Human HER Process Environment

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Virginia French
5 years ago
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1 15 Environmental Psychology Gary W. Evans Tables & Graphs Scientists use tables and graphs to summarize their major findings and as data to provide evidence for or against different conclusions they make. In this class you will see tables and graphs in every lecture and in many of the readings. Moreover, there will be exam questions asking you to interpret data presented in a table or as a graph. You will also have exam questions requiring you to generate hypothetical data to illustrate your answer to a question. You do not need statistics to interpret these materials or to do well in this class, but you do need to understand tables and graphs. The purpose of this handout is to facilitate understanding tables and graphs. As you know, this class is about the following relations among the environment and human beings: Environment Human Human Environment The environments we discuss can be summarized as: Home, City, Work, and Earth. We are also interested in Human Environment Relations (HER) processes that help us understand how and why the Environment can affect our Health and Welfare, as well as how Human Behavior and Decisions can affect the Environment. In other words, HER refers to processes or mechanisms that explain the linkages between Environment and Human Health and Behavior. Environment HER Process Human Human HER Process Environment Scientists use tables and graphs to illustrate results from research, including research on the Environment, HER Processes, and Human Health and Welfare. For instance, let s say you are interested in the following question: Does the structural quality of a house affect children s mental health? Housing Structural Quality Child Mental Health

2 To investigate this question, you would need to measure housing structural quality and children s mental health. To make things simpler, imagine we have housing of Good, Average, and Poor Structural Quality. For a table you would then need to have: Housing Structural Quality Child Mental Health (- 1) Where = worst, and 1 = best mental health Poor Average Good Any table can be turned into a graph and vice versa. Note that for graphs, the Y axis is conventionally used for the outcome measure. In this example the outcome measure is Child Mental Health. Child Mental Health Poor Average Good Housing Structural Quality So interpret these results: What do they suggest about housing structural quality and child mental health? Without turning the page: Write what you think here and describe your logic.

3 Answer: The data suggest that housing structural quality has no relation or no effect on child mental health. The logic is as follows: Regardless of the amount of structural quality, the child s mental health is the same, 5 = moderate. If you use the graph, this is equivalent to saying that the slope of the line plotting mental health over housing quality is. With each change in value on the X axis, there is no change in the value on the Y axis. Now what about these data for the same situation, what do they suggest? Housing Structural Quality Child Mental Health (- 1) Where = worst, and 1 = best mental health Poor Average Good Child Mental Health Poor Average Good Housing Structural Quality These data show that housing structural quality does seem to matter for children s mental health, with better housing structural quality associated with better child mental health.

4 So here is a little exercise for you to test how well you understand both the HER process of Environmental Stimulation as well as the idea of Critical Period. Make a table and a graph that show that if a six- month- old rat is raised in an enriched (high levels of stimulation) environment, it will have more brain development in the hippocampus. Use number of neurons in the hippocampus as your outcome measure of brain development. Table: Graph:

5 Here is one example of how you would show this in a table and in a graph. Scenario 1: Environmental Stimulation Low High Number of brain cells in hippocampus 25, 4, Number of brain cells in hippocampus Low Environmental Stimulation High Now add to your graph and to your table another dimension, showing that the positive effect of environmental enrichment on brain development in six- month- old rats is subject to a critical period, meaning that only six- month- old rats exposed to higher stimulation from birth to 1 days of age show this effect. Six- month- old rats exposed to enrichment between 1 days and 3 days do not show an effect.

6 Scenario 2: Critical Period Environmental Stimulation Low High Age of Exposure to Stimulation 1 Days 25, 4, 1 3 Days 3, 3, Number of brain cells in hippocampus Low High Environmental Stimulation - 1 Days Age of Exposure 1-3 Days Note that for - 1 days exposure period, there is a beneficial impact of environmental stimulation on brain development when measured in a six- month- old rat. i.e., 4, vs. 25, brain cells; whereas for exposure between 1 and 3 days of age, there is no difference between the Low and High Environmental Stimulation conditions. The enrichment only works if it occurs during the Critical Period of - 1 days after birth.

7 Person by Environment Interaction Principle A principle that cuts across different HER processes is Person by Environment Interaction. This means that for some HER processes like environmental stimulation, homeyness, personal space, etc., the effects of the process are not uniform across all people. Some personal characteristics can influence how strongly or in what way the HER process operates. A nice example of this from class are the chairs designed for right- handed people. If you are right- handed, the chair works fine to take notes. But if you are left- handed, it is difficult to use the chair to take notes. As another example, Hall argues that people in Asian or Latin countries are part of what he calls contact cultures; whereas people in North American and Northern European countries are non- contact cultures. One manifestation of this is the size of the personal space bubble. Non- contact people, on average, have bigger personal space bubbles than people from contact cultures. So here is a table/graph exercise. Draw a table and a graph showing a Person by Environment Interaction for personal space. Imagine two people who are strangers. One pair is Swedish (Northern European and hence a non- contact culture) and one pair is from Mexico (Latin and hence a contact culture). You request the Swedish pair and the Mexican pair to stand one foot away from each other in one condition, and six feet away from each other in another condition. You measure their level of comfort in both conditions where = Low and 1 = High. On the following page, generate a graph and a table showing some hypothetical results indicating a Person by Environment Interaction between interpersonal distance and culture.

9 Here is one illustration: Interpersonal Distance One foot Six feet Comfort (- 1) Where = least, and 1 = most comfortable Swedish 6 Mexican 2 4 Comfort (rated - 1) Culture Swedish Mexican One foot Interpersonal Distance Six feet

10 To test yourself: What is the evidence (be precise) that there is a Person by Environment Interaction? Hint: In this example below, there is no Person by Environment Interaction. Interpersonal Distance One foot Six feet Comfort (- 1) Where = least, and 1 = most comfortable Swedish 6 Mexican 2 8 Comfort (rated - 1) One foot Interpersonal Distance Six feet Culture Swedish Mexican

11 Contrast what the two different tables and graphs show. Why does the first one depict a Person by Environment Interaction? And why not the second one?

Our goal in this section is to explain a few more concepts about experiments. Don t be concerned with the details.

Our goal in this section is to explain a few more concepts about experiments. Don t be concerned with the details. 1 We already mentioned an example with two explanatory variables or factors the case of