Winston Churchill couldn’t match Mark Twain but he could match almost anyone else with his razor-sharp wit and his wise leanings. Think twice, may be thrice about this sentence “We shape our dwellings, and afterwards our dwellings shape us.” What is there in it which arrests us, completely soaks us and asks us to initiate introspection into the concept of “person-environment fit”?
Definitely a concept worth floating with; in short, it is nothing but a suggestion that our homes build our personality sometime soon after we build them. No man is an island. Nothing hangs in free air.
Nothing hangs without strings
There is a beautiful string attached to everything in cosmos and for us humans, the beauty of our evolutionary aspirations lie in our treatment of our homes. Environmental psychology presses home this point.
The peak of man-environment fit
Any person who finds contentment in his environment slowly but steadily comes close to the fulfilment of all his biological as well as psychological needs. At this stage, he becomes a reflecting surface, quite willing to reflect the property of his environment.
So is it a case of one size fits all?
This leads us to assume that the environment is not subject to shift in demography and leanings and differences in age and gender. Well! This could not be farther from truth. A peaceful environment may be a great source of rejuvenation for a retiree and a pinnacle of frustration for a rebellious youth.
A migrant might seek community interactions while a recluse may need no such urgings. Put another way, what’s a conducive situation for one may be far from ideal for another.
Environmental psychology processes negative stimuli very well
Thus, in a bid to concretise findings, environmental psychology theories focus on negative aspects of environment like air, water, noise and light pollution- same for all. With an eye towards this negativity, respondents become far more observant of positive situations.
Let us take the example of green spaces in our neighbourhood. Don’t they say a thousand “good health” stories? Don’t they take away all the stress from your mind?
The user-friendly model
Greenery also connotes a sense of safety and support whereas barrenness or paucity of greenery connotes lack of support or hinging point. Thus, it may serve us well to adopt a user-friendly approach while designing our urban homes.
How high would you rate environmental psychology in adjudging positivity and “person-environment fit”?