Perceived Environmental Quality

Introduction

In the last three decades, research in the field of Environmental Psychology has undertaken the task of developing applications for resolving community problems. This is not a specific characteristic of Environmental Psychology, but it has nevertheless served as one of its evolutionary foundations. As Stokols (1995) pointed out, in recent years, applications of environmental-behaviour studies have been oriented towards the solution of certain socio-environmental problems. These include those related to life in the city (stress, noise, overcrowding), residential environment (both indoor and outdoor), working environment, natural resources management (energy, water, air, etc.), natural environments (landscape, preserved and recreational areas, etc.), institutional buildings (housing, schools, etc.), and so on. This has allowed applications in the field of environmental and behavioural research to gain strength in the improvement of public policies and social problem-solving. Researchers believe that their work will eventually help to ameliorate [Page 675]these problems, maintaining the concept of environmental quality both explicitly and implicitly present at all times. It is necessary to obtain better measures of environmental quality to aid the development of better recommendations for the improvement of human settings.

The term environmental quality has a range of meanings. In a general sense, it refers to the properties or features of a physical environment that define it as an optimal resource in itself or in comparison to others, taking into account present or future human well-being. In psychological terms, environmental quality can be defined as the properties or attributes of a given socio-physical environment that positively influence a person's state of health, a community's well-being and people's capacity to achieve the goals that guide their behaviour. Environmental quality can be considered a synonym of environmental stimulation quality, including both social and physical traits (Wohlwill, 1976). It can alter a person's emotional state, cognitive competence or level of behavioural performance (Evans, 1999), and can influence health and behaviour either positively or negatively, depending largely on whether the quality is ‘high’ or ‘low’.

Environmental Assessment Framework

The concept of environmental quality and, especially, the concept of perceived environmental quality have been used in the environmental assessment framework. Environmental assessment has been defined as a set of standard procedures for examining and measuring the physical, social and institutional properties of environmental settings (Craik, 1971; Zube, 1980, 1991). Therefore, these procedures describe the relationship between human behaviour and environmental quality in terms of physical, behavioural, descriptive and evaluative measures.

Research on perceived environmental quality and related issues is based on four basic concepts of indisputable importance. The first of these concepts is that of environmental dispositions (Craik & Zube, 1976), which refers to people's tendencies in responding to urban, rural or other types of environments. The second basic concept is that of Social Climate (Moos & Lemke, 1992, 1996). This concept provides the theoretical basis evaluating the psychological impact of residential or institutional settings. Behaviour setting (Barker, 1968), a traditional term within ecological psychology, is the third concept, and refers to the relationship between behaviour and a specific space (learning about a specific behaviour, examining it in its natural environment, etc.). Environmental competence (Lawton, 1982), based on studies with groups of elderly people, is the fourth concept. It deals with people's satisfaction and achievement of goals in their interaction with environmental resources.

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