Social and environmental psychology

Social and environmental psychology study how thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined or the implied presence of others as well as the environments in which they find themselves. Social psychologists seek to understand the social performance of individuals rather than behaviors of groups of people, such as societies or communities. Environmental psychologists seek to understand the interaction between people and environments, such as how people change their environments to suit their needs, how the effects of environmental characteristics (e.g., noise, presence of natural elements) influence our behavior and well-being, or how space and environmental information can be used to achieve behavioral or cognitive goals.

​This course aims at a better understanding of people's interactions with other people and their environments based on the theories and explanations that represent the state-of-the-art social and environmental psychology knowledge. Students will become acquainted with approaches that deal with social perception, self-presentation, attitude formation and change, social pressure and prejudices, group behavior, environmental values and attitudes, safety perception, environments as a source of stress, and other human-environment interrelationships. Students are expected to bridge the gap between theory and potential applications within the frame of Human-Technology Interaction through an individual presentation of a technological application of one of the concepts taught in class.

Knowledge

• The student is able to describe boundary conditions of each of the theoretical approaches and is able to compare and analyze the differences between these approaches.
• The student is able to describe applications of this knowledge in concrete, applied assignments. That is, the student will be able to describe social psychological knowledge and describe an application of that knowledge to human-technology interaction.
• The student is able to describe the most important theoretical approaches to social psychology and the scientific research carried out in this area.
• The student is able to work independently with a scientific handbook and to learn the material presented.

Skills

• The student is able to give a clear, innovative and concise presentation that links theory to an application in the human-technology interaction domain.
• The student is able to find and evaluate various sources of information relevant for their presentation and adequately refer to them.
• The student is able to reflect on own presentation skills and to define an action plan accordingly.

You must meet the following requirements

• Registered for a degree programme other than
• HBO-TOP Applied Physics, Pre-Master
• Industrial Engineering
• Completed none of the course modules listed below
• Marketing perspectives on prod inn (1ZV20)

• Biswas-Diener, R. (2016). Together: The science of social psychology. Noba Project.
• Donald, I. (2022). Environmental and Architectural Psychology: The Basics. Routledge.