Environmental Psychology

A Free Summary
Semester 1, 2020-2021

Table of Contents
Week 1: Setting the Scene 3
Wohlwill (1970) 3
Goldberg (1969) 3
Kaplan (1995) 4
Gosling et al. (2002) 5
Hardin (1968) 5
Van der Wal et al. (2018) 6
Kotler (2011) 6
Week 2: Going into Town 7
Milgram (1970) 7
Moser & Corroyer (2001) 8
Canter & Larkin (1993) 9
Kuo & Sullivan (2001) 10
Keizer et al. (2008) 10
Week 3: Taking a Break 11
Lederbogen et al. (2011) 11
Ulrich (1984) 11
Collado et al. (2016) 12
Guéguen & Stefan (2016) 13
Van der Wal et al. (2013) 13
Week 4: Spatial Planning and Design 14
Kaplan & Austin (2004) 14
Devlin et al. (2016) 15
Evans et al. (1996) 15
Evans & Kim (2007) 16
Staats & Groot (2019) 17
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Week 5: Acting Green 18

Griskevicius et al. (2012) 18
De Leeuw et al. (2015) 18
Schultz & Zelezny (1998) 19
Thøgersen & Ölander (2006) 19
Gifford (2013) 20
Week 6: Sustainable Interventions 20
Schultz (2014) 20
Staats et al. (2004) 21
Poortinga & Whitaker (2018) 22
Van Horen et al. (2018) 22
Schultz et al. (2007) 23
Week 7: Greening of Corporations 23
Bansal & Roth (2000) 23
Parry (2012) 24
Spisak et al. (2014) 24
Norton et al. (2014) 25
Olsen et al. (2014) 26
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Week 1: Setting the Scene

Article 1
Wohlwill, J. F. (1970). The emerging discipline of environmental psychology. American
Psychologist, 25, 303-312.

When psychologists have previously talked about environmental influences, they have rarely been
specific about the meaning for them of the concept of environment. The role of the “environment”
has almost invariably referred to social or interpersonal influences, or else to effects presumed to be
ascribable to the milieu in an altogether unspecified sense. It is useful to distinguish three forms of
the relationship between behavior and physical environment: (1) behavior necessarily occurs in
some particular environmental context (e.g. city), which imposes major constraints on the range of
behaviors permissible in it (e.g. climbing a three as a child), and frequently serves to determine in a
more positive sense particular aspects or patterns of an individual's behavior; (2) certain qualities of
the environment, such as under- or overstimulation, crowding, severity of climate, etc., may exert
generalized effects on broader systems of response (e.g. stress) within the individual; (3) behavior is
in a variety of ways instigated by and directed at particular attributes and characteristics of the
physical environment (e.g. moving away from the city and to the country). The last item holds three
more specific facets, namely: (1) affective and attitudinal responses; (2) approach and avoidance
responses (not to be confused with tourism); and (3) adaptation to environmental qualities.
Psychology has a major stake in the area of environmental factors, and is indeed
presented with a major challenge in contributing to the solution of environmental problems. Four
primary forms of psychological involvement in the area of environment: (1) research; (2) training of
and consultation with prospective and actual workers in professions dealing with environmental
problems; (3) graduate training for psychologists; and (4) the undergraduate psychology
curriculum.

Article 2
Goldberg, T. (1969). The automobile. A social institution for adolescents. Environment and
Behavior, 1, 152-185.

A major problem facing adolescents in American society is that there are few institutions which
adequately satisfy their need for large-scale social gatherings. Guided by their passion for cars,
modern teenagers have developed their own solution to the problem of finding places for social
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gatherings by utilizing main streets as gathering nodes and the automobile as a social medium in a
popular activity known as cruising.
Several dominant features of adolescent social behavior set it apart from that of adults:
heightened sensitivity to peer group influences, activation of sexual behavior, and rivalry. This
often requires a larger gathering where competition and status seeking become meaningful relative
to the whole peer community.
Most teenagers of licensing age have driver’s licenses, and most have use of a car for
leisure pursuits. The automobile has been added as another means of competition and a new “arena”
has developed around it. Psychologists have intimated that cars have a strong sexual symbolism.

Article 3
Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182.

Directed attention requires effort, plays a central role in achieving focus, is under voluntary control,
is susceptible to fatigue, and controls distraction through the use of inhibition. Any prolonged
mental effort leads to directed attention fatigue.
The restoration of effectiveness is at the mercy of recovery from directed attention
fatigue. In order to rest directed attention, it is necessary to find some other basis for maintaining
one’s focus. What is needed is an alternative mode of attending what would render the use of
directed attention temporarily unnecessary. Involuntary attention, requiring no effort, is likely to be
resistant to fatigue.
Attention Restoration Theory provides an analysis of the kinds of experiences that
lead to recovery from information processing fatigue. Natural environments turn out to be
particularly rich in the characteristics necessary for restorative experiences. Four integral
components that make environment restorative: (1) being away, at least conceptually; (2)
fascination of the environment; (3) the environment has to be rich enough and coherent enough to
constitute a whole other world; and (4) there should be compatibility between the environment and
one’s purposes and inclinations.
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Article 4
Gosling, S. D. , Ko, S. J. Mannarelli, T., & Morris, M. E. (2002). A room with a cue: Personality
judgments based on offices and bedrooms. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 82, 379-
398.

Individuals select and craft their physical environments that reflect and reinforce who they are.
Observers use the information available in everyday environments to form impressions of what the
occupants of those environments are like. The link between the observable cue and the occupant’s
actual level of the underlying construct is referred to as cue validity.
The mechanisms linking individuals to the environments they inhabit fall into two
categories: identity claims (self-directed and other directed) and behavioral residue (interior and
exterior). To make spaces their own, individuals may adorn them with self-directed identity claims
– symbolic statements made by occupants for their own benefit, intended to reinforce their self-
views. In addition to reinforcing their own self-views, occupants can display symbols that have
shared meanings to make statements to others about how they would like to be regarded – by
displaying such symbols occupants may be intentionally communicating their attitudes and values
to others. The term “behavioral residue” is used to refer to the physical traces of activities
conducted in an environment.
(1) Personal environments elicit similar impressions from independent observers, (2)
observer impressions show some accuracy, (3) observers rely on valid cues in the rooms to form
impressions of occupants, and (4) sex and race stereotypes partially mediate observer consensus and
accuracy.

Article 5
Hardin, G. (1968). The tragedy of the commons. Science, 162, 1243-1248.

The tragedy of the commons develops in this way. Picture a pasture open to all. It is to be expected
that each herdsman will try to keep as many cattle as possible on the commons. As a rational being,
each herdsman seeks to maximize his gain. Explicitly or implicitly, more or less consciously, he
asks, "What is the utility to me of adding one more animal to my herd?" This utility has one
negative and one positive component.
1) The positive component is a function of the increment of one animal. Since the
herdsman receives all the proceeds from the sale of the additional animal, the positive utility is
nearly +1.
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2) The negative component is a function of the additional overgrazing created by one

more animal. Since, however, the effects of overgrazing are shared by all the herdsmen, the
negative utility for any particular decision-making herdsman is only a fraction of –1.
Adding together the component partial utilities, the rational herdsman concludes that
the only sensible course for him to pursue is to add another animal to his herd. And another; and
another... But this is the conclusion reached by each and every rational herdsman sharing a
commons. Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his
herd without limit – in a world that is limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush,
each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all.

Article 6
Van der Wal, A. J., Van Horen, F., & Grinstein, A. (2018). Temporal myopia in
sustainable behavior under uncertainty. International Journal of Research in
Marketing, 35, 378-393.

Two significant problems consumers are facing today are (1) lack of sustainable behavior and (2)
increasing uncertainty in everyday lives. It can be inferred that increased levels of uncertainty
negatively impacts sustainable behavior. This research sheds light on the underlying mechanism,
demonstrating that the negative influence uncertainty has on sustainable behavior is driven by
“temporal discounting” – the preference for smaller immediately rewards over bigger future ones.
Uncertainty leads to lower levels of sustainable behavior in comparison to certainty.
This is due to the display of higher levels of temporal discounting under certainty (adopting a more
immediate orientation). Emphasizing the immediate benefits of sustainability during uncertainty
reverses the negative effect and leads consumers to act more sustainably.

Article 7
Kotler, P. (2011). Reinventing marketing to manage the environmental imperative.
Journal of Marketing, 75, 132-135.

Marketers in the past have based their strategies on the assumption of infinite resources and zero
environmental impact. With the growing recognition of finite resources and high environmental
costs, marketers need to reexamine their theory and practices. They need to revise their policies on
product development, pricing, distribution, and branding.
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What marketing practices will have to change: (1) product: sustainable materials,
sources, carbon footprints, packaging, energy use; (2) price: creating a menu of offerings that differ
in their level of environmental friendliness and pricing them accordingly; (3) place: where to locate
production and distribution facilities, locally based production; and (4) promotion: considering how
much to shift promotion from print to online, communicating commitment to sustainability,
increased specificity about ingredients and carbon footprint.
Major pressure for changing marketing practices may come from consumers
themselves. Consumers are the ultimate power brokers, they choose among brands on the basis of
functional, emotional, and social responsibility criteria.

Week 2: Going into Town

Article 1
Milgram, S. (1970). The experience of living in cities. Science, 167, 1461-1468.

Cities have great appeal because of their variety, eventfulness, possibility of choice, and the
stimulation of an intense atmosphere. The city provides options that no other social arrangement
permits.
Overload refers to a system’s inability to process inputs from the environment because
there are too many inputs for the system to cope with. When overload is present, adaptations occur:
(1) allocation of less time to each input, (2) disregard of low-priority inputs (selectivity of where to
allocate one’s time and energy), (3) boundaries are redrawn in certain social transactions in certain
social transactions so that the overloaded system can shift the burden to the other party in the
exchange (bus drivers don’t give change anymore), (4) reception is blocked off prior to entrance
into a system (usage of unlisted telephone numbers), (5) the intensity of inputs is diminished by
filtering devices, so that only superficial forms of involvement occur, and (6) specialized
institutions are created to absorb inputs that would otherwise swamp the individual. Sense of direct
contact and spontaneous integration is deprived: simultaneous protection and estrangement from
social environment.
The ultimate adaptation to an overloaded social environment is to totally disregard the
needs, interests, and demands of those whom one does not define as relevant to the satisfaction of
personal needs, and to develop highly efficient perceptual means of determining whether an
individual falls into the category of friend or stranger. A rule of urban life is respect for other
people’s emotional and social privacy, perhaps because physical privacy is so hard to achieve.
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Bystander intervention in crises is nearly nonexistent. Willingness to trust and assist

strangers is also deficient compared to people from small towns. It can be because of city dwellers’
heightened sense of vulnerability – a feeling supported by urban crime statistics (although, if a
crime is committed in a village, a resident of a neighboring village may not perceive the crime as
personally relevant, though the geographic distance may be small, whereas a criminal act
committed anywhere in the city, though miles from the city dweller's home is still verbally located
within the city; thus, the inhabitant of the city possesses a larger vulnerable space). Even at the most
superficial level of involvement – the exercise of everyday civilities – urbanites are reputably
deficient. This does not necessarily violate traditional courtesies: the cities develop new norms of
noninvolvement. This kind of overload adaptation occurs in the form of gradual evolution of norms
of behavior.
City dwellers tend to be anonymous when not filling a role, as opposed to town
dwellers who are known at all times. What comes to a specific ambiance related with a big city: (1)
a person’s impression of a given city depends on their implicit standard of comparison, (2)
perceptions of a city are also affected by whether the observer is a tourist, a newcomer, or a longer-
term resident, (3) the popular myths and expectations each visitor brings to the city will affect the
way in which he perceives it.
Tempo and pace of a city is most effectively measured by recording pedestrians’
walking speeds and collisions to others when no adjustments are made to accommodate others.
Sources of ambiance: (1) even among big cities the population densities differ, (2) big cities rarely
produce their own population meaning that people move there from rural areas, (3) general national
culture, (4) atmosphere is traceable to the specific historical conditions under which adaptations to
urban overload occurred.

Article 2
Moser, G., & Corroyer, D. (2001). Politeness in the urban environment: Is city life still
synonymous with civility? Environment and Behavior, 33, 611-625.

Population densities such as we encounter in large urban areas engender individualism and an
indifference towards others. The conditions of urban life reduce the attention given to others and
diminish our behavioral availability to help others, and this reduction can also be observed when the
individual is exposed to an isolated supplementary stress.
The dimensions of interpersonal exchanges in the urban environment tend not only to
make social contacts more superficial and eliminate those interactions that bring no personal benefit
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to the individual, but they also lead to the neglect of expressions of politeness. Civility refers to tacit
rules governing social behaviors regulating social interaction. These rules embrace shared
conventions concerning what in the normal activities of everyday life is appropriate to do and which
behaviors if not performed lead to negative social sanctions.
Do people entering a large department store hold the door open for the person behind
them? Parisians were significantly less civil than their provincial counterparts, and high-density
conditions reduced civil behavior in both settings. In the presence of a polite model (the preceding
person holding the door open for the participant), Parisians, but not the provincial sample, are
influenced by the preceding situation; the differences between Paris and the provincial city are in
this case minimal. Results are considered in terms of social modeling: Being exposed to a polite
behavior reactivates the cultural norm of politeness in Parisians.

Article 3
Canter, D., & Larkin, P. (1993). The environmental range of serial rapists. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 13, 63-69.

Offenders usually do not travel very far from home to commit crimes. A strong likelihood has been
found that a crime is committed in and around the pathways and routes that the criminal habitually
uses in non-criminal activities.
Commuter hypothesis: the offender travels from his base into an area to carry out his
crimes. Although there will be a domain in which the crimes are committed and this domain will
have some distinct relationship to where the offender lives, there will be no clear relationship
between size or location of the criminal domain and the distance it is from any given offender’s
home. There is little or no overlap between these two areas, and the offender moves to a district
which is outside his home range.
Marauder hypothesis: the base acts as a focus for each particular crime. The offender
is assumed to move out from his base to commit his crimes and then return. This hypothesis was
supported in the present study. The commuter hypothesis was not supported by the evidence.
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Article 4
Kuo, F. E., & Sullivan, W. C. (2001). Aggression and violence in the inner city:
Effects of environment via mental fatigue. Environment and Behavior, 33, 543-571.

Contact with nature may reduce aggression and violence related to mental fatigue. The power of the
physical environment to influence human aggression is well established. Natural settings assist in
recovery from mental fatigue; aggression may increase with mental fatigue and decrease with its
recovery. Mental fatigue may contribute to aggression because of its effects on cognitive processing
– information processing plays a central role in managing social situations, especially potential
conflicts. Mental fatigue may also contribute to aggression because of its effects on emotion –
specifically, heightened irritability – and because of its effects on behavior – specifically, decreased
control over impulses.
Attention restoration theory proposes that exposure to nature reduces mental fatigue,
or more precisely, directed attention fatigue. Natural settings and stimuli seem to effortlessly
engage our attention, allowing us to attend without paying attention. The data show that indeed
levels of aggression and violence were significantly lower among individuals who had some nearby
nature outside their apartments, and the mediating effect of mental fatigue was also found.

Article 5
Keizer, K., Lindenberg, S., & Steg, L. (2008). The spreading of disorder. Science,
322, 1681-1685.

The broken windows theory suggests that signs of disorderly and petty criminal behavior trigger
more disorderly and petty criminal behavior, thus causing the behavior to spread. However, this
theory lacks empirical support. Social norms refer either to the perception of common (dis)approval
of a particular kind of behavior (injunctive norm) or to a particular behavior common in a setting
(descriptive norm). Similar to injunctive norms, the more conspicuous the descriptive norm, the
more strongly it influences behavior.
The cross-norm inhibition effect: In a given situation, the goal to act appropriately is
weakened when people observe that others seemingly did (or do) not pursue the goal to act
appropriately. In turn, a weakening of this goal strengthens conflicting hedonic and gain goals.
In conclusion, as a certain norm-violating behavior becomes more common, it will
negatively influence conformity to other norms and rules. The mere presence of graffiti more than
doubled the number of people littering and stealing. Signs of inappropriate behavior like graffiti or
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broken windows lead to other inappropriate behavior which in turn results in the inhibition of other
norms.

Week 3: Taking a Break

Article 1
Lederbogen, F., Kirsch, P., Haddad, L., Streit, F., Tost, H., Schuch, P., ... & Meyer- Lindenberg, A.
(2011). City living and urban upbringing affect neural social stress processing in humans. Nature,
474, 498-501.

Some of the best-established effects of urbanization concern mental health. Current city dwellers
have a substantially increased risk for anxiety disorders and mood disorders, as well as
schizophrenia. Cities have both health risks and benefits, but mental health is negatively affected:
mood and anxiety disorders are more prevalent in city dwellers and the incidence of schizophrenia
is strongly increased in people born and raised in cities. Social stress processing in urban
environment underlies the greater risk for mental illness, and contributes to the manifestation of
these disorders in adults. Although these findings have been widely attributed to the urban social
environment, urban upbringing and city living have dissociable impacts on social evaluative stress
processing in humans. In this study, current city living was associated with increased amygdala
activity, whereas urban upbringing affected a key neural region for regulation of amygdala activity,
negative affect, and stress.

Article 2
Ulrich, R. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery. Science, 224, 420- 421.

Investigations of aesthetic and affective responses to outdoor visual environments have shown a
strong tendency for American and European groups to prefer natural scenes more than urban views
that lack natural elements. Views of vegetation, and especially water, appear to sustain interest and
attention more effectively than urban views of equivalent information rate. Because most natural
views apparently elicit positive feelings, reduce fear in stressed subjects, hold interest, and may
block or reduce stressful thoughts, they might also foster restoration from anxiety or stress.
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Article 3
Collado, S., Staats, H., & Sorrel, M. A. (2016). Helping out on the land: Effects of children's role in
agriculture on reported psychological restoration. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, 201-
209.

Experiences in nature provide various benefits to people’s psychological health. Spending time in
predominantly natural settings helps people restore the adaptive resources needed to face daily
demands. Considering children, encounters with familiar natural settings have been recognized as
significant influences on children's affective and cognitive development. Exposure to nearby nature
in residential and school areas appears to provide benefits such as increased well-being, better
ability to cope with stressful events and better physical coordination. This research trend might
come from the assumption that people's resources are normally depleted within urban
environments, which constitutes their workday environment, and that the relationship people
typically have with nature is recreational. However, this is not always the case because for some
people nature represents a livelihood.
Restoration refers to the renewal or recovery of physical and psychological adaptive
resources that have been diminished in meeting the demands of everyday life. Restoration is an
important process, as new demands are faced every day and resources are needed to cope with
them. The process of restoration requires some form and degree of engagement with the
sociophysical environment which we analyze based on attention restoration theory (ART).
According to ART, restorative experiences are enhanced by four qualities that refer to the
transaction between the person and the environment: (1) fascination refers to an effortless
engagement with the experience of a certain environment, (2) being away refers to gaining physical
and/or psychological distance of everyday demands and worries, (3) compatibility is the congruence
between the individual's purposes and the environment's supports and demands, and (4) extent is the
experience of the setting as coherent and with sufficient scope to sustain exploration.
The relationship between spending time in nature and obtaining restorative benefits
seems to vary with several factors. This study assessed whether children who help out on their
families’ farm experience less restoration when spending free time in agricultural natural areas than
those whose relationship with the same areas is merely recreational. Children who help out on the
land report experiencing less restoration while spending free time in agricultural areas than those
who only spend free time in them. In concordance with the spatial interdependence hypothesis, this
effect is partly due to a lower sense of being away physically and psychologically.
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Article 4
Guéguen, N., & Stefan, J. (2016). “Green altruism”: Short immersion in natural green environments
and helping behavior. Environment and Behavior, 48, 324-342.

Research has consistently found exposure to a natural environment to be associated with health and
psychological wellbeing. One aspect of a natural setting that has received less interest from
scientists is the effect of such an environment on social relationships.
Two studies showed that a short immersion in a natural green environment is
associated with a high level of helping behavior from people immersed in this environment. In a
field experiment, male and female confederates accidentally dropped a glove on the ground while
walking in a natural environment. The confederates continued walking, apparently unaware of their
loss. Passersby were tested either before or after their immersion in an urban green park with large
trees, lawns, and flowers. It was found that passersby tested after immersion in the park helped the
confederates more readily than those tested before immersion in the park. It was thus found that
such immersion elicited positive mood and desire to help others. Positive mood appeared to be a
significant mediating factor, whereas desire to help others reached a level of significance,
suggesting that both factors probably influenced the relation between immersion in a natural
environment and helping behavior.

Article 5
Van der Wal, A. J., Schade, H. M., Krabbendam, L., & Van Vugt, M. (2013). Do natural landscapes
reduce future discounting in humans? Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series B, 280: 1773
20132295.

An important barrier to fostering sustainable behavioral change is that humans have an evolved bias
to prefer immediate rewards over long-term rewards. Organisms adopt a slow reproductive strategy
when resources are abundant and the environment is relatively benign and stable, whereas they
adopt a fast reproductive strategy when there is competition for resources, and the environment is
relatively hostile and unstable.
This paper argues that cues associated with environmental uncertainty and resource
competition affect future discounting in humans. Natural landscapes are intrinsically rewarding and
enjoyable as they provide cues of predictability and resource abundance, at least for ancestral
humans, whose psychology is likely to be still affecting modern humans. By contrast, urban
landscapes – which are entirely novel on an evolutionary time scale – are inherently unstable, and
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convey the perception of intense social competition among humans for all kinds of resources, such
as status, goods and mates. As a consequence, it is hypothesized that exposure to natural scenes will
make people discount the future less, whereas exposure to urban scenes will be likely to have the
opposite effect.
All three studies showed that exposure to natural landscapes decreases temporal dis-
counting and makes people care more for the future. This is an important result because delay of
gratification is an essential ingredient for promoting individual and social change pertaining to, for
instance, healthy lifestyles, antisocial behavior, resource conservation and population growth. The
main finding suggests that exposing people to natural landscapes extends their time horizons,
whereas exposure to urban landscapes narrows people’s time perspectives.

Week 4: Spatial Planning and Design

Article 1
Kaplan, R., & Austin, M. E. (2004). Out in the country: Sprawl and the quest for nature nearby.
Landscape and Urban Planning, 69, 235-243.

People who move to these new locations likely do not cherish the longer commutes and dependence
on their cars. Among the tradeoffs that make living “out in the country” an attraction are being
closer to “nature” and having “space”. There is a sizable literature that documents the desire for and
benefits of having access to nearby natural areas. There is also indication that knowledge of the
availability of nature plays an important role whether or not residents actively engage with it and
that having natural elements in the view from the window is a source of psychological benefits.
A typology of seven distinct kinds of natural areas emerged: manicured/landscaped
areas, trees, gardens, mowed areas, forest, open fields, and wetlands. Using these seven nature
categories to predict participants’ ratings of community satisfaction, regression analyses showed the
overwhelming role played by the availability of forests. The forested scenes were also by far the
most preferred.
The study thus points to the importance of finding ways to preserve the forested land,
for environmental reasons as well as for the satisfactions derived from them by residents, neighbors,
and visitors. Such protection of forests, as well as wetlands and open meadows, is more likely if
these areas are seen by residents as being integral, communally owned parts of the overall
development.
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Article 2
Devlin, A. S., Andrade, C. C., & Carvalho, D. (2016). Qualities of inpatient hospital rooms:
Patients’ perspectives. Health Environments Research & Design Journal, 9, 190-211.

The unknown and uncontrollable hospital environment may be appraised as harmful and
demanding, thus causing additional stress, but if patients perceive they have adequate coping
resources and environmental options and conditions to offset the negative appraisal, the situation
may be perceived as more positive and in turn support well-being. The aim of this qualitative study
was to investigate what design features of hospital rooms are valued by inpatients.
Research on healthcare environments has found that patients benefit from privacy,
quietness, and the presence of family members. Ulrich proposes that healthcare physical
environments will not produce stress but instead will promote well-being if they are
designed to address three essential needs: (a) sense of control over physical–social surroundings
(single rooms associated with more privacy and a sense of control), (b) access to social support
(valuable and effective means by which a person can reduce the negative mental and physical health
effects of stress), and (c) access to positive distractions (nature, painting representing nature,
presence of plants). In the analysis, five first-order categories emerged: positive distraction,
perceived control, social support, Internet, and other aspects (size of the room, overall environment
appraisals, staff-related comments, furniture, equipment and materials, cleanliness, functionality
and maintenance, and room layout).

Article 3
Evans, G. W., Lepore, S. J., & Schroeder, A. (1996). The role of interior design elements in human
responses to crowding. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 70, 41-46.

Prior research has uncovered evidence that chronic residential crowding leads to elevated
psychological distress. A major reason this occurs is because of the breakdown on socially
supportive relationships within crowded homes. This breakdown in socially supportive relationships
appears to be an unintended consequence of reliance on social withdrawal as a strategy to cope with
the excessive, unwanted social demands that typically accompany chronic residential crowding.
Architectural depth (the number of spaces one must pass through to get from one room in the house
to another) in the home might buffer this process by affording crowded residents alternative
strategies for regulating social interaction.
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It was found that residents of crowded homes with greater architectural depth are less
likely to socially withdraw or to be psychologically distressed than residents in crowded homes
with relatively low depth. Analyses suggest that greater depth buffers the association between
residential crowding and psychological distress because it reduces social withdrawal among
residents of crowded homes.

Article 4
Evans, G. W., & Kim, P. (2007). Childhood poverty and health: Cumulative risk exposure and
stress dysregulation. Psychological Science, 18, 953-957.

A massive literature documents the inverse association between poverty or low socioeconomic
status and health, but little is known about the mechanisms underlying this robust relation. Poverty
during early childhood is associated with increased morbidity and decreased life span in adulthood.
Something in the early life experiences of low-income individuals sets them on a life trajectory of
impaired health. The authors suggest that poverty in early childhood harms health because stress
regulatory mechanisms are damaged by excessive exposure to cumulative environmental risks
during childhood. Poverty and low SES are associated with elevated basal measures of blood
pressure in children under the age of 13.
This could be because risk exposure may be heightened among poor children relative
to more affluent children. Low-income children confront significantly more physical and social risk
factors than their wealthier counterparts. Income-related physical risks include substandard housing,
low neighborhood quality, toxins, ambient pollutants, noise, and crowding. Also, the families of
poor children tend to have heightened levels of conflict, greater risk of dissolution, and harsher and
more unresponsive. Research has also shown that several of these physical and social
environmental risk factors potentiate physiological stress.
It was found that the greater the number of years spent living in poverty, the more
elevated was overnight cortisol and the more dysregulated was the cardiovascular response. Unlike
the duration of poverty exposure, concurrent poverty (i.e., during adolescence) did not affect these
physiological stress outcomes. The effects of childhood poverty on stress dysregulation are largely
explained by cumulative risk exposure accompanying childhood poverty.
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Article 5
Staats, H., & Groot, P. (2019). Seat choice in a crowded cafe: Effects of eye contact, distance, and
anchoring. Frontiers in Psychology, 10: 331.

How a person behaves in a given environment depends both on the presence of other people in that
environment and on the qualities of the environment itself. Hall (1968) noted that in Western
society there are four regions of interpersonal distance in which interaction takes place, which he
labeled the intimate domain (0–45 cm distance between persons), personal domain (45–120 cm),
social-consultative domain (120–400 cm), and public domain (400+ cm). Depending on the quality
of the relationship between people, they will feel comfortable interacting in any of these four
domains. Intrusions of personal space—when another person enters an intimate space domain
without permission—can cause discomfort to the person whose space was invaded.
Two influential theories of personal distance focus on intimacy and privacy to explain
people’s behavior in response to nearby others: (1) Affiliative conflict theory addresses people’s
need for intimacy and distance, and (2) privacy regulation theory addresses people’s need for
privacy defined as “selective control of access to the self or to one’s group”. Affiliative conflict
theory states that individuals when interacting with other people desire to strike a balance between
two contrasting needs: the need to achieve intimacy and the need to maintain individuality and
freedom. Failing to compensate can result in distress: In case of too much intimacy, individuals will
feel anxious about revealing inner states and about being rejected; and in case of too little intimacy,
individuals will feel lonely, which also leads to distress. Privacy regulation theory predicts that
individuals will feel most satisfied when there is a match between their desired and achieved
amount of privacy. When the amount of privacy that is desired by the individual exceeds the actual
amount of privacy that the individual can achieve (i.e., there is not enough privacy), an individual
will experience crowding. Conversely, when the amount of actual privacy exceeds the amount of
desired privacy (i.e., there is more privacy than desired by the individual) an individual will
experience social isolation or loneliness. Affiliative conflict theory speaks of intimacy as a (more-
or-less two-sided) phenomenon resulting from the interaction between two individuals; and privacy
regulation theory speaks of privacy as a (more-or-less one-sided) phenomenon resulting from
control over access to the self.
According to theories of interpersonal distance people choose to position themselves
in relation to nearby others in a way that optimizes intimacy and privacy. It was found that more
often participants chose a seat that was at a larger distance to other café-goes, and that participants
more often chose low-eye contact and anchored seats.
 18

Week 5: Acting Green

Article 1
Griskevicius, V., Cantú, S. M., & Van Vugt, M. (2012). The evolutionary bases for sustainable
behavior: Implications for marketing, policy, and social entrepreneurship. Journal of Public Policy
& Marketing, 31, 115-128.

Many modern environmental and social problems are caused or exacerbated by five adaptive
tendencies rooted in evolutionary history: (1) propensity for self-interest , (2) motivation for relative
rather than absolute status, (3) proclivity to unconsciously copy others, (4) predisposition to be
shortsighted, and (5) proneness to disregard intangible concerns.
(An evolutionary perspective draws an important distinction between ultimate and
proximate explanations for behavior. Behavioral scientists have typically been concerned only with
proximate explanations, which focus on relatively immediate triggers for behavior (culture,
incentives, preferences, learning, utility, pleasure, happiness, values, emotions, and personality).
However, an evolutionary perspective contends that it is useful and important to consider the
ultimate, evolutionary reasons for behavior: to ask why humans evolved to behave in a certain way.
It is important to note that proximate and ultimate explanations are not competing. Instead, they are
complementary, explaining behavior at different levels of analyses.)

Article 2
De Leeuw, A., Valois, P., Ajzen, I., & Schmidt, P. (2015). Using the theory of planned behavior to
identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications
for educational interventions. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 42, 128-138.

People are called to change their behavior in an effort to reduce its detrimental impact on the
environment. In this regard, young people are a critical stakeholder, since they bear the burden of
past and current negligence towards the environment. At the same time, they represent a powerful
engine for behavior change. Instead of trying to make sure that people have accurate information,
we need to identify the subjective beliefs people hold towards the issue and how these beliefs affect
their intention and behavior. Only then is it possible to either challenge beliefs that impede the
adoption of the desired behavior, strengthen those who support it, or facilitate the development of
new beliefs that promote the desired behavior.
 19

The theory of planned behavior (TPB) model was applied to high school students’
eco-friendly behavior. The impact of perceived control on intentions and on future behavior was
noteworthy. Of particular importance was the behavior of the parents and the family in general.
Individual differences in empathy can influence the eco-friendly beliefs people hold.

Article 3
Schultz, P. W., & Zelezny, L. C. (1998). Values and proenvironmental behavior: A five-country
survey. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 29, 540-558.

Schwartz’s norm-activation model predicts that an altruistic behavior is more likely to occur when a
person is both aware of the harmful consequences of their actions for others and when the person
ascribes responsibility for these consequences to the self.
This study examined the relationship between values, awareness of the consequences
for environmental damage, ascribed responsibility, and pro-environmental behaviors. The results
indicate that values, particularly the nature subtype of self-transcendence (an orientation toward the
welfare of others), are important variables to consider in the prediction of environmental behavior.

Article 4
Thøgersen, J., & Ölander, F. (2006). The dynamic interaction of personal norms and environment‐
friendly buying behavior: A panel study 1. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 36, 1758-1780.

A key aspect of consumer behavior—from an economic as well as an environmental perspective—

is everyday shopping for ordinary necessities: food products, beverages, detergents, and many other
low‐cost and frequently purchased items that are used in the household. Organic production of
foods is not the only, but the most far‐reaching measure to increase the environmental friendliness
of food consumption. In the food area, the preference for voluntary measures to promote the choice
of environmentally friendly products is not less pronounced than in other areas. To some extent, this
gap between expected and experienced market shares can be explained by phenomena related to the
organic products themselves: insufficient supply and distribution, the premium price typically
claimed for organic products, and their quality not always being as good as that of conventional
products.
The stronger are consumers' personal norms about buying organic food products and
the less they perceive organic products as expensive, the greater the likelihood that they change
their purchase patterns in favor of organic products.
 20

Article 5
Gifford, R. (2013). Dragons, mules, and honeybees: Barriers, carriers, and unwitting enablers of
climate change action. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 69, 41-48.

Why aren’t more people engaged in actions that would help mitigate climate change? The
psychological “dragons of inaction” impede green behaviors, “mules,” carry heavy loads of
responsibility as they take major steps to mitigate climate change, and “honeybees” help the
environment, but without intending to do so. The dragons of inaction are: (1) limited cognition
(rationality, discounting the future, ignorance, weariness to threats, uncertainty about facts, over-
optimism, perceived lack of control), (2) ideologies that foster inaction (religious and political
views, overconfidence in technology, system justification), (3) other people, (4) sunk costs
(financial investments (stocks, cars), habit, conflicting goals, lack of attachment to place of
residence), (5) disbelief, distrust, and denial (in politicians, scientists, and facts), (6) perceived risk
(functional risk (do electric cars work?), physical risk (are electric cars safe?), financial risk (price
of electric cars), social risk (being made fun of), psychological risk (loss of social resources),
temporal risk (spending too much time on deciding on a course of action)), (7) limited behavior
(“little is enough”, the rebound effect).
In some cases, the reasons for climate inaction are structural—that is, beyond an
individual's reasonable control. For example, having a low income severely limits one’s ability to
purchase solar panels; living in a rural area usually means that public transport does not exist as an
alternative to driving; and living in a region with very cold winters greatly restricts one’s ability to
reduce energy use for home heating. However, many people do have the financial and structural
capacity to act, but do not… or do much less than they could. So the question remains: What limits
more widespread pro-environmental behavior on the part of individuals for whom such actions are
feasible?

Week 6: Sustainable Interventions

Article 1
Schultz, P. W. (2014). Strategies for promoting proenvironmental behavior. European Psychologist,
19, 107-117.

There is a large body of psychological research aimed at understanding and promoting pro-
environmental behavior. Meta-analytic findings support three conclusions: (1) pro-environmental
 21

behavior can be changed, (2) some treatments are

more effective than others, and (3) the effectiveness
of a treatment is not uniform. Six of the most
frequently studied tools used to promote behavior
change are examined: prompts, commitments,
feedback, social norms, incentives, and convenience.
Community-based social marketing (CBSM)
promotes positive change within a community. The
CBSM framework follows a five-step process: (1)
identify a specific target behavior, (2) identify the barriers and benefits to the target behavior, (3)
program development, (4) pilot testing, and (5) implementation and evaluation. Relating to step 2:
barriers refer to anything that reduces the probability of engaging in the target behavior. Benefits
refer to a person’s beliefs about the positive outcomes associated with the behavior (see Figure for
behavior change tool matching).

Article 2
Staats, H., Harland, P., & Wilke, H. A. (2004). Effecting durable change: A team approach to
improve environmental behavior in the household. Environment and Behavior, 36, 341-367.

Research in the past three decades has shown that intervention techniques that aim to change pro-
environmental behavior generally face two problems that severely limit their effectiveness: a lack of
response generalization from targeted to nontargeted behaviors and a very limited duration of pro-
environmental change. Considering the many behaviors that need to change if we are to achieve a
sustainable society, the issues of durability and the behavioral scope of interventions are of utmost
importance. Intervention techniques that only change one specific type of behavior, and then only
for the duration of the intervention, have limited practical value.
Information is one of the most widely used means to promote pro-environmental
behavior change. Feedback about performance may increase the sense of individual and collective
efficacy, and may also trigger change through appeals to social and personal norms. Supportive
social environment has rarely been implemented when promoting pro-environmental behavior. It
has been found that (social) commitment techniques have produced behavior changes that are
relatively long lasting. Studies suggest that intervention packages combining information, feedback,
and social support may be particularly successful in accomplishing long-term pro-environmental
behavior change.
 22

Article 3
Poortinga, W., & Whitaker, L. (2018). Promoting the use of reusable coffee cups through
environmental messaging, the provision of alternatives and financial incentives. Sustainability, 10:
873.

It is hard to recycle paper coffee cups because they consist of a mix of paper and plastic. In order to
reduce litter and the volume and weight of coffee cup waste being sent to landfill, it is important to
consider the waste hierarchy model. That is, reducing the creation of paper cups may be a more
effective and economical way of preventing waste than the recycling of them, in particular when
they are high volume low value.
Social norms are among the most important predictors of pro-environmental behavior.
Awareness raising in combination with the provision of alternatives is one of the most effective
ways of changing behavior. Financial incentives, such as discounts and charges, are part of the
standard suite of instruments available to policy makers to encourage and discourage behavior,
respectively.
The study found that both environmental messaging and the provision of alternatives
increased the use of reusable cups. While a charge on disposable cups increased their use as well, a
discount on reusable cups did not. The effects for the individual measures were modest, but
additive, meaning that the greatest behavioral change was achieved with a combination of
measures.

Article 4
Van Horen, F., Van der Wal, A. J., & Grinstein, A. (2018). Green, greener, greenest: Can
competition increase sustainable behavior? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 59, 16-28.

It is key for companies and policy makers to motivate sustainable behavior among both those who
are naturally concerned about the welfare of others and are already more likely to be
environmentally conscious (“pro-socials”) and those who are generally less motivated to act
sustainably, as they are more concerned with maximizing their own benefits or relative advantage
over others (“pro-selves”). The current work investigates a new strategy that could foster the
motivation to behave sustainably across both segments of people: competition.
Competition was found to promote sustainable behavior, as it corresponds with the
underlying motivations of pro-selves and, when used as a mean to a sustainable end, it does not
alienate pro-socials from continuing to behave sustainably. Pro-selves act more sustainably in a
 23

competitive setting, than in non-competitive setting. Pro-socials act sustainably, independent of

competition.

Article 5
Schultz, P. W., Nolan, J. M., Cialdini, R. B., Goldstein, N. J., & Griskevicius, V. (2007). The
constructive, destructive, and reconstructive power of social norms. Psychological Science, 18, 429-
434.

Research has clearly established that social norms not only spur but also guide action in direct and
meaningful ways. Social-norms marketing campaigns have emerged as an alternative to more
traditional approaches designed to reduce undesirable conduct. The rationale for the social-norms
marketing approach is based on two consistent findings: (a) The majority of individuals
overestimate the prevalence of many undesirable behaviors, and (b) individuals use their
perceptions of peer norms as a standard against which to compare their own behaviors. Social-
norms marketing campaigns seek to reduce the occurrence of deleterious behaviors by correcting
targets’ misperceptions regarding the behaviors’ prevalence. The perception of prevalence is
commonly referred to as the descriptive norm governing a behavior. There is a second type of
social norm, in addition to the descriptive norm, that has a powerful influence on behavior—the
injunctive norm. Whereas descriptive norms refer to perceptions of what is commonly done
in a given situation, injunctive norms refer to perceptions of what is commonly approved or
disapproved within the culture.
A descriptive normative message detailing average neighborhood energy usage
produced either desirable energy savings or the undesirable boomerang effect, depending on
whether households were already consuming at a low or high rate. Adding an injunctive message
(conveying social approval or disapproval) eliminated the boomerang effect.

Week 7: Greening of Corporations

Article 1
Bansal, P., & Roth, K. (2000). Why companies go green: A model of ecological responsiveness.
Academy of Management Journal, 43, 717-736.

Corporate ecological responsiveness: a set of corporate initiatives aimed at mitigating a firm's

impact on the natural environment. Motivations and contextual factors that induce corporate
 24

ecological responsiveness was investigated. Three motivations found: competitiveness (the

potential for ecological responsiveness to improve long-term profitability), legitimation (the desire
of a firm to improve the appropriateness of its actions within an established set of regulations,
norms, values, or beliefs), and ecological responsibility (a motivation that stems from the concern
that a firm has for its social obligations and values). Three contextual conditions found: field
cohesion (the intensity and density of formal and informal network ties between constituents in an
organizational field), issue salience (the extent to which a specific ecological issue has meaning for
organizational constituents), and individual concern (the degree to which organizational members
value the environment and the degree of discretion they possess to act on their environmental
values).

Article 2
Parry, S. (2012). Going green: The evolution of micro‐business environmental practices. Business
Ethics: A European Review, 21, 220-237.

Stakeholders have a great impact because they are dealt with in one-to-one basis. Because micro-
businesses are embedded in the community, local legislation had an effect. Economic interactions
and social interactions with stakeholders are interrelated and overlapping. Smaller firms tend to take
a more reactive and compliant stand with regard to environmental legislation.
Media pressure is important et certain stages of development, whereas e.g. resources
gave a more enduring effect over time. The businesses studied experienced problems in
implementing green policies because of conflicts with other requirements such as health and safety
or because of public conceptions and misconceptions about environmentalism. Another factor was
the changing social and political landscape: What constitutes the best way of engaging with the
green agenda and of gaining benefit from it as a business are constantly changing. Changes in social
attitude, new legislation and political pressures are constantly creating new business opportunities.

Article 3
Spisak, B. R., Grabo, A. E., Arvey, R. D., & van Vugt, M. (2014). The age of exploration and
exploitation: Younger-looking leaders endorsed for change and older-looking leaders endorsed for
stability. The Leadership Quarterly, 25, 805-816.

Stability and change are respectively associated with the systematic exploitation of existing
resources and knowledge versus a switch to the exploration of new resources and knowledge. It
 25

appears that both coordination strategies are essential for the healthy maintenance and development
of social networks. Without exploitation, groups lack the stability required to learn and work toward
optimizing their environment putting them at a disadvantage relative to groups that are better able to
share information, refine acquired knowledge, and execute coordination. Conversely, groups that
cannot effectively explore new opportunities risk becoming obsolete and unable to adapt. This also
creates a disadvantage in contrast to groups that have an ability to change quickly and take
advantage of new opportunities.
From an evolutionary perspective, coordination
distinctions between exploratory change and stable
exploitation align with leadership opportunities as
moderated by age. Even though coordinated
exploration such as persistence hunting and
competitive scavenging enhanced fitness there was also
cost in terms of physical energy – one key aspect is the
vigor and stamina associated with relatively younger
age. The main point being that change very often has a physical component which favors younger
leaders. The trade-off to this exploratory tendency is stable exploitation. The requirements of
exploitation include increasing the efficiency, refinement, and execution of the processes necessary
to systematically harvest the benefit of an established resource. This form of leadership benefits the
group by taking advantage of acquired knowledge and best practices stored within an experienced
leader that can be transmitted via social learning. Cues of older age can serve as an honest signal of
one's ability to secure stable exploitation of established resources.
Findings: Younger-looking leaders are endorsed for times of exploratory change and
older-looking leaders for stable exploitation. Further, results indicated that older leaders are
endorsed for leading conservative exploitation of nonrenewable resources and younger leaders for
exploration of renewable alternatives.

Article 4
Norton, T. A., Zacher, H., & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2014). Organisational sustainability policies and
employee green behavior: The mediating role of work climate perceptions. Journal of
Environmental Psychology, 38, 49-54.

Organizations are increasingly introducing sustainability policies to encourage environmentally

friendly behaviors. Employees’ green work climate perceptions (i.e., how they perceive their
 26

organizations’ and co-workers’ orientations towards environmental sustainability) may constitute

psychological mechanisms that link such policies with behavior. The study investigates
relationships among the perceived presence of organizational sustainability policies, green work
climate perceptions and employee reports of their green behavior (EGB). Results show that green
work climate perceptions mediate the positive relationship between employees’ perceptions of the
presence of a sustainability policy and EGB. Green work climate perceptions of the organization
and of co-workers differentially mediated the effects of the perceived presence of a sustainability
policy on task-related and proactive EGB.

Article 5
Olsen, M. C., Slotegraaf, R. J., & Chandukala, S. R. (2014). Green claims and message frames:
How green new products change brand attitude. Journal of Marketing, 78, 119-137.

In response to a top ten global consumer trend, firms are increasingly introducing environmentally
sustainable (“green”) new products. Green new product introductions can improve brand attitude
and both the brand and category's positioning (actively monitoring and maintaining green brand
identity) influence the introduction of green new products. It is also found that the quantity of green
messages (fewer green claims (minimizing information overload and skepticism) enhance
relationship between green products and change in brand attitude), the product type (higher vice-
related products (as opposed to virtue) tend to benefit more from green mentions), and their source
credibility influence the extent to which green new products change brand attitude (consumer
attitudes toward a firm are more affected by unethical behavior than by prosocial behavior (not
enough new information about product if brand already ethical)).