, and interact with one another. These observations can be correlated with the environmental characteristics to develop findings. For example, a finding may be that “approximately 72% of people stopped at the water feature” or “96% of people stopped for observation at the less dense colorful vegetation at the window.” The findings from the analysis can be used to form generalizations specific to that behavior setting, such as “people navigate through interior vegetated spaces located within airports in a variety of paths and frequencies, but people tend to move more

21 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology quickly past dense homogenous patches of vegetation, and tend to move more slowly or even stop to observe at less dense diverse patches of vegetation near sunlight.” As discussed previously, the Ecological Psychology framework is not concerned with the process of how we design, the “voice” of the participants, or questions about phenomena that cannot be visually perceived, interpreted consistently, and transformed into quantitative data, so questions such as the following are not of interest:

○ “What is the process to design an interior vegetated space?” ○ “What are the users’ opinions of the design of the vegetated space?” ○ “How does the design of the vegetated space make people feel?”

It has been proposed that biophilia is connected to both behaviors and emotions (terrapinbrightgreen.com, 2019 and E.O. Wilson, 1984), so while emotions may be of interest to the overall question of what biophilia means to humans, questions about emotions and biophilia cannot be proposed and answered under the Ecological Psychology framework. Although questions about emotions may not be answerable, the framework does allow for overlap and use of both qualitative and quantitative data. Therefore, while the findings from the Ecological Psychology methodologies would be quantitative, there is the possibility of supplementing those findings with more subjective methods that focus on the emotions and feelings people experience, or methods that would give a voice to the participants. Pairing quantitative results from the Ecological Psychology perspective with more qualitative results could strengthen the claims by adding a voice to the experience, moving the analysis from more formal to more personal. A final reiteration of a previous criticism is that of the “relevant ecological scale.” Although Gibson’s argument that we do not perceive extremely small or large units of measurements of space and time are true, it is also true that the cumulative effects of our interaction with the environment can be experienced relative to our current space and time today, for example the effects of climate change and water pollution. Because my research interest initiated with a focus on sustainability, I am internally urged to circle back and consider how to address that concern within Ecological Psychology. With the concept of biophilia, it can be speculated that if we knew now what we knew early in our evolutionary timeline, we may not have abandoned “nature” as completely as we have. Similarly, it can be argued that if we knew then that burning fossil fuel would negatively

22 DDN 702, Fall 2019: Rosa M. McDonald Ecological Psychology impact the environment later, we may not have selected to develop our made-made environment from primarily fossil-fuel burning objects. Both of these situations occur over long spans of time and on micro and macro ecological levels, which Ecological Psychology argues is not relative to human experience. I argue that those ecological levels are relevative, as they directly relate to the interaction between humans and our environment, just with a broader perspective on time and space. Policies and decisions that impact the future of our environments can last for many decades, so to establish something as non-relevant because it is not within the scope of time that people “experience” is limiting and potentially detrimental. Initiatives like The 2030 Challenge (Architecture 2030) are calling for the building industry to consider the long-term effects of our actions today. This presents an opportunity and charge for Ecological Psychology to broaden its scope of how it defines what is relevant. Such that methods are not tied to a specific perspective, Ecological Psychology could utilize longitudinal studies to examine how people’s behaviors change in relation to how the environment changes over time (i.e. People littering in parks in the 1980s versus people littering less in parks in the 2010s, correlated with changes in affordances and use of the park). This could give insight on various affordances that could be implemented in environments to entice more sustainable behaviors, and over time, the accumulation of these positive changes could have a major impact on the status and health of our environments.

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References

Ghavampour, E., Del Aguila, M., & Vale, B. (2017). GIS mapping and analysis of behaviour in small urban public spaces. Area, 49(3), 349–358. Retrieved from https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.1111/area.12323

Gibson, J. (1979/2015). The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception. New York, NY: Psychology Press. Retrieved from https://doi-org.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/10.4324/9781315740218

Groat, L., & Wang, D. (2013). A conceptual framework for situating methodology in research: Strategy and tactics. From Architectural Research Methods (second ed.) (pp. 9-13). New York, NY: Wiley.

Guba, E. G. (1981). Criteria for assessing the trustworthiness of naturalistic inquiries. ECTJ: Educational Communication and Technology Journal, 29(2), 75-91.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (1998). Ch. 6: Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. K. Denzin and Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues (pp. 195-220). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Guba, E. G., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2005). Ch. 8: Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (eds.) The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research (3rd ed.) (pp. 191-215). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. Jacob, E. (1988). Clarifying Qualitative Research: A Focus on Traditions. Educational Researcher, 17(1), 16–24. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X017001016

Lang, J. (1987). Ch. 2: The Nature and Utility of Theory. In Creating Architectural Theory (pp. 13-19). New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold.

Lobo, L., Heras-Escribano, M., & Travieso, D. (2018). The History and Philosophy of Ecological Psychology. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 2228. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02228

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Patton, M. Q. (1990). Ch. 3: Variety in qualitative inquiry: Theoretical orientations. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (2nd ed.). (pp. 64-91). Newbury Park: Sage.

Patton, M. Q. (2002). Ch. 3: Variety in qualitative inquiry: Theoretical orientations. Qualitative Evaluation and Research Methods (3rd ed.). (pp. 75-137). Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage.

Popov, L. & Chompalov, I., (2012). Crossing over: The interdisciplinary meaning of behavior setting theory. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, (2)19, 18. Retrieved from http://www.ijhssnet.com/journals/Vol_2_No_19_Special_Issue_October_2012/2.pdf

Said, I., & Abu Bakar, M. S. (2007). Affordances of Ward and Garden in the Restorative Process of Hospitalized Children. Journal of Therapeutic Horticulture, 18, 18–31. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com.prox.lib.ncsu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=335 59580&site=ehost-live&scope=site

Terrapin Bright Green. (2012). The economics of biophilia: Why designing with nature in mind makes financial sense. Retrieved from https://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/reports/the-economics-of-biophilia/

The 2030 Challenge. Architecture 2030. Retrieved December 2019 from https://architecture2030.org/2030_challenges/2030-challenge/

Wilson, E. O. (1986) Biophilia. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncsu/detail.action?docID=3300337.

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