DEA 1500 Exam 1 Sample Essay Questions

For each DEA 1500 exam, several essay questions will be distributed ahead of time. A portion of those questions are included here. Others will follow. Typically 8-10 questions total. For the actual exam, you will be asked to write the answers to four of the questions. No notes, outlines, or other materials can be used during the exam. You will not be able to choose which four questions to answer. The exam will be two hours in length. You will be required to answer the questions on your own during the exam.

Study groups. You are encouraged to prepare your answers to these questions with others in small groups. Any exceptions to group preparation are noted in bold. The same example from two persons for the BOLD component of question will be considered a violation of Academic Integrity. It’s fine to discuss your example with someone else and give each other feedback. But on the exam, your answer needs to be unique.

Professor/TA assistance. Please remember that your discussion section TAs have been instructed not to spend time on the exam questions. That is not the purpose of the sections. It is fine to ask me about the exam questions. You do not need an appointment. In addition to office hours, I tend to be in my office in late afternoons/early evenings and you are welcome to drop by. My office is 3415 East MVR. Note: Quick queries via e mail or right before or after class are ok but not ones that are going to require a lengthy response. Please note if you wait until the last minute and then bombard me with e-mails, I won’t be able to help you because of time.

Exam writing. It is fine to use drawings, bullet points, lists. We are not evaluating writing on the exams: what is critical is you demonstrating knowledge. Poor handwriting: please use a pen and if you have poor handwriting, please print. Throughout the exam you will see questions asking you to generate or respond to hypothetical experiments and/or data to support or contradict certain theories or to illustrate certain patterns of results. Precise values are not the critical issue: it is the pattern of values and your explanations that are important. A ‘correct’ answer with a poor explanation will get fewer exam points awarded than a ‘wrong’ answer with a good explanation.

For some questions, you are asked to generate a design guideline. The criteria for a good design guideline are described in the first project assignment in the Discussion section 3 & 4 tab on the course website. There are also examples of design guidelines in this same section. Plus we have put a marvelous example of design guidelines, Cooper, C. Housing as if people mattered on Mann Library Reserve. Finally, we discuss Design guidelines in class. At a minimum the design guideline for the exam needs to include:

a. Succinct and clear behavioral or performance guideline b. Define the primary HER process your guideline reflects c. Describe in terms of that HER processes, the rationale for the guideline d. Comment about subgroup(s) that might be affected differently by your guideline (note: this is an example of person X environment fit) or explain why you think the guideline is likely to apply similarly to most people. e. Draw how to implement the guideline (drawing needs to make sense, it does not need to be beautiful).

NOTE: we will print design guideline requirements for the exam on each prelim so no need to memorize a-e above.

Sample Questions

Eleanor Gibson, a developmental psychologist at Cornell, showed that human babies do not have depth perception until the age they can crawl. She placed the babies on a visual cliff that simulated depth with a glass cover. Depth perception was indicated by the babies showing signs of fear/distress when “over the cliff”. Baby mountain goats, however, exhibited depth perception immediately at birth.

a. Explain in what ways these findings support/contradict, or have nothing to do with environmental stimulation? Explain your answer. b. How do these findings relate to biological and sociocultural evolution. Make sure you explain your answers in terms of the underlying mechanism for each of these types of evolution. c. Construct a hypothetical experiment and hypothetical data demonstrating that depth perception is affected by environmental stimulation in humans but not mountain goats. Show that for a human, there is a critical period for environmental stimulation effects on depth perception but not for mountain goats. These hypothetical results can be shown in a table or a graph. Explain how/why your data support: i. environmental stimulation effect in humans but not goats ii. critical period for this effect in humans

a) Describe three different problems within this setting that may not be optimal for homeyness and explain why in relation to one or more of McCracken’s six design elements that support homeyness. b) Are the problems mentioned in part a. examples of manifest or latent functions? Why? c) What is one other issue in this space that relates to an HER process other than homeyness? Explain your answer. d) Write one homeyness design guideline to enhance this space. e) Generate some hypothetical data to show how one specific design element of homeyness from Mc Cracken's theory might operate differently in America vs. an Asian country. Explain what your data show and how they relate both to Mc Cracken's theory and to information in reading or lecture about proxemics in North America compared to Asia.

3.A study conducted by two Rice University professors found that users felt more comfortable casting their votes at polling booths when each booth had dividers around it, there was space between each booth, and the booths were arranged so that they did not face each other.

a. Choose a theory of personal space and use it to explain one of the researchers’ findings. i. Be sure to define the HER process Personal Space in your answer. b. Assuming that the following six people show up to vote, draw the relative sizes of their personal space spheres in your answer booklet.

Male Female

German Japanese

Schizophrenic Mildly depressed i. Add a large, heavy, floor to ceiling partition and tell me how it would influence the size of the bubbles for the German vs. Japanese comparison. Would the impacts be similar or different for the two individuals? Why?

c. Recreate and fill out the table below to indicate how territory and visual exposure levels would likely impact voters’ comfort levels. Use a 1-10 scale where 1 = low comfort, 10 = high comfort.

Voters’ Comfort Levels Public Territory Secondary Personal Territory Territory High Visual Exposure Low Visual Exposure

d. Using the data in your table, explain how Territoriality and Privacy HER processes justify your answer above in the table.

4.Hall in the Hidden Dimension argues that cultures (societies, ethnic groups) vary in their proxemic behavior. a. Describe three research findings from class or the book that are consistent with Hall's claim that cultures may differ in proxemic behavior. For each of the examples explain what type of proxemic behavior you are refering to (personal space, territoriality, privacy). b. Apply two examples of research on physical setting factors and proxemics to the design of a home for a family of Northern European background and a family of Middle Eastern, Arabic background. Explain how you are using the research evidence and why you are applying it similarly or differently to these two cultural groups. Reminder: bold means you need to use your own, unique example. Ok to discuss with others but needs to be your own ideas. c. Describe an example of incongruence in a manifest and in a latent function in the design of the home where you lived when you were 16 years old. Define manifest and latent function and explain why each of your examples illustrates a shortcoming with the relevant function. d. Imagine a home for your children when they are 16 (~ 2040). Generate a new source of incongruence created by technological innovation in 2040 if this adolescent were to live in your family home as currently designed. You do not need to draw your home, but if helpful for your answer, fine to do so.

5. a. Define privacy as used by environmental psychologists. Compare and contrast this scholarly definition of privacy with the more common, layperson's understanding of privacy. b. Analyze this school space from the photo above in terms of privacy. Discuss how the physical elements contribute positively or negatively to privacy using the vocabulary of physical settings and privacy. c. Take a physical element not present in the photo that you would add to enhance privacy. Describe how or why this would be likely to operate. d. For the element you propose to add in part c., describe a personal characteristic (e.g., age, culture) that might interact with your intervention. Explain how you think this interaction would play out and tell me why.

6. a.Describe one physical and one mental health consequence of poor housing quality.

b.Self selection is a potentially confounding variable for many environmental impacts on human health and well being. Describe the self-selection challenge and explain using an example of how it might relate to research on housing and human health or well being.

c. Take one physical health outcome of poor housing quality and show some hypothetical data in a table or a graph illustrating a person by environment interaction. Explain how your data show this. Hint: to show a person by environment interaction you need to have variability in some person characteristic and some variability in the environment.

d. Explain the role of privacy in potential problems with high rise housing design.

Take one of these problems with privacy and high rise housing in part d. and explain how you would change the design of the i. High rise building ii. Individual apartment in that same building to enhance the residential experience iii. Why do you think your re-design might help?

7.Take an area on campus where you would predict the crime rate would be relatively high given the design of the physical environment. a. What is defensible space and provide both a theoretical and an empirical argument for the value of this HER process

b. what are the physical elements of this space that you believe contribute to crime

c. explain in what way these physical elements can influence crime in terms of defensible space.

d. take what you consider to be the most critical physical element in part b. for this campus area and re-design the area to reduce crime

e. Would the influence of your design alteration primarily be an instance of environmental determinism or cognitive appraisal? Explain your answer.

8.a.Explain what is programming and what is post-occupancy evaluation (POE)? How do each of these activities fit into the design process? b.Critique the following design guideline both in terms of the content and the structure of the guideline.

College dormitories must be 25 stories high and placed no less than 100 yards from other dorms in superblocks so students can live nearby to everyone at Cornell. Provide stairwells and elevators to accommodate students with mobility impairments, encourage physical activity, and in case of an emergency. The dining hall must accommodate everyone living in the same dorm; be illuminated with fluorescent light; and be painted beige throughout. Each building should have many different entrances and exits utilizing stairs. Provide only identical double rooms (8 x 12 feet) on a double loaded corridor. Each floor would have one co-ed bathroom. Provide students with choices of furniture and sample diagrams of how they might arrange it in their room, including information about the importance of territoriality to interpersonal relationships and well being.

In your critique incorporate:

a. At least four different aspects for what a good design guideline (structure and content) should contain b. How well does the guideline relate to an understanding of college students. Make sure your answer to part b. explicitly reflects your understanding of: i. at least 3 different HER processes ii. manifest and latent function c. Take one aspect of the above guideline and tell me how you think something about yourself (e.g., gender, culture, religion, personality) might make one aspect of the guideline either better or worse for you in comparison to someone else who is different than you on that personal characteristic. d.Make a table or graph with satisfaction or preference as the outcome measure and illustrate your answer to c. Explain how your data support what you have said in c. e. How is your answer to c. and d. supported by research covered in readings and lecture?

9.Cornell has a wide variety of classrooms, lecture halls, and auditoriums for instruction. a)what is a user design gap and how might this relate to university classroom design? b) What is one strategy that can be implemented to reduce this user-designer gap? c) Using one of Cornell’s instructional places, describe one physical element of the classroom that worked well for you and one physical element that did not work so well. Analyze each of the elements in terms of one of the following HER processes: environmental stimulation levels, homeyness, personal space, territoriality, privacy, structural quality, or defensible space. d) Write one design guideline to make the instructional space more effective. e)Using one of the physical elements you discussed in part c), generate some hypothetical data to support evidence of a person by environment interaction. Describe the interaction and provide your underlying argument(s) drawing from lecture or readings why you posit this particular pattern of data.