WEBVTT - How Environmental Psychology Works 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:03.400 Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a production of My 0:00:03.600 --> 0:00:12.520 Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:12.600 --> 0:00:15.520 I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles w Chuco Bryant, and 0:00:15.560 --> 0:00:22.200 there's a Jerry over there. Stuff you should know. Actually 0:00:22.320 --> 0:00:25.360 had to program that was real, because a real real frog. 0:00:25.880 --> 0:00:30.000 So we're in our nice quiet room here. It's so 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.320 nice to feel. The walls are dark and padded, ensconced 0:00:33.360 --> 0:00:37.120 in love, and our chairs are comfy. It doesn't smell 0:00:37.320 --> 0:00:40.120 that much. Jerry's food is in the stinky as usual. Actually, 0:00:40.120 --> 0:00:41.960 it's funny you stayed in here when I want to 0:00:42.000 --> 0:00:45.240 go get a drink to come back. Its smells pretty 0:00:45.560 --> 0:00:52.159 pollock paneerie, like you can just think it is. I'm 0:00:52.200 --> 0:00:53.720 just used to it. It's a good smell. And like 0:00:53.800 --> 0:00:56.560 a restaurant or your dining room at your home or 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:00.200 kitchen in the studio, it's a weird smell. You know 0:01:00.200 --> 0:01:03.000 what kind of food. Jerry hates American food? I know 0:01:03.320 --> 0:01:06.520 she hates American food. She does, man, she's always eaten 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:14.480 great food from all over the World's good job. Uh so, Chuck. Yes, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:18.759 we're talking today about psychology, but not the head shrinking 0:01:19.319 --> 0:01:23.160 more the head, expanding variety of psychology. Shrink that head, 0:01:23.160 --> 0:01:27.840 blow it up, because psychology over the years has really 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:30.800 kind of increased its scope further and further out of 0:01:30.840 --> 0:01:34.440 your noggin. Yeah. It kind of started out very focused 0:01:34.480 --> 0:01:36.920 on the noggin, very and then it was like, well, 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:39.680 truth be told, your mom has a lot to do 0:01:39.760 --> 0:01:42.039 with this stuff too, and your friends going to come 0:01:42.080 --> 0:01:44.319 out and say it, and your dad, they really screwed 0:01:44.360 --> 0:01:49.120 you up. And then with this stuff with environmental psychology 0:01:49.400 --> 0:01:52.880 has really expanded on a macro level. Yeah, because it's 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:55.960 saying and not only are you all screwed up by 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:59.360 yourself and your friends and family are screwing you up, 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:04.800 the physical spaces that you exist in can screw you up, 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:07.800 or the other side is great to make you happier, 0:02:08.000 --> 0:02:14.040 more relaxed, um less stressed out. And we environmental psychologists 0:02:14.040 --> 0:02:16.680 is what they started to call themselves, UM, are going 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:21.680 to figure out exactly the how, what, who, why, when, where, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.920 the who's it, the any who, all of it to 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:29.760 explain how our environments affect us. And then while we're 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.360 at it, let's just throw in the whole kitchen sink. 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:34.799 We're gonna do it the other way to we're going 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.240 to figure out how humans affect the environment and how 0:02:37.280 --> 0:02:41.360 we can make humans better stewards of the environment. But 0:02:41.440 --> 0:02:43.080 for now, we're going to go take a nap because 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.880 this is a lot. Yeah, but all of this through 0:02:45.919 --> 0:02:50.160 the lens of psychology, which, like I read this stuff, 0:02:50.639 --> 0:02:53.280 I think it's really cool and interesting, and I think 0:02:53.280 --> 0:02:57.840 you do too initially, but it seems to break down 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:03.120 a little bit scientifically. Uh and my whole jam. When 0:03:03.160 --> 0:03:04.880 I walked in, I was like, I think this is 0:03:04.919 --> 0:03:07.040 really neat, Like maybe they just shouldn't call it science 0:03:08.080 --> 0:03:10.760 and they should just say like, hey, let's uh, let's 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.280 look at how a grocery store can best be planned out, um, 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:16.720 and touch on some psychology, but like, don't ask me 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.799 to prove it with studies that can be replicated. So 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.520 there are a lot of studies about this stuff. They're legitimate, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:31.120 you know, um, peer reviewed studies, but they're they're real 0:03:31.280 --> 0:03:34.280 disparate and not necessarily related. And I think what you're 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:36.960 talking about is environmental psychology tries to kind of bring 0:03:37.000 --> 0:03:40.320 them all together and say this is our jam, and 0:03:40.400 --> 0:03:44.240 that that the thing. The pieces don't necessarily connect yet 0:03:44.360 --> 0:03:47.120 like you would think they would from you know, looking 0:03:47.160 --> 0:03:49.360 on the outside, seeing that there's a whole field of 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:52.520 psychology dedicated to studying this is it. Hey, I want 0:03:52.520 --> 0:03:54.280 to be paid a lot of money to consult on 0:03:54.280 --> 0:03:57.160 a new shopping mall. I I maybe so, but I 0:03:57.240 --> 0:04:00.640 honestly don't know what what the what the drive is? 0:04:00.680 --> 0:04:03.720 I don't know. It's interesting stuff though, oh yeah it's 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.360 but it's famously interesting. Everybody loves environmental psychology, even if 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:10.080 you don't know the name of it. And people have 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:14.600 understood too that, like, our environments do affect us for 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.760 way longer than environmental psychology has been around. There's a 0:04:19.240 --> 0:04:22.880 like every history of environmental psychology that you'll read will 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:27.800 give this example of Marco Polo reporting in the thirteenth century. 0:04:28.200 --> 0:04:31.120 He came across a ruler in China who was curious 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.760 about why some neighboring state or kingdom was always like 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.599 super hostile, not only with other kingdoms, but within the 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:41.880 kingdom themselves. So he ordered an experiment done where he 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:45.000 had soil brought in from that kingdom placed under the 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:47.880 chairs of some people, and all the people started arguing. 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:50.880 So he concluded it must be in the soil, which 0:04:50.960 --> 0:04:55.160 is I guess an early scientific experiment. He never explained 0:04:55.200 --> 0:05:00.559 what was in the soil. Maybe ghosts. Yeah, right, should 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:02.760 we talk about Churchill since we're talking about history, Yeah, 0:05:03.000 --> 0:05:06.599 we gotta kind of leap forward from the thirteenth century. Yeah. 0:05:06.640 --> 0:05:10.160 Churchill very famously said we shape our buildings and later 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:16.400 they shape us belch cigar toke Uh. And he very 0:05:16.400 --> 0:05:20.680 famously when World War two bombed out the Parliament building, 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:24.520 he said, rebuild it just as it was, and everyone 0:05:24.520 --> 0:05:31.080 else like, hey, governor, shouldn't it be a bit bigger? No? Uh, 0:05:31.120 --> 0:05:33.279 they had the chance to give everyone a little more space, 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.680 and no, do it exactly like it was. Uh. He 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.719 wanted to create a sense of urgency, and he said 0:05:41.200 --> 0:05:44.400 at critical votes and moments it would be filled beyond capacity, 0:05:44.440 --> 0:05:47.000 with members spilling out into the aisles. Sarn a little 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:49.520 Sean Connery in there. I can't let it pass. In 0:05:49.600 --> 0:05:53.840 his view, a sustainable, I'm sorry, shootable sense of crowd 0:05:53.880 --> 0:05:56.960 and urgency. That's pretty good. Key do Roger Moore doing 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:02.760 Winston Churchill. No, I've never tried Roger Moore. Yeah, I've 0:06:02.800 --> 0:06:06.760 never heard anybody do Roger Moore. That was pretty good. 0:06:07.800 --> 0:06:11.159 So um so. Yeah, there's been this awareness that like 0:06:11.160 --> 0:06:13.960 like Churchill says, we shape our buildings and later they 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:17.120 shape us. But it wasn't a field a part of 0:06:17.160 --> 0:06:21.719 psychology until the late fifties early sixties. Um. And actually 0:06:21.760 --> 0:06:24.440 you can trace it back to one group of people 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:28.920 at City University, New York, YEP led by what are 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:35.000 they the Fighting Manhattan Transfers. They have a great a 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:38.440 capella group. Um, they were all they're a bunch of Cooney's. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.599 I'm not sure which one this was City Mary, New York, 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.040 Like you know, they're all over town. Oh I didn't 0:06:44.040 --> 0:06:46.960 know that. Okay, well I'm not sure which one it 0:06:47.040 --> 0:06:49.400 was either. But Harold Prashansky was the leader of this 0:06:49.440 --> 0:06:53.080 group from CUNEY and they were a group of social 0:06:53.080 --> 0:06:58.040 psychologists and some people at a hospital in New York. Uh, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.279 we'll just say hospital because it's probably only one, like 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:03.920 there's only one QUNI. Um. They came to this group 0:07:03.960 --> 0:07:05.640 and said, hey, we're trying to figure out how to 0:07:05.680 --> 0:07:09.520 make our hospital rooms like way better for patients. He said, 0:07:09.520 --> 0:07:14.040 we're from hospital, right, he said, okay, we're from un UM. 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.480 And and Harold Persanski is like, we have no idea 0:07:17.560 --> 0:07:20.000 how to tell you how to do that? Yeah, So 0:07:20.040 --> 0:07:23.880 he's he went ahead and founded environmental psychology, which which 0:07:23.920 --> 0:07:26.520 seeks to do exactly that. Yeah, he wrote the book 0:07:26.560 --> 0:07:28.920 on it, the first one that is I'm sure they're 0:07:29.000 --> 0:07:33.520 a gazillion now, uh. In nineteen seventy environmental psychology Colon 0:07:34.440 --> 0:07:38.280 manned and his physical setting and by man he means 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.880 person human. But it was nineteen seventy, so there were 0:07:42.880 --> 0:07:47.480 only men that mattered in nineteen seventy. So he is 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.080 the father of environmental psychology. He's the father of lies. 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:56.920 You know what I think the deal is is so unwieldy, 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.560 and they're trying to corral this unwieldy thing because it's 0:08:00.720 --> 0:08:03.520 nature and its design and its color, and it's fabrics 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:06.800 and it's people's brains and all right, So we're just 0:08:06.840 --> 0:08:11.160 gonna gripe about it sporadically throughout the whole episode. So 0:08:11.240 --> 0:08:16.520 the whole idea of prior to environmental psychology, um and 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:18.200 still is the case in a lot of in a 0:08:18.240 --> 0:08:21.160 lot of cases, is if you're going to do an experiment, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.760 they would bring you to a very um just plain 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:29.080 lab and their idea was like, let's strip away everything 0:08:29.440 --> 0:08:32.160 so you're not influenced by anything. They would hose you 0:08:32.240 --> 0:08:35.800 off exactly, delouse you, and you would be just sitting 0:08:35.800 --> 0:08:39.040 in a white room with fluorescent bulbs buzzing above your 0:08:39.040 --> 0:08:41.720 head and Bill Murrays zapping you whenever you gave a 0:08:41.720 --> 0:08:44.480 wrong answer, and they're like, this is the way to 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.080 do it. But there are a couple of psychologists Um 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:52.240 Roger Barker and Kurt Lewin specifically, that said, um, you 0:08:52.280 --> 0:08:56.000 know what, that's making things worse. Stripping the world away 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.040 and putting people in the sterile environments like you're gonna 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:02.800 be confounding results just from the outset. It doesn't make 0:09:02.840 --> 0:09:06.520 any sense in psychology psychologies. Other psychologists said, shut up, 0:09:06.559 --> 0:09:08.240 be quiet, you two and they said, no, we won't. 0:09:08.800 --> 0:09:11.959 We're going to go found environmental psychology along with Harold 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.560 Krushansky and the idea that you have to not only 0:09:15.600 --> 0:09:19.960 study people in their natural setting to really understand what's 0:09:20.120 --> 0:09:24.240 motivating their behavior, but also the idea that that natural 0:09:24.280 --> 0:09:28.080 setting itself is is creating part of their behavior. You 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:30.720 can't you can't study that in the lab. So that's 0:09:30.760 --> 0:09:33.680 one of the things that makes um environmental psychology unusual 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.440 is it's not meant to be conducted in the lab. 0:09:36.480 --> 0:09:38.880 It's meant to be conducted in a real world study, 0:09:39.040 --> 0:09:41.880 a real world setting. And the other thing about it 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:47.160 is it's multidiscipline area as well. Unwieldy. It is some 0:09:47.240 --> 0:09:52.320 would say inclusive, but unwieldy also works as well. Yeah, 0:09:52.360 --> 0:09:54.880 because what they're looking at is what they call uh 0:09:55.200 --> 0:09:59.559 molar units, which are very large scale. We're talking about communities, 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.640 neighbor hoods. Maybe your house, house or or room is 0:10:02.640 --> 0:10:06.720 probably about the smallest thing you think, or or maybe 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.520 your personal space. They seem to have adopted that as well. Yeah, 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.920 it's all over the place. Uh, and it covers every 0:10:13.960 --> 0:10:16.439 angle that you can think of in terms of how 0:10:16.480 --> 0:10:20.120 you interact with your environment. UM. Like we said, like um, 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:27.840 spatial planning and lighting, economics, acoustics, color, empty space. Yeah, 0:10:28.120 --> 0:10:31.600 imagine that that's a brain buster right there. It is UM. 0:10:31.760 --> 0:10:35.720 And so when what they're studying, what environmental psychologists study, 0:10:35.800 --> 0:10:39.440 or what they call transactions, And this has been a 0:10:39.480 --> 0:10:44.880 particular bone in my craw. I've never once seen someone 0:10:45.240 --> 0:10:49.120 concretely defined what a transaction is. I would guess that 0:10:49.200 --> 0:10:53.080 it's a transaction. It's just how you transact and interact 0:10:53.160 --> 0:10:56.120 with those things, right, but exactly how like a transaction 0:10:56.520 --> 0:10:58.920 And I'm totally pulling this out of my key. Start, Well, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:02.240 then you're an environmental problems. But a transaction might be 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:06.040 like when you walk into a room and sit down 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.719 in a chair, that's probably a transaction with that room, right, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:13.400 maybe why not? But my question also is like, Okay, 0:11:13.440 --> 0:11:15.560 if you sit quietly in a room for an hour, 0:11:16.800 --> 0:11:20.480 is that a transaction itself? Or is that hour made 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:24.400 up of much smaller transactions like you stirring in the 0:11:24.480 --> 0:11:28.040 room because the concrete floor is making your butt fall asleep, 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:31.400 or you start to get scared because you hear a 0:11:31.400 --> 0:11:33.960 weird noise, and like, all of the things that happened 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.719 over the hour, are those transactions or is the whole 0:11:36.760 --> 0:11:40.800 thing a transaction. I've just never heard it concretely defined, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:43.160 and it kind of drove me crazy because I really 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:46.280 looked for a solid definition of it. But just suffice 0:11:46.320 --> 0:11:48.719 to say that in the field of environmental psychology, will 0:11:48.760 --> 0:11:53.320 they study your transactions, which means your interaction with the environment, 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:55.840 And hey, let's just go ahead and say it the 0:11:55.920 --> 0:12:00.880 environment's interaction with you in return. That's right. I'm sorry, 0:12:02.320 --> 0:12:04.640 I'm glad you're crabby about one. And that's usually my role, 0:12:06.080 --> 0:12:08.160 you know, I'm happy to take it over this time. 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:13.040 So where you first started seeing the impact of environmental 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:16.560 psychology was an architecture, and this has been going on 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:20.400 for decades basically, and it makes sense. This part makes 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.199 the most sense to me. Yeah, like when you transact 0:12:23.200 --> 0:12:26.640 with a building and a lobby or an elevator or 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:30.080 a staircase, or an office or a or air wolf 0:12:30.280 --> 0:12:35.160 or air wolf or the concierge desk in a hotel, 0:12:35.760 --> 0:12:38.040 like all of this stuff has Oh, there's always been 0:12:38.040 --> 0:12:40.560 a lot of thought, probably before they even called it 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:44.600 environmental psychology, like how do people interact with this when 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:47.600 you walk in? You want people to be uh, feel 0:12:47.600 --> 0:12:52.200 good and understand where things are. Um, well, now there's 0:12:52.200 --> 0:12:54.360 a balance that has to be struck. Though I don't 0:12:54.360 --> 0:12:57.240 know if that actually did exist before environment I think 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.520 that may have been a contribution from the field. Yes, 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.120 I mean, yes, I'm sure there was some design or 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:05.840 something like that, but the the ideas what you just 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.319 said to have really been helped along by the field 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.480 of environments. Like you might be right, because that's what's 0:13:11.480 --> 0:13:14.200 called bottom up, Like let's really think about how people 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:18.000 interact with this environment and whereas before it was topped down, like, 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:20.560 let's just build this beautiful building, and it turns out 0:13:20.600 --> 0:13:24.280 it's really confusing, Yeah, um, because they didn't think about people, know, 0:13:24.440 --> 0:13:26.560 and there were There are actually two big things that 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.040 happened in the sixties, well one in the sixties, one 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.319 in the early seventies that kind of said, oh wait, 0:13:32.600 --> 0:13:35.520 our environments are physical spaces really do affect us and 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:38.360 they can have really negative effects to um. The first 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.760 one was the Kitty Genovase murder, which we covered, We 0:13:41.800 --> 0:13:44.520 did a whole episode on there that was Yeah, but 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:48.199 the long story short, the popular conception is that, uh, 0:13:48.200 --> 0:13:52.720 an entire apartment block of people um watched Kitty Genovese 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:56.040 be murdered publicly over the course of like an hour, 0:13:56.720 --> 0:13:59.400 and nobody did anything, even though it's not fully true. 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:01.920 But reason that they didn't do anything because they were 0:14:01.960 --> 0:14:05.320 all isolated from one another. They all figured that somebody 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:08.400 else was going to call their architecture messed with their 0:14:08.440 --> 0:14:14.200 brains and made them less compassionate or um separate at least. Yeah, 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:16.319 then they would have been maybe if they lived out 0:14:16.320 --> 0:14:18.120 in the country or something like that. That was the 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:20.760 big first one. Yeah, that which I don't even know 0:14:20.840 --> 0:14:22.960 if we touched on that in the episode, did we? 0:14:23.440 --> 0:14:26.920 I think maybe? If not, we just did, all right, 0:14:27.000 --> 0:14:30.200 consider that a falloup. Uh. The other one was this 0:14:30.640 --> 0:14:34.080 housing complex in St. Louis in two that was built 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.800 called Pruitt I Go and it was built in ninety 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:45.960 six hundred and seventy units in thirty three eleven story buildings. 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.640 It was a very big deal because it was touted 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:55.480 as being this progressive, really modern place for a housing project, 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:57.640 and people are gonna be living in this modern space 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.160 and it's gonna be amazing and that's going to make 0:15:00.160 --> 0:15:02.920 a big difference in their lives. Yeah, it was. Actually 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:05.320 there was. I looked all over for the what magazine 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.800 it was, but some architectural magazine magazine named it the 0:15:08.840 --> 0:15:12.320 best high apartment of the year while it was being designed. 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.440 And the idea was like, here, we're going to give 0:15:15.480 --> 0:15:19.520 you this amazing place to live, low income, downtrodden St. 0:15:19.600 --> 0:15:21.920 Louis people, and you are going to be able to 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:24.720 raise yourselves up out of poverty just by living in 0:15:24.760 --> 0:15:28.600 a nice new this gift from the gods of architecture basically, 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:34.920 and the exact opposite happened that within sixteen years by two, 0:15:35.640 --> 0:15:39.920 the Prude I Go Complex, thirty three eleven story buildings, 0:15:40.000 --> 0:15:43.280 was raised to the ground and there became a really 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:49.280 really negative popular um idea about Prude I Go, and 0:15:49.320 --> 0:15:52.680 that was that no matter what you did for poor 0:15:52.760 --> 0:15:56.520 people and in this case read black people, they're going 0:15:56.600 --> 0:16:00.600 to drag it down to their level. Because within that 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:10.000 sixteen years, Prude I Go became blighted by crime, vandalism, um, neglect, disrepair. Uh. 0:16:10.040 --> 0:16:13.000 The police were afraid to go out there into the complex. 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.400 There was a sense of lawlessness, and so when it 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:18.080 got torn down, everybody said, yep, see, can't do anything 0:16:18.120 --> 0:16:24.000 for those people. And then later on academics, including environmental psychologist, said, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:26.040 wait a minute, I don't know that that's actually the case. 0:16:26.320 --> 0:16:29.160 What if it was the actual buildings that were the problem. Yeah, 0:16:29.240 --> 0:16:31.160 they came in and they called it, Uh, this is 0:16:31.240 --> 0:16:35.720 dysfunctional architecture. And they said that you did this top 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.120 down thing. It built this beautiful building, but didn't think 0:16:38.120 --> 0:16:41.200 about the people, this bottom up approach. You never thought 0:16:41.240 --> 0:16:45.520 about the residents. Uh. And research later on. This is 0:16:45.520 --> 0:16:47.200 where we get into a couple of other theories that 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:49.800 we've talked about. I know, we talked about the broken 0:16:49.800 --> 0:16:53.560 windows theory, which basically is the idea that, um, you 0:16:53.600 --> 0:16:57.400 need to go after the vandal or the person who 0:16:57.400 --> 0:16:59.360 throws a brick through a window, even though that's low 0:16:59.440 --> 0:17:05.280 hanging fruit. Uh legally speaking as far as cops go. Yeah, 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.200 so you need to go after those people because those 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.560 small things that happen will basically lead to larger things. 0:17:13.160 --> 0:17:15.280 And that's what happened at Prutago. They were they never 0:17:15.400 --> 0:17:17.480 changed out the burn light bulbs, they never fixed the 0:17:17.520 --> 0:17:21.000 broken windows, And if you believe in the broken windows theory, 0:17:21.000 --> 0:17:23.640 that's a pretty prime example of how something you can 0:17:23.640 --> 0:17:27.399 get out of hand, right. Um. The other big theory 0:17:27.440 --> 0:17:29.760 that kind of evolved to explain what happened at prut 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:32.960 Igo is called the defensible spaces theory, and that was 0:17:33.000 --> 0:17:36.639 basically that the designer of this complex had failed to 0:17:37.160 --> 0:17:42.040 delineate each unit from the other, so that really the 0:17:42.080 --> 0:17:45.600 only thing that separated units were the thin interior walls. 0:17:46.320 --> 0:17:50.040 Everything outside was just common public belonged to no one, 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:54.560 so it was totally ripe for abuse and um and 0:17:54.760 --> 0:17:58.960 lawlessness and criminality, criminal behavior. Part of the other problem 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:02.880 with the design was at the common areas, the play areas, 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.240 we're all um uh, we're kind of like around corners 0:18:07.280 --> 0:18:08.919 were out of view, so there was no way for 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:11.760 the community keep an eye on their kids or one another, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:14.640 and so these became hotbeds for crime as well. And 0:18:14.720 --> 0:18:16.879 inside and out right, wasn't the idea that they were 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:20.719 all identical, so there was no sense of individual ownership, 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:24.639 which can bring about pride. It was just here, you 0:18:24.720 --> 0:18:28.760 live here, now, stay here, and that doesn't work with people. 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:34.080 Um and so environmental psychologists had this idea um afterwards, 0:18:34.119 --> 0:18:36.000 as they were kind of thinking about all this stuff, 0:18:36.400 --> 0:18:39.159 that well, maybe there's some easy things we can do, 0:18:39.240 --> 0:18:42.600 like I don't know, asking residents what they want or 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.400 need out of a building while you're designing the building right, 0:18:46.680 --> 0:18:50.200 or if something doesn't work out or is working out 0:18:50.200 --> 0:18:53.120 okay and people are moving out, interview them then and say, hey, 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:55.359 what do you like about the place as you hate 0:18:55.440 --> 0:18:58.000 and there's those are like you said, low hanging fruit. 0:18:58.040 --> 0:19:00.520 But that's the kind of thing that actually and help 0:19:00.680 --> 0:19:04.080 make a building successful and give people a sense of ownership. 0:19:04.720 --> 0:19:07.160 And if you feel ownership over a place, you're gonna 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:10.760 tell somebody, hey, pick up that trash, that's my walkway, 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:13.800 you know, just throw your trash there. If that's really 0:19:13.880 --> 0:19:16.040 kind of their walkway as much as it is yours, 0:19:16.400 --> 0:19:19.320 maybe you don't feel quite as moved to say something 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:22.439 in that case. So just like think taking that stuff 0:19:22.440 --> 0:19:26.120 into into account as far as environmental psychology is concerned, 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.520 helps explain how you can prompt someone to take ownership 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:33.040 of a place and therefore get more out of it, 0:19:33.040 --> 0:19:35.120 but also take care of the place as well, which 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:39.600 is that bi directional reciprocal interaction with our physical environments. 0:19:39.640 --> 0:19:42.840 That is like the basis of environmental psychology. All right, 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:48.560 let's take a break here, this is dense. Yeah, we'll 0:19:48.560 --> 0:20:08.000 be back right after this. Well, now we're on the 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.520 road driving in your truck. Want to learn a thing 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:15.720 or two from Josh can chuck stuff you should know? 0:20:17.960 --> 0:20:24.600 All right, all right, so let's talk about some of 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:28.080 these behaviors um as far as like fitting into a 0:20:28.119 --> 0:20:30.640 space that have kind of popped up over the years. 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.879 There's one, two, three of these listed that make a 0:20:34.920 --> 0:20:38.040 lot of sense to me. Yeah. The first one is territoriality. 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.600 And you just you put this together. You describe this 0:20:42.320 --> 0:20:45.080 very plainly. Is like if you go into a coffee 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.040 shop and you put your bag down on a table 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.040 and then go over your coffee, or if you just 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:53.600 dress up your cubicle with dumb stuff, that's that's you 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:56.800 claiming your space, even if it's not your space, Like 0:20:56.840 --> 0:20:59.760 your cubicle you're like, this is my backpack on this table, 0:20:59.800 --> 0:21:03.080 don't sit there, Right, that's just territoriality. That's one way 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.960 that we behave because most places, most spaces are social 0:21:06.960 --> 0:21:09.919 spaces are used by more than one person. Right. The 0:21:09.960 --> 0:21:12.360 next one is crowding, which I think is super interesting 0:21:12.440 --> 0:21:17.760 because crowding, uh is a result of density. But you 0:21:17.800 --> 0:21:21.399 can have density without being crowded if you have smart design. 0:21:21.520 --> 0:21:25.040 Like thousands and tens of thousands of people go through 0:21:25.440 --> 0:21:28.240 a shopping mall every day, but you should never feel 0:21:28.280 --> 0:21:30.760 crowded in a shopping mall because of the way they 0:21:30.760 --> 0:21:34.399 have these things designed. Dude, it happens to me every time. 0:21:34.720 --> 0:21:37.719 Do you feel crowded? It's just it's just a spectrum 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:40.879 of how soon starts. Really, every time I go to 0:21:40.920 --> 0:21:43.920 a mall, you feel crowded. Yeah, And there's the opposite 0:21:43.960 --> 0:21:46.159 of out should be right, I know, but it's me 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:49.199 Like I'm I mean, like really well designed malls, but 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:52.240 it's still me, right, still feel crowded. There's a period 0:21:52.320 --> 0:21:54.520 where like the thing that you mean I would do 0:21:54.800 --> 0:21:57.480 in the wintertime would be to go walk around the 0:21:57.480 --> 0:21:59.359 mall because we were like a half a mile away 0:21:59.400 --> 0:22:01.560 from it. So you mean Momo and I would go 0:22:01.600 --> 0:22:03.920 walk around the mall. Oh, I thought you meant the 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:07.520 interior wall mall. Uh, mall walkers, not the mall. We 0:22:07.680 --> 0:22:09.560 that's basically what we were doing. But we were just 0:22:09.640 --> 0:22:11.320 killing time because I worked at the Gap for a 0:22:11.359 --> 0:22:13.359 month and I didn't know that was the thing before 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:17.080 the before the stores opened, the mall was open, and 0:22:17.119 --> 0:22:22.439 that's where you'll find, uh, some really fantastic jumpsuits walking 0:22:22.440 --> 0:22:25.000 around and the exercise clothes. Yeah, and they'll have like 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:28.360 clubs and coffee clutches and all sorts of stuff. Yeah, 0:22:28.920 --> 0:22:31.000 it's mall walkings of things. Okay, but you were on 0:22:31.040 --> 0:22:33.040 the outside of the mall. No, No, we were inside. 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.800 We have a bag that Momo comes. Um. But so 0:22:36.840 --> 0:22:39.119 we're walking around the inside just at night or whatever. 0:22:39.240 --> 0:22:42.320 You know, the youngest ones, they're kind of so um. 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.399 But every time I'd just be like tense and just 0:22:45.480 --> 0:22:48.760 feel crowded and like edgy and stressed out before them 0:22:48.800 --> 0:22:52.560 all opened, Okay, I don't stop with the mall walking 0:22:52.600 --> 0:22:54.960 thing has nothing to do with that. Alright, malls open, 0:22:55.160 --> 0:22:58.920 mall's open, you're shopping, maybe even nighttime. Emma was there 0:22:59.400 --> 0:23:01.880 and we're inside, okay, and there's no one wearing jump 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:05.560 and you're not old. But that was well, now we've 0:23:05.600 --> 0:23:07.560 reached the end of the story. So you would just 0:23:07.600 --> 0:23:11.560 get anxious, uh, despite the fact that they were purposely 0:23:11.600 --> 0:23:14.040 designed to not feel crowded, right, And that's part of 0:23:14.040 --> 0:23:16.359 the challenge of mall design is to to make it 0:23:16.480 --> 0:23:19.359 so people like me can stand to stay there as 0:23:19.400 --> 0:23:22.120 long as possible, because the longer you're there, the more 0:23:22.240 --> 0:23:26.000 shopping you're gonna do. And but you want a bunch 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:27.879 of people. You don't want just one person at a 0:23:27.920 --> 0:23:30.800 time going through the mall because of crowding. You want 0:23:30.800 --> 0:23:32.480 a bunch of people, so you want to juggle how 0:23:32.520 --> 0:23:34.960 to get all those people in there shopping at the 0:23:35.000 --> 0:23:37.440 same time without making one another feel crowded. How are 0:23:37.480 --> 0:23:42.600