Interior design psychology

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Interior design psychology is a field within environmental psychology, which concerns the environmental conditions of the interior. It is a direct study of the relationship between an environment and how that environment affects the behavior of its inhabitants, intending to maximize the positive effects of this relationship. Through interior design psychology, the performance and efficiency of the space and the well-being of the individual are improved. Figures like Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, John B. Calhoun and Jean Baudrillard have shown that by incorporating this psychology into design one can control an environment and to an extent, the relationship and behavior of its inhabitants. An example of this is seen through the rat experiments conducted by Calhoun in which he noted the aggression, killing and changed sexual tendencies amongst rats. This experiment created a stark behavioral analogy between the rat's behavior and inhabitation in high-rise building projects in the US after WWII, an example of which is the Pruitt-Igoe development in St Louis demolished in 1972 only 21 years after being erected.

Contents

Proxemics

Proxemics study the amount of space people feel necessary to have between themselves and others.

Crowding and personal space

In this field of study, the phenomenon of territoriality is demonstrated continuously through unwritten indices and behaviors, which communicate, the conscious or subconscious notions of personal space and territoriality. This phenomenon is seen, for example, through the use of public seating and the empty seats on a crowded bus or train. "Crowding occurs when the regulation of social interaction is unsuccessful and our desires for social interaction are exceeded by the actual amount of social interaction experienced." [1] Studies observing social behaviors and psychology have indicated, such as in the case of commuters that people will seek to maximize personal space whether standing or sitting.

In a study conducted by Gary W. Evans and Richard E. Wene, (who work within the field of environmental design and human development) of 139 adult commuters, commuting between New Jersey and Manhattan, (54% male) saliva samples were taken to measure cortisol levels, a hormonal marker of stress. Their research accounts statistically for other possible stressors such as income and general life stress. "We find that a more proximal index of density is correlated with multiple indices of stress wherein a more distal index of density is not." [1] Concerns arising from the results of this study suggest that small deviations in increased seat density, controlled against income stress, would elevate the log of cortisol (i.e. stress levels) and diminish task performance and mood.

Smooth and Striated space

According to Learning Spaces: Creating Opportunities for Knowledge Creation in Academic Life by Savin-Baden, it explored the concept of space in the physical sense when describing smooth and striated cultural spaces. Smooth spaces are described as "nomadic"; that is, in a constant state of movement. For example, the lobby of a hotel, an activity room where the seating directions are towards each other instead of focusing in one line, which provides a sense of relaxation and informality. These spaces are open, flexible, and owned by their inhabitants. Smooth spaces are where knowledge is contested and learning is co-created. They are messy and undisciplined, which often creates tension between stakeholders and users. Striated spaces, on the other hand, are described as bounded spaces, which refers to a certain orientation that focuses primarily in one direction, reflecting the organizational and pedagogical structure of the space. Classrooms and lecture halls are examples of striated spaces. [2]

Relationships between people

Closely related to the proxemics of space is the area of privacy. In "Perspectives on Privacy" P. Brierley Newell [3] from the department of psychology at the University of Warwick, Coventry defines privacy as "a voluntary and temporary condition of separation from the public domain." The desire for privacy is often identified as a link between stress and distress. The ability to obtain privacy within an environment allows the individual to separate themselves physically and mentally from others and relax. This notion is of key importance in determining the behavior and well-being of the individual. As above in the scenario of crowding and density on public transport, privacy dictates the perception of comfort, in relation to crowding and personal space. Dissatisfaction with one's environment can be related to close proximity with others, leading to stress and as a result, diminish mood and performance behaviors.

Defensible space

This theory began development in 1962 when John B. Calhoun conducted a series of experiments on rats to study population density and social pathology. From these experiments, a breeding utopia was established for the rats in which they only lacked space. "Unwanted social contact occurred with increasing frequency, leading to increased stress and aggression. Following the work of the physiologist, Hans Selye, it seemed that the adrenal system offered the standard binary solution: fight or flight. But in the sealed enclosure, the flight was impossible. Violence quickly spiraled out of control. Cannibalism and infanticide followed. Males became hypersexual, pansexual and, an increasing proportion, homosexual. Calhoun called this vortex "a behavioral sink". Their numbers fell into terminal decline and the population tailed off to extinction" [4]

This study linked population growth, environmental degradation and urban violence. [4] Similar behavioral tendencies became apparent within the poor housing conditions at the Pruitt-Igoe development in St Louis. This development is now used as a key study of inhabitation by architects and urban planners, Oscar Newman one of the main developers of this field, references the observations of inhabitation at this establishment in his book Creating Defensible Space. [5] He notes the stark difference between private space, which is clearly defined as personal territory, and the public space in this development. He notes that public spaces shared by relatively few families compared to those shared by many were much more hygienic and well-looked after, whereas those shared by larger numbers were often vandalized and unhygienic. He comments that the anonymity created by these largely shared public corridors and spaces "evoked no feelings of identity or control" [5] This indicates our relationship with space affects our behavior and use of space. In this example lack of feelings of ownership of the space led to negative behavior within space and created feedback with negative effects on the well-being of the inhabitants.

The perception of space

This perception can otherwise be termed as awareness between our bodies and the awareness of other bodies, organisms and bodies around us. Perceived beauty and personal involvement within an environment are key factors, which determine our perception of space. [6] As defined in the Measurement of Meaning by Osgood, Suci and Tannebaum the factors influencing the perception of space are these 3 things: 1. Evaluation- including the aesthetic, affective and symbolic meaning of space 2. Power- the energy requirements to adapt to a space 3. Activity- links to the noise within a space and the worker's relationship and satisfaction with job and task. In "Effects of the self-schema on perception of space at work" by Gustave Nicolas Fischer, Cyril Tarquinio, Jacqueline C. Vischer, [7] the study conducted linking design and psychology in the workplace. In this study, they proposed a theoretical model linking environmental perception, work satisfaction and sense of self in a feedback loop. This is shown below in Fig. 1, to illustrate their findings on the direct relationship the environment has with the inhabitant and how through psychology this affects behavior.

(Awaiting copyright approval)

There is also something to be said about the way our increasingly popular open office designs may contribute to less productivity and higher distractions, versus traditional cubicle-like workspaces. [8] According to an article from Fortune, "Evidence is mixed on whether open plans actually foster collaboration, and studies have shown that open office plans decrease productivity and employee well-being while increasing the number of sick days workers take. [9] [...] A study by the architecture and design firm Gensler found that workers in 2013 spent 54 percent of their time on work requiring individual focus, up from 48 percent in 2008." [9] [10] In order to combat this, future offices in our next generations will include sound-proof private rooms allowing workers to work solo without distraction, cubicle banks and private offices while continuing to sustain the open floor plan.

The System of Objects

Developed by Jean Baudrillard as part of his sociology doctorate thesis Le Système des objets (The System of Objects). [11] In this he proposed the 4 object valuing criteria, these being:

  1. Function – a pen is used to write
  2. Exchange or economic value – a piano being worth three chairs
  3. Symbolic – an amethyst symbolizing a birth in February
  4. Sign – the branding or prestige of an object, with no added function being valued over another, it may be used to suggest social values such as class.

In this way, the objects and human relationships with objects in the interior environment have significant psychological meaning and impact. In "Social Attributions Based on Domestic Interiors" by M.A. Wilson and N.E. Mackenzie, it is proposed that: "people's interactions with the environment are determined by the meanings they attribute to it, and both stress the impact of expectations on behavior within a particular environment." [12] The study they discuss further developed the theme, that objects and how we classify them, in turn, allows us to classify the social attributes of the owner of the objects, in relation to age and social class according to the object valuing system. This system suggests that our relationship with objects affects both our behavior as we use objects according to their function, but also how we are perceived in the eyes of others. This makes our relationship with objects and space pivotal to our psychology. [12]

Space-time relationships

Charles Rice references the thinking of Walter Benjamin, in The Emergence of the Interior, [13] on the study of interiorization and experience. He proposes that in our faster-paced modern society experiences are instantaneous and through this, we are missing long experiences such as a connection with tradition and the accumulation of wisdom over time. To reforge a sense of this relationship and address the current lack he demonstrates that we might materially create such a relationship through inanimate objects in our environment. Giving the example: "that the hearth and the mantelpiece might materially encode the mythical fireside and the situation it provided for the telling of stories." In this way, one's relationship with objects can embody a sense of experience and fulfill the desire for a connection with tradition.

Space and user experience

In the article "Storied Spaces: Cultural Accounts of Mobility, Technology, and Environmental Knowing" by Johanna Brewer and Paul Dourish, it mentioned the three themes that are directly related to user-experience in terms of campus planning: legibility, literacy, and legitimacy. Legibility refers to "our understanding of how the place and/or space provide information for us, both socially and culturally". Spatial Literacy refers to "how we interpret the information provided by the environment around us, the activities we engage in, and the relevance of those activities." Legitimacy refers to "how we seek information and find relevance within the environment around us." In the concept of campus design, legibility refers to the campus maps, signposts, as well as the lecture room numbers within the building. Literacy refers to the students' feelings and behaviors within a certain environment in the building and what an interior promotes students to do and don't, in general user-experience. And legitimacy refers to the method that students use to engage themselves into this environment, as well as the reason that they come in and leave. [14]

Space and human behavioural cognition

The interaction between humans and spaces tends to reach a certain balance by their interaction. When individuals are in a certain interior environment, they not only express their physical behavior, but also their emotions, thoughts, and willingness are impacted by the interior as well. According to what Ye Wenben mentioned in his article "Interior Design Psychology", the ultimate goal of interior design is to lead human behavioral cognition in a positive way and reach a relatively harmonious dynamic balance through its impact towards humans in terms of user experience and mental conditions. [15]

Security

Ye mentioned that within a certain space, it does not necessarily mean that the broader the space is, the better it is going to be for the users. The over-broad space tends to cause people a sense of loss and insecurity. The needs of safety and protection of people will make them willing to find certain objects to rely on. For example, in the environment of a train station and subway station, people do not tend to stay in the closest place to board, instead multiple groups are formed and spread themselves around the waiting space, seats, and pillars, and maintain a certain space with other individuals. This concept of "security" has also prompted people to apply the use of  interspersed space in order to provide a more stable and secure mentality within a space. [15]

Self-congestion

According to the journal: Does Space Matter? Assessing the Undergraduate "Lived Experience" to Enhance Learning, by using time-lapse cameras and three years of observing and measuring the interactions and activities of people within these public spaces, it summarized the notion of "self-congestion": people tend to attract other people in public spaces even though they indicate that they prefer to get away from crowds. When it applies to interior design, we must also take in consideration gathered spaces instead of an evenly distributed distance with tables and chairs. [16]

Privacy and interpersonal distance

Privacy is people's basic need for the space, ensuring self-integrity, expressing one's perspective towards life, is the fundamental proven of freedom and respect towards an individual. Private space is the independent interior space that is restricted by the external materials and stabilized by one's mental awareness. It involves the relative requirements of visions and sounds within the space. Due to the different social scenario and interaction needs, the application for privacy and personal distances also have a clear discipline. [15]

Brief background

A greater awareness into this field has emerged since the 20th century when the function and performance of the interior became of chief importance in designing habitations, the start of user-centered design, for example, La Maison de Verre. [17] This modern idea of the interior-designing for the user from the inside to the outside has coincided with psychological analysis on the effects on inhabitations.

In The Emergence of the Interior, Charles Rice rationalized the implications of the interior: [13] • Under the context of modernity • Status of the experience • Presence of history and • Knowledge about subjectivity

The Importance of the development of this field is evident through the above areas of study

Understanding and implementation of interior design psychology can impact and improve the performance, efficiency and well-being of the individual inhabitant. As illustrated through the above categories this is an important and relevant developing field within design and planning.

See also

Related Research Articles

Proxemics is the study of human use of space and the effects that population density has on behavior, communication, and social interaction.

Applied psychology is the use of psychological methods and findings of scientific psychology to solve practical problems of human and animal behavior and experience. Educational and organizational psychology, business management, law, health, product design, ergonomics, behavioural psychology, psychology of motivation, psychoanalysis, neuropsychology, psychiatry and mental health are just a few of the areas that have been influenced by the application of psychological principles and scientific findings. Some of the areas of applied psychology include counseling psychology, industrial and organizational psychology, engineering psychology, occupational health psychology, legal psychology, school psychology, sports psychology, community psychology, neuropsychology, medical psychology and clinical psychology, evolutionary psychology, human factors, forensic psychology and traffic psychology. In addition, a number of specialized areas in the general area of psychology have applied branches. However, the lines between sub-branch specializations and major applied psychology categories are often mixed or in some cases blurred. For example, a human factors psychologist might use a cognitive psychology theory. This could be described as human factor psychology or as applied cognitive psychology. When applied psychology is used in the treatment of behavioral disorders there are many experimental approaches to try and treat an individual. This type of psychology can be found in many of the subbranches in other fields of psychology.

Interaction design, often abbreviated as IxD, is "the practice of designing interactive digital products, environments, systems, and services." While interaction design has an interest in form, its main area of focus rests on behavior. Rather than analyzing how things are, interaction design synthesizes and imagines things as they could be. This element of interaction design is what characterizes IxD as a design field, as opposed to a science or engineering field.

Traffic psychology is a discipline of psychology that studies the relationship between psychological processes and the behavior of road users. In general, traffic psychology aims to apply theoretical aspects of psychology in order to improve traffic mobility by helping to develop and apply crash countermeasures, as well as by guiding desired behaviors through education and the motivation of road users.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Affordance</span> Possibility of an action on an object or environment

In psychology, affordance is what the environment offers the individual. In design, affordance has a narrower meaning, it refers to possible actions that an actor can readily perceive.

<i>Emotional Design</i> Book by American writer Donald Norman

Emotional Design is both the title of a book by Donald Norman and of the concept it represents.

Environmental psychology is a branch of psychology that explores the relationship between humans and the external world. It examines the way in which the natural environment and our built environments shape us as individuals. Environmental psychology emphasizes how humans change the environment and how the environment changes humans' experiences and behaviors. The field defines the term environment broadly, encompassing natural environments, social settings, built environments, learning environments, and informational environments. According to an article on APA Psychnet, environmental psychology is when a person thinks of a plan, travels to a certain place, and follows through with the plan throughout their behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Servicescape</span>

Servicescape is a model developed by Booms and Bitner to emphasize the impact of the physical environment in which a service process takes place. The aim of the servicescapes model is to explain behavior of people within the service environment with a view to designing environments that does not accomplish organisational goals in terms of achieving desired behavioural responses. For consumers visiting a service or retail store, the service environment is the first aspect of the service that is perceived by the customer and it is at this stage that consumers are likely to form impressions of the level of service they will receive.

Behavior settings are theorized entities that help explain the relationship between individuals and the environment - particularly the social environment. This topic is typically indexed under the larger rubric of ecological psychology. However, the notion of behavior setting is offered here in more detail and with more specificity than is found in the larger entry under ecological psychology or environmental psychology.

Enactivism is a position in cognitive science that argues that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment. It claims that the environment of an organism is brought about, or enacted, by the active exercise of that organism's sensorimotor processes. "The key point, then, is that the species brings forth and specifies its own domain of problems ...this domain does not exist "out there" in an environment that acts as a landing pad for organisms that somehow drop or parachute into the world. Instead, living beings and their environments stand in relation to each other through mutual specification or codetermination" (p. 198). "Organisms do not passively receive information from their environments, which they then translate into internal representations. Natural cognitive systems...participate in the generation of meaning ...engaging in transformational and not merely informational interactions: they enact a world." These authors suggest that the increasing emphasis upon enactive terminology presages a new era in thinking about cognitive science. How the actions involved in enactivism relate to age-old questions about free will remains a topic of active debate.

Privacy regulation theory was developed by social psychologist Irwin Altman in 1975. This theory aims to explain why people sometimes prefer staying alone but at other times like get involved in social interactions, discussing privacy as "a selective control of access to the self or to one's group".

Social presence theory explores how the "sense of being with another" is influenced by digital interfaces in human-computer interactions. Developed from the foundations of interpersonal communication and symbolic interactionism, social presence theory was first formally introduced by John Short, Ederyn Williams, and Bruce Christie in The Social Psychology of Telecommunications. Research on social presence theory has recently developed to examine the efficacy of telecommunications media, including SNS communications. The theory notes that computer-based communication is lower in social presence than face-to-face communication, but different computer-based communications can affect the levels of social presence between communicators and receivers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Interpersonal communication</span> Exchange of information among people

Interpersonal communication is an exchange of information between two or more people. It is also an area of research that seeks to understand how humans use verbal and nonverbal cues to accomplish several personal and relational goals. Communication includes utilizing communication skills within one's surroundings, including physical and psychological spaces. It is essential to see the visual/nonverbal and verbal cues regarding the physical spaces. In the psychological spaces, self-awareness and awareness of the emotions, cultures, and things that are not seen are also significant when communicating.

Experiential interior design (EID) is the practice of employing experiential or phenomenological values in interior experience design. EID is a human-centered design approach to interior architecture based on modern environmental psychology emphasizing human experiential needs. The notion of EID emphasizes the influence of the designed environments on human total experiences including sensorial, cognitive, emotional, social, and behavioral experiences triggered by environmental cues. One of the key promises of EID is to offer values beyond the functional or mechanical experiences afforded by the environment.

Social undermining is the expression of negative emotions directed towards a particular person or negative evaluations of the person as a way to prevent the person from achieving their goals.

In architecture, spatial design, literary theory, and film theory—affective atmosphere refers to the mood, situation, or sensorial qualities of a space. Spaces containing atmosphere are shaped through subjective and intersubjective interactions with the qualia of the architecture. Atmosphere is linked with anthropology, architectural theory, critical theory, cultural geography, phenomenology of architecture, and pragmatism.

Technoself studies, commonly referred to as TSS, is an emerging, interdisciplinary domain of scholarly research dealing with all aspects of human identity in a technological society focusing on the changing nature of relationships between the human and technology. As new and constantly changing experiences of human identity emerge due to constant technological change, technoself studies seeks to map and analyze these mutually influential developments with a focus on identity, rather than technical developments. Therefore, the self is a key concept of TSS. The term "technoself", advanced by Luppicini (2013), broadly denotes evolving human identity as a result of the adoption of new technology, while avoiding ideological or philosophical biases inherent in other related terms including cyborg, posthuman, transhuman, techno-human, beman, digital identity, avatar, and homotechnicus though Luppicini acknowledges that these categories "capture important aspects of human identity". Technoself is further elaborated and explored in Luppicini's "Handbook of Research on Technoself: Identity in a Technological Environment".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Place attachment</span> Environmental psychology concept

Place attachment is the emotional bond between person and place, and one way of describing the relationship between people and spatial settings. It is highly influenced by an individual and his or her personal experiences. There is a considerable amount of research dedicated to defining what makes a place "meaningful" enough for place attachment to occur. Schroeder (1991) notably discussed the difference between "meaning" and "preference," defining meaning as "the thoughts, feelings, memories and interpretations evoked by a landscape" and preference as "the degree of liking for one landscape compared to another."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Behavioural design</span> Field of design concerned with the influence of design on behavior

Behavioural design is a sub-category of design, which is concerned with how design can shape, or be used to influence human behaviour. All approaches of design for behaviour change acknowledge that artifacts have an important influence on human behaviour and/or behavioural decisions. They strongly draw on theories of behavioural change, including the division into personal, behavioural, and environmental characteristics as drivers for behaviour change. Areas in which design for behaviour change has been most commonly applied include health and wellbeing, sustainability, safety and social context, as well as crime prevention.

Transactionalism is a pragmatic philosophical approach to questions such as: what is the nature of reality; how we know and are known; and how we motivate, maintain, and satisfy our goals for health, money, career, relationships, and a multitude of conditions of life through mutually cooperative social exchange and ecologies. It involves the study and accurate thinking required to plan and utilize one's limited resources in the fundamental mechanics of social exchange or trans-action. To transact is learning to beat the odds or mitigate the common pitfalls involved with living a good and comfortable life by always factoring in the surrounding circumstances of people, places, things and the thinking behind any exchange from work to play.

References

  1. 1 2 Evans, G.W.; R.E. Wener (2007). "Crowding and personal space invasion on the train: Please don't make me sit in the middle". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 27: 90–94. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2006.10.002.
  2. ↑ Savin-Baden, Maggi (2007-11-16). EBOOK: Learning Spaces: Creating Opportunities for Knowledge Creation in Academic Life. McGraw-Hill Education (UK). ISBN   978-0-335-23525-4.
  3. ↑ Brierley Newell, P. (1995). "Perspectives on Privacy". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 15 (2): 87–104. doi:10.1016/0272-4944(95)90018-7.
  4. 1 2 Ramsden, E. (2009). "The Urban Animal: population density and social pathology in rodents and humans". Bulletin of the World Health Organization. 87 (2): 82. doi:10.2471/blt.09.062836. PMC   2636191 . PMID   19274352.
  5. 1 2 Newman, O (1996). Creating Defensible Space. USA: US Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Policy Development and Research.
  6. ↑ Osgood, C.E.; G.J. Suci; P.H. Tannebaum (1957). The Measurement of Meaning . USA: The Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois.
  7. ↑ Fischer, G.N.; C.Tarquino, J.C. Vischer (2004). "Effects of the self-schema on perception of space at work". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 24: 131–140. doi:10.1016/s0272-4944(03)00052-5.
  8. ↑ "In-art Studio". in-artstudio.com. Retrieved 2019-04-19.
  9. 1 2 "The Open-Office Concept Is Dead". Fortune. Retrieved 2018-12-04.
  10. ↑ "2013 Workplace Survey" (PDF). gensler.com/uploads/document/337/file/2013_US_Workplace_Survey_07_15_2013.pdf. 2013-07-15.
  11. ↑ Baudrillard, J. (1996). The System of Objects (Verso English ed.). United Kingdom: Bookmarque.
  12. 1 2 Mackenzie, N.E.; M.A. Wilson (2000). "Social Attributions Based on Domestic Interiors". Journal of Environmental Psychology. 20 (4): 343–354. doi:10.1006/jevp.2000.0181.
  13. 1 2 Rice, Charles (2007). The Emergence of the Interior. Oxon: Routledge.
  14. ↑ Brewer, Johanna; Dourish, Paul (2008-12-01). "Storied spaces: Cultural accounts of mobility, technology, and environmental knowing". International Journal of Human-Computer Studies. Mobile human-computer interaction. 66 (12): 963–976. doi:10.1016/j.ijhcs.2008.03.003. ISSN   1071-5819.
  15. 1 2 3 "室内设计心理学 - 百度文库". wenku.baidu.com. Retrieved 2022-04-03.
  16. ↑ Whyte, William H., Social Life of Small Urban Spaces (Documentary), Municipal Art Society of New York, retrieved 2022-04-03
  17. ↑ Edwards, M.J.; W.G. Gjertson (September 2008). "La Maison de Verre: Negotiating a Modern Domesticity". Journal of Interior Design. 34 (1): 15–37. doi: 10.1111/j.1939-1668.2008.00004.x .
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