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Lecture 06 - Environment and Personality — Transcript

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0:11today we're going to be talking about
0:12personality and environment
0:14and when you guys ended class you did
0:17this song exercise right where each of
0:19you
0:19wrote down your list of favorite songs
0:22and then passed it to your neighbor and
0:24they made some judgments about that list
0:26of songs so i want to read a few
0:27examples
0:29this was one of them kanye west get em
0:32high
0:33the roots seed 2.0 chris brown yo
0:39ice cube today was a very good day
0:43and uh the person said that from the
0:45list of songs i can infer that this
0:47person is laid back
0:49and does not follow mainstream trends
0:51due to some of the old school and
0:52underground songs so that was
0:54uh the appraisal on that one another
0:56list was above and beyond sun and moon
0:59drake take care usher climax
1:02katy perry teenage dream and google
1:05dolls iris
1:07and the neighbor of this person said
1:10they like upbeat songs but also ones
1:13with a kind of melodic and catchy rhythm
1:15and beat i've never heard the first song
1:17but it sounds great
1:19like songs with a lot of meaning and
1:20soul behind them
1:22person enjoys life and everything about
1:24it so
1:26you guys are making some interesting
1:28judgments about the song list
1:30and then another list was audio machine
1:34uh forgot the name of that one two steps
1:36freedom fighter
1:38opus 32 concerto for two violins
1:41uh nearer my god to thee and the killers
1:46and what this person said is i can't
1:48really say much because i'm not familiar
1:49with these songs but by the names of the
1:51songs and bands i feel like this person
1:52is the type who likes listening to their
1:54music
1:55with their big headphones in their room
1:57on full blast
1:59he also seems like someone who plays an
2:01instrument and likes to rock out
2:03okay so these are some of the examples
2:06uh that you all turned in
2:08and we're going to be talking today how
2:11people use their environments to make
2:14cues
2:14or to make judgments about other
2:16people's personality
2:18their interests and also you can do that
2:20when you walk into somebody's room and
2:22you see what they put up on the wall so
2:23there are a lot of ways in which we use
2:25environmental cues to make inferences
2:26about other people
2:29so when looking at the relationship
2:31between environment and personality
2:33one of the issues has to do with how
2:36your personality traits are influenced
2:38how they influence your interpretation
2:39of your environment so
2:41if you're a stimulation seeker for
2:43example you're going to find certain
2:45environments may be too boring or not
2:47interesting and exciting enough
2:49if you're a low stimulation seeker you
2:50might have just the opposite
2:52kind of judgment also places have
2:55personalities we're going to talk a
2:56little bit about that they have their
2:58own sort of climate atmosphere
3:00and they help shape our own
3:02personalities so depending on where you
3:04grew up
3:05or whether you went to a big high school
3:06or a small high school
3:08all of those kinds of influences have a
3:11an influence on your own
3:12characteristics so when we talk about
3:16personality
3:17we're usually referring to a relatively
3:19stable set of personal characteristics
3:21the ways in which
3:22an individual perceives things or their
3:24behavioral tendencies
3:26and these tendencies are observable by
3:29others
3:30across a variety of situations and
3:32settings
3:33so that's generally what psychologists
3:35mean when they talk about personality
3:37but until the field of environmental
3:38psychology got going there wasn't much
3:40interest in how the large scale
3:41environment
3:42really helped to shape personality it
3:44was more about sort of the immediate
3:46family uh the micro environment of the
3:48home parents personalities as they
3:50influenced their kids personalities but
3:52not too much about
3:53the kinds of environments where people
3:55were spending their time
3:57so these are really four basic
4:01relationships between the large scale
4:03environment and personality
4:06first off the environment reveals
4:08personality so your room decorations
4:10your musical selections your web page
4:12content
4:13people use these as cues to make
4:15judgments about your own
4:16personal qualities secondly the
4:19environment
4:20shapes personality so we saw in the
4:23behavior settings research of barker
4:25that depending on the staffing level of
4:28a school system
4:29if it was under staff to put a lot of
4:31pressure on those students to take on
4:33more roles leadership roles
4:35and yet if that if that setting was
4:38overstaffed
4:39you had more peripheral people that
4:41couldn't get as involved in leadership
4:43positions
4:44so the environment has a definite
4:46influence on
4:47the development of our personality uh if
4:49you grow up in a place where you can
4:51meet a lot of people
4:52and uh we remember that that study by
4:55festinger schachter and bach
4:56at mit where proximity to other people
5:00spatially in terms of where they lived
5:01in that apartment complex predicted
5:03friendship patterns
5:04in some communities you don't have as
5:06many opportunities to meet other people
5:08so the structure of the environment can
5:10influence personality that way
5:12now the third pathway is that the kind
5:15of personalities we develop
5:17have an influence on what we do in the
5:19environment and our health
5:21there's a lot of research on personality
5:23and health
5:24and many of these personality traits
5:26have to do with environmental
5:27preferences so if you like really
5:29exciting
5:30risky environments that's one kind of
5:32personality orientation
5:34the coronary prone behavior pattern
5:36means that you tend to be very
5:38job involved and you tend to drive
5:40yourself really hard
5:42and you go from one environment to the
5:44other trying to do as much as you can
5:46and that leads to certain kind of
5:47behavioral patterns and the final
5:50pathway here
5:51is that personality is sometimes in the
5:53middle between
5:54the environment we're exposed to and
5:56then the outcomes of that exposure
5:58so if you take a group of people
6:02and you expose them to a really chaotic
6:04stressful environment
6:07if they're high sensation seekers in
6:09that group they're going to be more
6:11resistant
6:12to feeling the effects of that stress
6:14because they have a higher tolerance
6:16for stimulation and overload and if the
6:19person
6:20the people some of the people in that
6:21group are low stimulation seekers
6:24they're going to be much more put off by
6:26too much stimulation so
6:28the personality that people have can
6:30mediate the relationship between the
6:31environment and the effects it has
6:33on their health and behavior so these
6:35are the four kind of
6:36pathways we want to talk about in terms
6:38of how the large scale environment
6:39affects people's personality
6:42now we'll start off with how the
6:44environment reveals personality
6:46and these are a lot of examples up here
6:49of
6:50walking into somebody's dorm room for
6:52example
6:53and here you've got a kind of chaotic
6:55look here you've got a very neat and
6:57organized look
6:59you walk into this this conference room
7:01and you see a lot of emphasis on the
7:03employees pictures and their
7:05achievements their awards some
7:06conference rooms don't do that in a work
7:09environment
7:09so when you go into these environments
7:12they have a subtle
7:12influence on how you make inferences
7:14about the people that work there
7:16live there occupy that space and we're
7:19going to play a little
7:21vignette here and i want you to think
7:23about how the people in this situation
7:25are making inferences about another
7:27person's personality
7:28based on the situation the environmental
7:30situation
7:33if you were in that situation what kind
7:35of inferences would you make about
7:37elaine
7:37or what do you think they were
7:40concluding about elaine based on
7:42her cell phone call
7:46yeah leslie is it leslie yeah
7:52okay so leslie's saying that maybe
7:54they're inferring that she's kind of
7:55selfish
7:57she's sort of getting the call out of
7:59the way while she's walking down the
8:00street where she can't really focus in
8:02on what
8:03her friend might say about her father's
8:04condition yeah
8:06that's a very interesting observation
8:08aisha's saying that because this is an
8:09urban situation and we saw that
8:12study by stanley milgram on how urban
8:15dwellers react to stimulation overload
8:17what do they do they screen out
8:19outputs they don't devote as much time
8:21to each interaction
8:23so maybe you take kind of what she did
8:25with a grain of salt that okay she's an
8:27urbanite and she's got a lot going on
8:29in terms of what she's managing in that
8:31situation and you don't
8:33attribute so much to her personally but
8:35rather she's in a
8:36you know she's living in a city where
8:38she's got to manage all that overload
8:40other thoughts about how they were
8:43judging or might judge that situation
8:46yeah what's your name
8:48anita that's a great observation anita
8:51saying that because
8:53our use of technology has evolved our
8:55norms about technology have evolved
8:57and they've changed so nowadays people
9:00are texting on the run they're calling
9:02on the run
9:02it's normative you know you don't sort
9:04of put somebody down
9:06and assume that they're a bad person or
9:07they're not a very considerate person
9:09just because they're making a cell phone
9:10call like that so
9:11in a sense that episode might be a
9:13little dated now right because
9:15of how we've embraced technology so
9:18and everything is about speed today you
9:20know
9:22so we're going to web 2.0 and we're
9:24going to the 4g
9:25system of cell phones and it's more and
9:28more more speed so how can you
9:30you know fault somebody if they're sort
9:31of buying into that so
9:33it's an interesting example of how
9:34people make these links between
9:36behavior in a particular environmental
9:39context
9:40and why that would be sort of
9:43information for what their personality
9:44is like
9:46any other thoughts about kind of what's
9:48going on in that that particular
9:50video eleanor is saying that
9:53you could maybe infer that elaine's sort
9:55of a disorganized person because she
9:57gets out of that car when you know
9:59kramer slams on the brakes and she's
10:01thinking about other things and then she
10:02remembered she should have called her
10:04friend
10:04so you know maybe she's a little bit
10:06absent-minded or
10:08not that organized so yeah those are all
10:10really interesting comments and
10:11observations what's your name
10:13david yeah so the
10:16guy walks down the street saying hello
10:18to jerry and george and they don't even
10:20like acknowledge him right
10:22and then they're putting her down
10:23because they're saying that she's being
10:25kind of superficial so that's that's a
10:27little bit of an irony in that situation
10:29as well
10:31so when we look at that gosling paper
10:35that is listed for tuesday actually
10:37we're going to talk about it today
10:39what they're you know it's a fairly
10:41involved a little bit of a jargony
10:43article there's a lot of terminology
10:45there
10:45so we want to break some of that down
10:47and it's it's a simple idea that if
10:49you're an observer
10:50of someone like elaine making a cell
10:52phone call on the street or you walk
10:54into somebody's room
10:56and you see that they have a very
10:57organized desk
10:59or that they have a lot of books or
11:01whatever these cues are
11:02you're using those cues as a kind of
11:04lens to try to
11:06view and understand what their
11:08underlying quality is like are they
11:10conscientious or not conscientious are
11:12they sociable or not
11:13so you're utilizing cues here based on
11:16what you observe in the environment
11:18and then whether those cues are a good
11:20predictor of the underlying
11:21personality trait that has to do with
11:24the validity of the queue
11:25so if if you think that organized having
11:28an organized desk
11:29really in fact does predict this
11:32person's conscientiousness that would be
11:33high q validity
11:35and so when people are good at using the
11:37cues
11:38and making these valid inferences that's
11:42called functional achievement or
11:43accuracy so you're making accurate
11:45judgments as an observer in that
11:47particular situation
11:49so that's called the lens model of how
11:51observers make judgments about room
11:53occupants
11:55in the gosling paper they talk about a
11:57number of different
11:58types of cues in a physical environment
12:01so
12:02one of those categories is self-directed
12:04identity claims that you can think about
12:06your own environments in terms of what
12:07you put on the wall
12:09and they're saying that often you're
12:12using these
12:13these kind of postings these
12:14personalizations of your room
12:17to sort of reinforce for your own
12:20benefit
12:21what you're like your own view of
12:22yourself
12:25so that's called a self-directed
12:26identity claim
12:28another directed identity claim is for
12:31the benefit of others
12:32so here in this apartment near our
12:34campus
12:36this particular person decided to do all
12:38of this sort of
12:40wall art in their living room which you
12:41typically you don't see when you walk
12:43into somebody's living room right
12:44through the front door maybe you'd see
12:46something like that in their bedroom
12:48but this is a pretty out there kind of
12:50statement about
12:52you know what what they want others to
12:53see them as
12:55so it's a symbolic statement made by a
12:57person to others through physical
12:58displays about how they'd like to be
13:00regarded
13:01and what might you conclude about that
13:04kind of artwork
13:05somebody you know drawing that on the
13:06wall
13:08unconventional so that's another kind of
13:10trait you could infer from that behavior
13:12and that that residue that cue
13:16any other inferences you might make
13:18what's your name what
13:20what jacqueline's saying is that this
13:21becomes a kind of
13:23focus when somebody walks in and it's a
13:25conversation breaker
13:27or starter and it opens up interaction
13:30so maybe the people that live in this
13:31place
13:32are more about interactions than sort of
13:34passive tv viewing or something like
13:36that so that's an interesting
13:38kind of way to view it now sometimes
13:41people make false identity claims
13:43okay what's a false identity claim
13:46why would you want to do that okay so
13:50you want to dress up your qualities and
13:51make them more appealing
13:53so that people like you better and some
13:54would say well people do that on
13:56facebook and social networking although
13:57the study we read
13:59earlier suggested that people's facebook
14:01pages are really pretty accurate
14:03uh depictions of what they're really
14:05like so
14:06we're gonna run a little uh another
14:09video clip here
14:10to illustrate this notion of a false
14:12identity claim
14:13and this happens sometimes in
14:15environments or it might happen on a web
14:17page
14:20any other examples of how this might
14:22happen in a dorm that you've seen or
14:26yeah what's your name amanda necessarily
14:29a dorm but i
14:30have a friend who she actually grew up
14:32here on the west coast
14:34but she spent quite a bit of time in new
14:36york kind of
14:37living there at the time and she finds
14:40that when she goes to europe
14:41people like her better when she says
14:43she's from new york
14:45they just kind of respond a little more
14:46favorably
14:48or even san francisco but if she just
14:51says
14:51in california so she kind of plays up
14:55that a little bit more
14:56interesting all right good so
15:00these are some of the categories that uh
15:02gosling and his colleagues talk about in
15:04terms of how people present themselves
15:06these identity claims
15:07true or false personal self or other
15:10directed
15:11now there's some other categories that
15:13they look at as well
15:15one is this interior behavioral residue
15:17which is a fancy way of saying that this
15:19guy has a guitar in his room so you can
15:21kind of infer that he probably plays a
15:22guitar in his room
15:24and he's got a lot of books and so maybe
15:27he's sort of studious
15:28so these are traces of activities that
15:31are actually conducted by somebody in
15:32their immediate environment so you walk
15:34in and that
15:34those would be interior behavioral
15:37residues or cues
15:39this category is exterior behavioral
15:42cues or residues and these are
15:45physical traces of activities performed
15:47by people outside their immediate
15:48surroundings so if you walk in
15:50and you see that somebody has a
15:52snowboard or skis or something like that
15:54obviously they're not doing that in
15:56verano or some other place around here
15:59so it's an exterior behavioral cue it
16:01allows you to sort of infer something
16:03about their hobbies
16:04or their interests that happen away from
16:05the immediate environment
16:07so these are four categories that
16:09they're putting together before we sort
16:10of put up their model i just want to
16:12read
16:14a quote from john steinbeck that they
16:17that they mention
16:18in their article in travels with charlie
16:20and
16:21steinbeck in that novel said an animal
16:24resting or passing leaves crushed grass
16:27footprints and perhaps droppings but a
16:30human occupying a room for a night
16:32prints his character his biography his
16:34recent history
16:35and sometimes his future plans and hopes
16:38i further believe that personality seeps
16:40into the walls and it is slowly released
16:43as i sat in this unmade room lonesome
16:46harry began to take
16:47shape and dimension i could feel that
16:50recently departed guest
16:51in the bits and pieces of himself that
16:53he had left behind
16:55so this is the idea that our physical
16:59environments take on our character to
17:00some extent
17:01either because we're intentionally
17:03leaving putting things up that we want
17:05to influence
17:06our own views of ourselves or other
17:08people's views of us sometimes they can
17:10be physical traces that we leave behind
17:12that we didn't really intend anybody to
17:13see
17:14like some laundry receipts or an empty
17:18bottle of whiskey or something like that
17:20but you can use those kind of cues
17:22to judge what the person might be like
17:25and by the same token just as people
17:27leave their imprint on their
17:29environments
17:30our environments leave a major imprint
17:32on us and our personality as we go
17:34through
17:34our lives and we go from one setting to
17:37another
17:38so this is the kind of complex model
17:40looks complex although it's it's a
17:42pretty simple idea
17:44um it's the idea that when you go into
17:47an
17:47observation situation and you see these
17:50cues these residues so this is a
17:52self-directed identity claim somebody
17:54puts out a pebble that they collected
17:55from a favorite beach
17:57or an other directed identity claim they
17:59put an eye voted sticker up in their
18:01room
18:02or an interior behavioral residue they
18:04have a very organized workspace
18:06or an external behavioral residue
18:08there's a snowboard in the room
18:10so the observer takes a look at these
18:12residues these cues
18:14and starts to make inferences about that
18:16person's behavior they collect
18:17memorabilia
18:18they vote they organize their belongings
18:20they go snowboarding
18:22and from those behaviors they then start
18:24to make inferences about the underlying
18:26traits they're sentimental
18:28because they collect these kind of
18:29memorabilia they're socially responsible
18:31because they voted
18:32they're conscientious given the neatness
18:34of their workspace
18:35and they're sensation seekers because
18:37they like to snowboard or maybe they
18:38like the parachute or something like
18:40that
18:40so observers are going through these
18:42steps of taking the cues the physical
18:44cues in the room
18:45and they're inferring the behaviors and
18:47then from the behaviors inferring the
18:49traits that underlie the behaviors
18:51so this is the sort of theoretical
18:53summary
18:54of how gosling how their research
18:57suggests that people make these
18:58personality judgments based on
19:00others environments
19:05now just as the environment reveals our
19:06personality
19:08it can have a major impact on the
19:10characteristics that we develop
19:12so these are two studies we've already
19:14talked about festinger shakhtar bach
19:16the linear distance between front doors
19:19predicted friendship patterns political
19:21attitudes
19:23and sociability to the extent that
19:25people lived near a lot of people and
19:26they made a lot of friends
19:28in this study by barker on behavior
19:30settings as you look at these
19:32the larger high schools and these high
19:34schools are by
19:35categories of size the participations of
19:38students
19:39per you know participations per thousand
19:41students in extracurricular behavior
19:43settings whether it's a team or it's a
19:45newspaper or cheerleading or something
19:47those are much higher in the smaller
19:50schools and they drop
19:51off precipitously in the larger schools
19:53so what that's saying as we
19:55mentioned before is that this is these
19:57the size of the school the overstaffing
19:59of the setting is having
20:01quite an influence on the person's
20:03tendency to get involved in leadership
20:04roles
20:05and take on more and more responsibility
20:07maybe they become more extroverted more
20:09sociable
20:10so think about the kinds of environments
20:12that you grow up in and what kind of
20:14influences they might have had on you
20:15whether it's a high school
20:17or a faith-based group or something like
20:19that they have tremendous influences on
20:21our personality
20:25now one way of looking at this influence
20:28of physical environments on our
20:29personality is the concept of place
20:31identity
20:32and this is something that environmental
20:34psychologist
20:35harold prashansky and his colleagues
20:37have done research on
20:39and this refers to those facets of a
20:42person's identity
20:44that reflect his or her psychological
20:46attachment to a particular place
20:48so if you grew up in a hometown that you
20:50really miss or you really feel part of
20:53that's part of your self-identity it's
20:55that place identity part of your
20:57personal
20:58characteristics and this might include
21:01visual imagery memories
21:03uh symbolic meanings of a place that
21:05become part of your self
21:06concept and personality so
21:09an example of that for me are these are
21:12some of the behavior settings where i
21:14grew up
21:14so this is my childhood home
21:17interestingly when i lived there it used
21:19to have pink walls for some reason
21:21that seemed to be an in color at the
21:22time not so much today
21:24but this is a picture that my son took
21:26when he went back to miami
21:27for a conference and he visited this
21:30place and he sent me a picture of it for
21:31old time's sake
21:33so i spent a lot of years there this is
21:35my elementary school
21:36coral elementary school in miami
21:39this is the miami orange bowl before
21:41they built joe robbie stadium for the
21:43dolphins and my dad and i
21:45my dad would get off of work on friday
21:47night and we would always go to the
21:49university of miami football games that
21:50was sort of our
21:51one of the things we did together so
21:53that has a lot of nice memories for me
21:56we later moved to a different part of
21:58the city and this is my
22:00high school palmetto high school in
22:02florida
22:03this is biscayne boulevard in miami so i
22:06you know
22:06spent many a day driving up and down
22:08that route
22:10and just recently this week i was in
22:13chicago for a conference
22:15and i went back and visited some of my
22:16old haunts there
22:18these pictures are actually from an
22:20earlier visit but this is the
22:21quadrangles at the university of chicago
22:23the skyline of chicago on michigan
22:26avenue
22:26and then the the library at the
22:28university of chicago which i really
22:30kind of liked hanging out there it's a
22:31beautiful room and
22:33you know i have a lot of memories from
22:35college in terms of things i did in that
22:37city
22:38and in in those places so you can think
22:41for yourselves in terms of where you've
22:42grown up what places you've been
22:44involved in
22:45and those memories you have are part of
22:47the environmental cognition that
22:49dr misra talked about on tuesday you
22:52know
22:52they stick with you they become part of
22:54your identity you know whether it's
22:55remembering
22:56things you used to do with your parent
22:58or remembering
23:00the six years that you spent in that
23:01elementary school
23:04and then of course i went off to grad
23:06school at the university of north
23:07carolina this
23:08is the south hall there the main
23:09administrative building
23:11very different kind of environment
23:13southern college town is compared to
23:15this
23:15sprawling city of chicago and
23:20social ecology where i've spent a lot of
23:21years uh after coming from grad school
23:25and one of the things i thought about as
23:26i walked around chicago near my hotel
23:28this time
23:29is uh there was the allergan hotel and i
23:32remember bringing my older son when he
23:34was 13
23:35to a conference with me because he was a
23:37huge fan of the chicago cubs and he
23:39really wanted to go to this conference
23:40because it was in chicago and maybe we'd
23:42get to go to wrigley field and he could
23:43check it out
23:45and so i spent a lot of time with him at
23:46that conference walking around looking
23:48for
23:48chicago cubs paraphernalia and trying to
23:51get over to wrigley field
23:52but whenever i go back to chicago and i
23:54walk by gino's pizza
23:56or i walk by that hotel i think of
23:59you know events i had with my kids when
24:01i was in chicago and
24:02you know they it really made an impact
24:04on them they they still remember some of
24:06those events as well
24:07so we all have this whole constellation
24:10of memories and place experiences that
24:12become part of us
24:13and it's in that sense that places leave
24:16their impact on us and some places
24:18don't leave a very fun or positive
24:21uh very desirable impact on us some
24:23places are pretty stressful
24:25and we just as soon forget about them so
24:26it's not always
24:28places that are influencing us in a real
24:30positive way
24:34so places can reveal our personality
24:37they can influence the development of
24:38our personality through place identity
24:41and memories and then places themselves
24:43have a kind of personality
24:45sometimes that's called ambiance or the
24:48overall feel or atmosphere of a place so
24:50you can go into this plaza mayor
24:52in madrid spain and it's such a
24:54beautifully designed
24:56scaled environment for pedestrians that
24:59people just love to sit there and sort
25:00of take it in it's aesthetically really
25:02pleasing
25:03it's very sociable
25:06so we we also talk about the social
25:08climate of a place you know you go to
25:10ghirardelli square
25:11and you see people taking pictures of
25:14each other even though there are a lot
25:15of strangers around they're doing things
25:17as if they feel comfortable there they
25:19don't mind that there's strangers
25:20watching them do that because it's it's
25:22just a very
25:23uh kind of friendly sociable place and
25:25you can think of some urban environments
25:27that aren't that way
25:28that would be opposite of that can any
25:29of you think of an urban environment
25:31that would be
25:32quite different than garrett ellie
25:33square how many of you been to
25:34ghirardelli square in san francisco
25:37so what might be a kind of opposite
25:39reaction to another type of place
25:42where it wouldn't be so sociable the
25:43ambiance would be different
25:46a library okay no that's great amber's
25:49saying that
25:50downtown l.a because it's got these
25:53monolithic
25:54high-rise buildings the scale for
25:56pedestrians is off it's it's not very
25:58comfortable
25:59and later when we talk about urban
26:01design in the second part of the class
26:03we'll see this concept of human scale
26:06how do you design an environment that's
26:07scaled
26:08to be comfortable for people walking
26:10through it not just people speeding
26:12through it on an expressway
26:14but actually walking or biking through
26:16it so those are some places that might
26:18have a different feel than
26:19ghirardelli square and you know you can
26:21think of other kinds of
26:23identities of environments there there
26:25are some environments that have a very
26:26strong
26:27musical landscape or signature can you
26:30think of any cities that have a
26:31particular
26:32musical signature to them or identity
26:36yeah aisha new orleans dixieland jazz
26:39other examples yeah what's your name
26:43jeff okay memphis nashville for
26:47what would you say about memphis and
26:48nashville yeah country rock i mean
26:51nashville ryman hall
26:53we'll show a video of a neil young
26:56concert in ryman hall in nashville
26:58and it's a very it's drenched with
27:00memories and tradition
27:02so it has a distinctive atmosphere
27:04ambiance to nashville
27:07any other examples yeah amber vienna
27:10what about vienna
27:11classical music okay so a lot of the
27:14baroque composers were working in vienna
27:17so you can think of these different
27:19cities
27:19maybe you can think of the rock scene in
27:21seattle when jimi hendrix was starting
27:23out there
27:25but many of our cities have that strong
27:27very strong kind of identity because of
27:29music
27:30and that's why we emphasize music a lot
27:32in this class because it's
27:33part of our environment that conveys our
27:35attachment to places
27:37how we feel about places and how our
27:39personalities are shaped by the places
27:40we grow up
27:41that that song or that tape we played as
27:44you were coming in
27:46that john lennon wrote in my life what's
27:49what's the song in my life about anybody
27:51know
27:53but also i think that song is all that's
27:54a good point but it's all i think the
27:56song is also
27:57saying that the relationships you have
28:00are so colored by the places in which
28:02you
28:03you know were involved with people and
28:06so
28:06that song was written by lennon as he
28:08drove as he rode on a bus
28:10through his hometown and he thought
28:12about the the memories he had about
28:14relationships about places that he was
28:17fond of in that town
28:18so it's very much a sentimental song
28:20about place memories and also
28:22relationship memories
28:24social image ability as dr mizrah
28:26mentioned
28:27is a little different than kevin lynch's
28:29notion of physical image ability which
28:31is how
28:32strong of a physical image do you get
28:34from an environment because it has
28:36you know strong landmarks or it has a
28:38very clear path system
28:39social image ability has more to do with
28:41what walter fiery was talking about in
28:43his
28:44social sociocultural school of human
28:46ecology remember he
28:48made a big break with the human ecology
28:50school in chicago and said you know
28:52environments are not just about their
28:54economic dimensions
28:56and their the biological analogy of
28:58people you know being a population in a
29:00physical environment a geographic
29:01environment but they also have
29:02socio-cultural meanings
29:04so social image ability is all about the
29:07kinds of
29:09cultural and symbolic meanings that
29:11build up in certain places and we
29:14we get attached to those places or they
29:16have meaning for us because of those
29:17strong symbols so this is the vietnam
29:19memorial in washington dc
29:21and it's a very simple design for
29:23memorial but it evokes
29:25extremely strong kind of reactions when
29:28people go there they get very quiet that
29:29you're very contemplative
29:31and so environments like that with those
29:33kind of strong meanings can bring out
29:35certain behaviors you wouldn't go there
29:36to play frisbee for example
29:38or you wouldn't set up your guitar there
29:40and and uh
29:42you know or you know a juggler wouldn't
29:44set up there because the norms would be
29:46too strong to not do that in that
29:48environment so social norms can really
29:50kind of dictate behavior based on how
29:52strong those images are
29:57now another pathway that we talked about
30:00so environments can reveal personality
30:02they can influence our personality they
30:04places have personalities of their own
30:06and there's a strong link between
30:08personality and health
30:10you know there's a lot of research
30:11that's been done
30:13at sort of the healthy personality or
30:16why happiness is associated with
30:19longevity there's a lot of research on
30:20optimism and happiness
30:22predicting longevity so
30:25what is it about these different
30:26personality traits that enable us
30:29to stay healthy or stay healthy longer
30:33as compared to other personality traits
30:34so we're going to talk about you know
30:36some of those different dimensions
30:38and in this list you see several
30:40different personality
30:42concepts sensation seeking sense of
30:45coherence whether people have a coherent
30:47sense of their life
30:49and what's happening in it psychological
30:52hardiness which is a concept
30:54developed by salmati here at uci
30:57professor maddie in psb who by the way i
31:00had a course with when i was at the
31:01university of chicago as an
31:02undergraduate he was teaching there
31:04after he got out of grad school so i
31:06first met him there
31:07and then had the fun of hiring him when
31:10he applied for a job here
31:14future time perspective whether people
31:17see things as extended into the future
31:19or they're real present oriented and
31:20they're just worrying about how to get
31:22through the next day
31:23the next hour as opposed to planning for
31:25college or planning for your
31:27you know future life stage and people
31:30with more extended
31:32time perspectives tend to be healthier
31:34they tend to have more of an optimistic
31:36sense of where their lives are going
31:38internal or external locus of control
31:40whether people feel that events happen
31:41to them
31:42externally external things just happen
31:45to them or
31:46internally they're in control of their
31:47lives they can affect what happens to
31:49them that's the internals
31:51coronary prone behavior pattern anybody
31:54hear about that or what that anybody
31:55have a notion of what that is
31:57kevin's pointing out that there's a lot
31:59of medical research showing that when
32:01you
32:01compare people that have this hard
32:03driving somewhat hostile
32:05time urgent personality they're much
32:08more prone to get heart attacks and
32:09cardiovascular disease than people that
32:11have the type b
32:12personality which is more laid back
32:14somebody said in the song analysis chill
32:17you don't get so worried about time
32:18pressures you just let it roll off you
32:21so this is that's the type a personality
32:24and there's some research that's been
32:26done on the type c personality the
32:28cancer-prone personality although the
32:29evidence for that is
32:30less strong than it is for on the
32:32cardiovascular side with type a
32:34we know that anxiety hostility are all
32:37associated with greater proneness toward
32:39disease
32:41on the other hand optimism people that
32:42are optimistic tend to
32:44remain healthier for longer
32:48so we're going to talk first about
32:49sensation seeking and it's a very
32:51interesting concept
32:53describing people's need for very strong
32:57diverse sensations and experiences
33:00willingness to take risks
33:02and you know just to have that
33:03experience not worrying so much about
33:06what's going to happen if you take the
33:07risk and i'm going to read you some
33:08examples
33:09of the sensation seeking scale just so
33:12you get a flavor for what what they're
33:13trying to get at
33:14so they people have paired choices and
33:17you can pick a
33:18or b so a would be i like wild
33:20uninhibited parties
33:21b i prefer quiet parties with good
33:23conversation
33:25i often wish i could be a mountain
33:26climber i can't understand people who
33:28risk their necks climbing mountains
33:30i dislike all body odors i like some of
33:33the earthy body smells so that's
33:35response b i get bored seeing the same
33:38old faces
33:39versus i like the comfortable
33:40familiarity of everyday friends
33:45i dislike people who do or say things
33:47just to shock or upset
33:48others versus when you can predict
33:51almost everything a person will do and
33:53say
33:53he or she must be a boar and there's
33:56another
33:57uh pair that says the worst thing in
33:59life is to be rude versus the worst
34:01thing in life is to be a boar
34:02so you kind of get the drift you're
34:04discriminating between people that are
34:06sort of
34:07really high risk high sensation versus
34:09those that aren't and it turns out that
34:11this scale
34:12has a lot of predictive validity for
34:15various kinds of outcomes related to
34:16health and
34:17other behaviors you know this is uh
34:20some sample behaviors that somebody with
34:22a high sensation seeking profile would
34:24engage in you know riding
34:26bikes on the the edge of these cliffs
34:28here or jumping off mountains
34:31in these wing suits and we're actually
34:32going to see an example of that in a
34:34video that mark's going to play
34:36have any of you ever seen wingsuit
34:38jumpers
34:39i mean you've seen sky sky divers but so
34:42you've seen them okay
34:44so we'll take a look at that or if you
34:45choose to be an astronaut that would
34:47sort of pull for people that have a high
34:49need for stimulation and sensation
34:52somebody who is a low sensation seeker
34:53would not be in that profession
34:55so you want to play the uh before we go
34:58to that
35:02so how many of you would like to do that
35:04so you're raising your hands
35:06all right so that's a pretty good
35:08behavioral view of what sensation
35:10seeking is all about
35:11and we're going to talk about a couple
35:13of studies
35:14where sensation seeking was found to
35:17mediate the effects of stress or
35:19exposure to
35:20high levels of stimulation on people's
35:22health this is one of those examples by
35:24saracen
35:25ron smith johnson and irwin saracen at
35:27the university of washington
35:29so there were 75 college students males
35:32and females
35:33and they took a battery of different
35:35tests so one test was on their sensation
35:37seeking
35:38drive and they split them into high and
35:41low sensation seekers
35:43and then the other test they gave them
35:44was the stressful life events
35:46scale so they're about 40 items
35:50that they came up with for this this
35:52stressful life scale and you can
35:54download these by the way from the
35:55website we've got the
35:56perceived stress scale the sensation
36:00seeking scale
36:01i don't think we have the stressful life
36:03event scale but let me just read you
36:04some of these
36:05items and they range from 100 points at
36:08the max
36:10to 11 points at the bottom and
36:13if you score over 300 points you're
36:15really going to be prone to
36:16getting sick so there are things like
36:18death of a spouse 100 points
36:20divorce 73 points marital separation 65
36:23points
36:24imprisonment 63 points death of a close
36:27family member 63
36:29marriage 50 so even a happy event
36:31getting married it's a
36:32it puts demand on people you know
36:34there's a lot of preparation there's a
36:35lot of kind of anxiety how's this going
36:37to go
36:38and so you can see that there are a lot
36:40of different events and some of the ones
36:42that are less
36:43stressful according to this scale are
36:45things like change in schools change in
36:47residence 20 points
36:49uh minor taking out a minor mortgage or
36:51loan
36:5217 points a vacation 13 points because
36:56after all you've got to get ready for
36:57that vacation it's a little stressful
36:58when you come back you're overloaded
37:00a lot of email to catch up on minor
37:03violation of the law
37:04you've got a traffic ticket 11 points so
37:07you fill this out
37:0840 items and then the researchers sum up
37:11your total life points
37:13and that's a pretty good basis for
37:15predicting people's tendency to get sick
37:18now subsequent studies found that it
37:20matters a lot
37:21on whether these events are perceived
37:23negatively by people
37:24or positively because we have a mix of
37:26positive and negative events here
37:28and if you're in a relationship that's
37:30really stressful for you
37:31then getting out of it might actually be
37:33a relief and not a stressor
37:35so getting back to lazarus's notion of
37:38psychological stress that really what
37:40is stressful for people is their
37:41perception of the event
37:43if it's threatening what they did in
37:46that study is they divided people into
37:48the
37:48negative life stress and the more
37:51positive life events
37:53and anybody remember what they found for
37:54the sensation seekers in the negative
37:58life events condition
38:01who were the ones that were more prone
38:03to
38:05express distress on scales of negative
38:08symptoms and that type of thing
38:10yes so susan saying that
38:13in the negative life stress condition
38:15people that were really high on negative
38:17life stress
38:18the low sensation seekers were quite
38:20different than the high sensation
38:21seekers the low sensation seekers got
38:23sick or they expressed more negative
38:24symptoms than the high sensation seekers
38:26what about for the positive life events
38:29was there any difference between
38:30sensation seekers
38:32well basically the sensation seekers and
38:35the low and high were the same for
38:37positive life events but it was the
38:38negative ones where you saw that
38:40separation
38:41between you know the high low sensation
38:43seekers so it's an example of how this
38:45personality trait
38:47can really get in the middle between the
38:48environment and the outcomes
38:50and determine how somebody's going to
38:53respond in terms of their physical
38:54health
38:55and also their emotional health and this
38:57is the
38:58these are some of the items that i read
39:00to you from death of a spouse down the
39:02minor violation of the law
39:04and we won't go through them all but you
39:06can look at those when you get the
39:07the slides now another interesting scale
39:11is this perceived stress scale that
39:13shell cohen at carnegie mellon developed
39:16and he's the guy that did the study of
39:17colds susceptibility to colds as a
39:19function of high or low stress when you
39:21go into the dorm before you get
39:23you get shot up with that cold virus in
39:25your nose
39:26he measured he had people fill out his
39:28scale on whether they were stressed in
39:30their life for the past four weeks or
39:31not
39:32and so he was measuring things like in
39:34the last month
39:35how often have you been upset because of
39:37something that happened unexpectedly
39:39or you felt you're unable to control
39:40important things in your life you felt
39:42nervous and stressed
39:44have you felt confident about your
39:46ability to handle personal items so he
39:47mixed in some positive items as well as
39:49negative ones
39:51how often have you felt that things were
39:53going your way or that you could not
39:55cope with the things that you had to do
39:58how often did you feel like you were on
40:00top of things or things were you were
40:02angry because things were outside your
40:03control
40:04difficulties were piling up so high you
40:06could not overcome them so these are the
40:08kinds of items that
40:09go into that perceived stress scale the
40:11psychological stress
40:12feature and
40:15what you see with that are when you have
40:18people that are really feeling it
40:20you know cognitively and perceiving the
40:22stressor to be bad
40:24in their life that's where they are more
40:26likely to get sick when they get in
40:28when they get exposed to a cold virus so
40:30all of you are getting exposed to bugs
40:31all the time
40:32but you know what compromises your
40:34immunity and it could be a lot of things
40:36could be lack of sleep it could be poor
40:38diet but it also could be stress
40:40and this study or the study by sheldon
40:42cohen
40:44where he experimentally exposed people
40:45to the viruses showed that
40:47those in the high stress condition were
40:49much more likely to get the cold
40:50and more severe symptoms
40:54now one more example then we're going to
40:56take a little break and then come back
40:57and finish up
41:00dr mr and i did a study and in fact a
41:03lot of this is based on her dissertation
41:05research
41:06for her dissertation she was looking at
41:08ways in which people use
41:09internet and digital technology and we
41:12wound up
41:13doing a kind of distinction between
41:15cyber based sources of stimulation
41:17like you're getting a lot of emails a
41:19lot of texts a lot of faxes you're tech
41:22you know you're you're
41:23trying to multitask multi-task and so
41:26you know these these have to do with
41:28information and communication
41:29transactions that are mediated by
41:31technologies like the internet cell
41:32phones smart phones laptops
41:34pdas by the same token
41:38you can talk about place based sources
41:40of stress so these are the kinds of
41:42things that you encounter
41:44in actual physical settings they're not
41:46mediated through technology but you go
41:48into this very crowded
41:49environment or traffic congested
41:51environment i was on the
41:53kennedy expressway today in chicago
41:55trying to get to my plane
41:58which was leaving early in the morning
41:59so i could get to class today and it was
42:01like wall-to-wall
42:02traffic and then we're about to board
42:05and i
42:06find out that they've got a mechanical
42:07problem and they didn't know if they're
42:08going to take off so i was almost ready
42:10to call
42:12mark and dr misrend say uh oh but
42:15these are place-based kinds of sources
42:17of stimulation and stress
42:19you know being so tightly jammed
42:21together in this work
42:22place here where you don't have a lot of
42:24privacy you've got a lot of distraction
42:26so these are stimulants that are not
42:27mediated by electronic devices and they
42:29originate
42:31in sources such as social interactions
42:33and roles in physical settings so
42:34one of the things that we were
42:36interested in knowing is how those
42:38different types
42:39of sources of overload affect people
42:42in their day-to-day lives their health
42:44their stress because when stanley milgam
42:46wrote his article on living in new york
42:48city there was not very much attention
42:50to cyber based
42:51sources of overload now we're all trying
42:53to handle
42:54all this information and communication
42:56coming with us daily across
42:57several different channels and devices
43:00so
43:00what the study found and this is based
43:03on her dissertation
43:05is that sensation seeking moderated the
43:09relationship
43:10between both cyber-based sources of
43:12overload and reported stress
43:14as well as place-based sources of
43:16overload and stress
43:18and finally when you put those two
43:19categories together and you give
43:21somebody a combined
43:22score for how much cyber and place-based
43:24stimulation they have
43:27the higher their sensation seeking level
43:29the lower their reported stress
43:31so if you're managing a lot of email and
43:34you're managing a lot of
43:35uh texting and digital transactions if
43:37you are
43:38a high sensation seeker you're able to
43:40you have a higher threshold for that or
43:42a higher tolerance for that people that
43:43have that lower
43:44tolerance tend to give in to more stress
43:47or feel more overloaded by it
43:49it's done in israel on concentrate
43:52concentration camp survivors that had
43:55moved from europe to israel and
43:58basically what antonovsky was interested
44:00in it was why did some of those
44:02immigrants that had gone through
44:04really tough experiences during world
44:06war ii
44:07why did some of them thrive once they
44:09got there and they developed new lives
44:12and they
44:12sort of picked up the pieces and went on
44:14whereas others
44:15got sick and died sort of prematurely
44:18and he found that as he studied the
44:19people that were able to
44:22cope better with all those stresses that
44:24they were able to
44:25put meaning on what had happened in
44:27early parts of their lives and connect
44:29that to
44:30the more recent phases of their life so
44:32there was a kind of continuity or
44:33coherence he called it
44:35and people that just perceived it to be
44:37chaotic random
44:38terrible stuff and couldn't make that
44:40meaning out of it
44:42and it was you know pretty challenging
44:43to make meaning out of severe events
44:45those people were much more susceptible
44:48to getting sick and dying prematurely so
44:50the sense of coherence
44:52really does relate to your kind of
44:54appraisal of the situation what's going
44:56on whether you see it as a challenge
44:58to learn from something terrible and
45:00improve or get better in the future
45:02or whether it's you know become so
45:04overwhelming for you that you
45:06sort of give into it and we don't always
45:08have a lot of control over whether we
45:10can do one of the others
45:11but sometimes we're wired a little
45:12differently that way so that's the kind
45:14of
45:15personality trait he was trying to
45:16measure now one other one
45:19is this notion of psychological
45:20hardiness and this is developed by
45:23salmati here at uci
45:25and it's been used to predict a lot of
45:27health outcomes and in fact
45:29maddie has developed a kind of training
45:31program to make people
45:32or to encourage them to become heartier
45:35and he has these three dimensions of
45:37hardiness
45:38can anybody kind of tell me a little bit
45:40about what each of those dimensions
45:41means what does it mean to have high
45:42commitment in his model
45:45okay so commitment you can make make
45:47things interesting so rather than
45:49getting overwhelmed by boredom you kind
45:50of make them
45:51you see interest value in it so that
45:53there's a reason you're doing this stuff
45:55and you're not just doing something that
45:56seems
45:57not valuable control is fairly obvious
46:00it's whether people have a sense of
46:02efficacy that they can change what's
46:04going on in the world or they're
46:05you know powerless to do that and
46:08challenge what is challenge
46:12and we just saw some pretty uh hefty
46:14challenges in the antonovsky study of
46:16concentration camp survivors so what
46:18would what would that
46:20refer to yeah can you take a negative
46:23event
46:24and see it as a challenge that can be
46:26overcome and that you can learn from
46:28something difficult
46:30or do you see it as something that's so
46:31difficult you can't possibly cope with
46:33it
46:33it's going to do you in and so that's
46:35what he means by challenge so
46:37what he tried to do in his hardiness
46:39training is
46:40take people working at a large utility
46:42company in chicago when he was living
46:44there
46:45and these people were going through a
46:46lot of work stress and he advertised
46:49that
46:49he was going to form some stress
46:51reduction stress
46:52reduction training groups and he invited
46:54people to sign up
46:56and he basically had about 54 people in
46:59this sample and he had him divided into
47:01groups of about six people
47:03in these different conditions one
47:05condition was
47:06training people to develop more of a
47:09sense of commitment control and
47:10challenge and he actually had over the
47:1210
47:13week sessions each session was about an
47:15hour and a half
47:17over 10 weeks and in the different
47:19sessions they learned how to
47:21reconstruct what's going on in their
47:22life to frame it to frame it more
47:25positively or more as a challenge
47:27than as a setback that couldn't really
47:29be overcome
47:31and he encouraged ways of trying to see
47:34meaning
47:35and interest value in things that were
47:37going on in their lives so he actively
47:40uh trained people to do that anybody
47:42remember the other two comparison
47:44conditions he was trying to sort of com
47:46control for or compare other approaches
47:48amber
47:50in addition to hardiness training
47:51amber's saying
47:53one of the approaches was relaxation
47:55meditation
47:57muscle relaxation um and transcendental
48:00meditation non-religious
48:02sort of meditation forms so people were
48:04trained up on how to do that today we
48:05have these mindfulness classes here at
48:07uci you can sign up for them through the
48:09samuel institute
48:10and learn that technique but that's kind
48:12of what he was trying to do there
48:14and the third condition was passive
48:17listening people would come to the group
48:18they'd share their troubles
48:20with each other and they would sort of
48:22coach each other or give each other
48:24ideas and suggestions about how they
48:26might deal with the situation in
48:27somebody else's life so there was social
48:29support there
48:30and there was also a placebo effect in
48:32that he told the groups at the outset
48:34that
48:35each of these approaches the the passive
48:38listening and the meditation
48:40conditions were going to help them that
48:42there was evidence that they would help
48:43them overcome stress so they
48:45had a positive expectation going in and
48:48then
48:48he tested them before and after this
48:51training course
48:52on their levels of stress their levels
48:54of strain job satisfaction
48:56and also on their hardiness levels so
48:58there's a scale that he and a guy named
49:00paul barone
49:02developed to measure psychological
49:04hardiness so
49:05what he found is first of all that the
49:08hardiness condition here
49:10when he measured their actual changes in
49:13hardiness over the pre and post
49:15there was a greater gain here even
49:17though these groups were starting out
49:21higher there was less of a gain 75
49:23percent of the 77
49:257172 but here you have this
49:28bigger jump or at least statistically
49:30significant uh
49:31gain in post-treatment parties and he
49:34made the
49:35observation that sometimes when you
49:37compose these groups you're gonna get
49:39uh these selection differences where you
49:42might actually start out with people
49:43being hardier in this condition than
49:45another condition
49:46so he was relying on different scores
49:48you know between the premier post
49:50to see what the overall change was and
49:52that's where he
49:53had this evidence that part of this
49:54training actually increased hearties
49:57more than relaxation meditation or
50:00passive listening
50:01so that was one of the tests he did
50:03another
50:04he looked at another outcome or
50:06dependent measure is strain
50:08people's symptoms of strain and this is
50:10analogous to
50:12sheldon coleman's perceived stress scale
50:14but maddie was using a slightly
50:16different scale to mention that
50:17and here again he found that particular
50:19training was more effective in reducing
50:21strain and were these other
50:23approaches relaxation medication of
50:25pacific and you could see
50:27that kind of reduction factor here um
50:30being a little greater 39 to 27 and 32
50:3324 but that's a pretty good change there
50:36and each of these
50:37each of these conditions did change
50:39people in the directed
50:41in the sort of favorable direction
50:44uh for less strength but when they did
50:47the statistical tests it was more of
50:49that shift
50:49downward in the arduous training groups
50:54and finally he looked at job
50:55satisfaction and here again now that
50:58hardiness training
50:59was associated with larger increases in
51:01job satisfaction than
51:02the other two conditions and you can see
51:04that up here in terms of these gains 120
51:06128 versus 126
51:09148 about 1146 you could say well those
51:11aren't very big differences so
51:14why what is going on there is
51:17statistical significance so
51:19uh those are the general patterns

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