Rachel Kaplan

The Nature of the View from Home Psychological Benefits

Depending on what is in the view, looking out the window may provide numerous opportunities for restoration. Unlike other restorative opportunities, however, window viewing is more frequent and for brief moments at a time. The setting is also experienced from afar rather than while being in it. A study conducted at six low-rise apartment communities, using a survey with both verbal and visual material, provides considerable support for the premise that having natural elements or settings in the view from the window contributes substantially to residents’ satisfaction with their neighborhood and with diverse aspects of their sense of well-being. Views of built elements, by contrast, affected satisfaction but not well-being. Views of the sky and weather did not have a substantial effect on either outcome. The potential of nature content in the view from home to contribute so significantly to satisfaction and well-being suggests clear action mandates.

Rated preference and complexity for natural and urban visual material

In order (1) to study the relationship between complexity and preference for slides of the physical environment and (2) to test the hypothesis that the content of slides (in particular, whether nature or urban) will influence preference, independent of the rated complexity, 88 Ss were asked to rate 56 slides, both for preference and for complexity. Based on dimensional analyses, a nature and an urban dimension were identified. Three major results were obtained: (1) Nature scenes were greatly preferred to urban scenes (p < .001). (2) Complexity predicted preference within the nature domain (r = .69) and within the urban domain (r = .78). (3) Complexity did not account for the preference for nature over urban slides; the greatly preferred nature slides were, in fact, judged on the average less complex than the urban slides. The possibility is raised that the domain-specific character of the preference/complexity relationship found in this study may be general; that is, it may not be a special property of environmentally generated arrays.

The role of nature in the context of the workplace

The well-being of the workforce is clearly a matter of concern to the employer. Such concern translates to considerable costs in the form of fringe benefit packages, health promotion programs, ergonomics, and other ways to reduce absence and enhance health and satisfaction. Despite such efforts, however, one way to address well-being that entails relatively low costs has been largely ignored in the work context. Proximity and availability of the natural environment can foster many desired outcomes, even if the employee does not spend a great amount of time in the natural setting. A theoretical framework is presented that helps explain why even the view from the window can have a positive impact with respect to well-being. Results from two studies offer some substantiation. Further research on the role of nature in the workplace is essential; however, decisions to provide health promoting programs and to enhance fringe benefit packages have not been offered as a direct consequence of empirical verification. While providing windows at work may not be a simple matter, other ways to increase contact with vegetation may provide a low-cost, high-gain approach to employee well-being and effectiveness.

Physical and psychological factors in sense of community: New urbanist Kentlands and Nearby Orchard village

Sense of community is often mentioned as an asset of new urbanism. The purpose of the study was to explore this claim by comparing Kentlands, a prototypic new urbanist community, with a traditional suburban development near it. Four domains of sense of community were examined, each in terms of 17 distinct aspects of the physical environment, through surveys as well as interviews with residents. The findings suggest thatKentlands residents perceive substantially greater sense of community; they express stronger attachment to their community and sense of identity with it. Natural features and open spaces play a particularly important role in sense of community and Kentlands provides a rich variety of these, fostering pedestrianism and increasing the likelihood of social interactions. The overall layout of the community and traditional architectural style, as well as many other physical features, play vital functions in achieving sense of community

Some Psycholog Ical Benefits of Gardening

RACHEL KAPLAN received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan and has remained there as a Lecturer in Psychology. She teaches courses on research methods in environmental psychology. Together with her husband who is Professor of Psychology in the same department, she is studying environmental cognition, especially with respect to natural environments, dimensions of environmental preference, the role of visual and cognitive factors in effective substitute experiences, and individual differences in environmental satisfaction.

Environmental Preference A Comparison of Four Domains of Predictors

This article examines four domains of variables to assess their relative merit in explaining environmental preference. Within each of the domains, between three and seven specific attributes were measured, for a total of 20 predictor variables. The study site includes small forested areas, agricultural land, and fields, with little topographic variation. Preference ratings of 59 scenes representing the area serve as the dependent variable. Taken together, the 20 attributes accounted for 83 percent of the preference variance. Taken separately, the Physical Attributes lacked predictive power. Of the Informational variables, Mystery was the only significant contributor. The Land Cover types proved effective, with Weedy Fields, Scrubland, and Agriculture all significant negative predictors. Finally, the Perception-based variables were most powerful, with Openness and Smoothness particularly useful predictors. The results point to the importance of using different predictor domains, rather than relying exclusively on any one, since their role in different environmental contexts is likely to vary.

The Role of Nature in the Urban Context

Urban nature. The juxtaposition may strike some as a contradiction. If one thinks of nature as somewhere else, removed from human influence and inaccessible to major segments of the population, then it would make little sense to speak of nature in the urban context. But nature is an elusive concept. It can and does exist even in the city. In fact, in that context, nature not only survives human influence, it often depends on it.

THE ANALYSIS OF PERCEPTION VIA PREFERENCE: A STRATEGY FOR STUDYING HOW THE ENVIRONMENT IS EXPERIENCED

Kaplan, R., 1985. The analysis of perception via preference: a strategy for studying how the environment is experienced. Landscape Plann., 12: 161--176. Systematic approaches to the management of the visual resource tend to be based on categorizations, and on assumptions of what is valued or preferred. Underlying these distinctions is an implicit view of the perception of the environment. The experts perceptions, however, may be quite different from the perceptions of those who lack specialized training. While direct questioning regarding environmental perception is unlikely to be fruitful, it has been shown that the use of preference reactions to photographic material is a highly effective procedure for deriving salient perceptual categories. A series of studies focusing on diverse land uses and land covers has generated considerable insight into the way the environment is experienced by the general public. It is safe to say that these empirical results neither match the categories that are the provinces of professional groups assigned with the management of the visual resource, nor do they correspond directly to the attributes assumed to be important in preference. Rather, environmental perception is finely tuned in certain kinds of environments and much less differentiated in others. Equally preferred scenes may fit distinctly different categories. The neglect of the publics categorizations and valuation may lead to approaches that are apparently rational and systematic, but inconsistent with such prevailing perceptions.

Cultural and Developmental Comparisons of Landscape Perceptions and Preferences

The authors compared several Australian subgroups and American college students on their preferences for Australian natural landscapes. Preference correlations across groups were generally high, with the correlations for Australian adults somewhat lower. Factor analysis yielded six perceptual categories: Vegetation, Open Smooth, Open Coarse, Rivers, Agrarian, and Structures. Both the Australian and American samples liked Rivers best and the Open categories least. Only the Australians included willow trees in the Agrarian category. The Australians liked the settings overall better than the Americans. Among the Australians, primary students liked the settings most, secondary students least; aboriginal college students liked the settings better than other college groups, but they disliked the Structures category; and DENR (Department of Environmental and Natural Resources) staff members liked the settings better than other Australian adults but, unlike other adults, did not like willows better than nonwillow settings. Cultural and evolutionary reasons for the complex pattern of results were explored.

Health, Supportive Environments, and the Reasonable Person Model

The Reasonable Person Model is a conceptual framework that links environmental factors with human behavior. People are more reasonable, cooperative, helpful, and satisfied when the environment supports their basic informational needs. The same environmental supports are important factors in enhancing human health.