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Environmental psychology: Human responses
and relationships to natural landscapes
Williams, Daniel R. 2004. Environmental psychology: Human responses and relationships to natural landscapes. In: Manfredo, M. J.; Vaske, J. J.; Field, D. R.; Brown, P. J.; Bruyere, B. L., eds. Society and natural resources: A summary of knowledge. Jefferson City, MO: Modern Litho. p. 337-348.
The purpose of this chapter is to present a thorough assessment of environmental psychology as a way to understand relationships between people and natural landscapes, and to describe how this knowledge can be applied to natural resource management. Environmental psychology seeks to clarify how individuals perceive, experience and create meaning in the environment. In part, it constitutes a branch of social psychology that studies individual behavior embedded in its large-scale social and ecological context, as well as actively defining and giving shape to that context. In addition, environmental psychology encompasses an interdisciplinary field of environment and behavior research that includes human geography and the design and planning professions (e.g. architecture, landscape architecture, urban and regional planning). The field grew out of controversies within psychology over the external and ecological validity of laboratory experiments, and the simultaneous emergence of an environmental movement within social science and the design and planning professions. Beyond the emphasis on environmental matters, an important reason for focusing on environmental psychology in natural resource management is that it is a particularly integrative and eclectic area within environmental social science.
Keywords: environmental psychology, human responses, natural landscapes, natural resource management
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Publications: Environmental psychology: Human responses and relationships
to natural landscapes
Electronic Publish Date: February 26, 2008
Last Update: February
26, 2008