Environment is the term which can be defined as
the combination of external physical conditions that affect and influence the
growth, development, behavior, and survival of organisms.( Bechtel, 2002)
The following are
explanations on how physical environment influence human behaviors;
The environmental exert
pressures on our personality formation, the culture in which we are raised, our
early conditioning, the norms among our family, friends and social groups, and
other influences that we experience. The environment to which we are exposed
plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities. The general
environmental model (Lewis, 1997) holds that children's behavior always is a
function of the environment in which the behavior occurs, because the task of
the individual is to adapt to its current environment. As long as the
environment appears consistent, the child's behavior will be consistent; if the
environment changes, so, too, will the child's behavior. It is the case that
maladaptive environments produce both normal and abnormal behavior.
Environment (sometimes referred to nurture)
affect behavior at many different stages. Starting before birth, the
environment in the womb, in terms of variables like hormone levels, affects the
child's development, which eventually affects behavior. In childhood the
environment affects both physical and psychological development, which can
affect both present and future behavior. (Evans, 2006).
The environment can
also have an immediate effect on behavior. For example, if someone is rude to
you and you are rude to them in response, the person is a feature of the
environment and they have been one of the causal factors in your rude response
(along with things like your own temperament, what has happened earlier in the
day and whether you are tired or wearing uncomfortable clothes). (Baum, 1978)
Environment influences
behavior at several levels. Immediate behavior is a function of the settings in
which it occurs. For example, the arrangement of furniture in a room influences
the way in which people in the room interact. The characteristic personality
make-up of persons in a country is shaped by the nature and type of environment
to which they are subjected for long periods of time. Racial differences in
personality can to a large extent be traced to the influence of different
environments to which people of different races have been subjected for
generations (Moos, 1976)
The
condition of today's environment has been affected by many factors, some of
which are positive, which benefit the environment, while other effects on the
environment are negative meaning they damage or cause harm to the environment.
One factor, which affects the environment, is human behaviors.
The
following are the points which explain how human behaviors influence physical
environment;
The
negative ways, which human behaviors affect the environment are, through building,
farming, pollution, quarrying, deforestation, and human contributions to rapid
global climate change such as global warming and unfavorable dynamic seasonal
changes.(Berry,1976).
However, there are some positive effects on
the environment caused by humans such as, the conservation of endangered
species, protection of the o-zone layer, afforestation and the conservation of
the earth’s resources.
(Bechtel, 2002)
Therefore,
human behavior and physical environment influence
each other since each one can contribute direct or indirect to the result of
another. Hence it is the responsibility of human being to creat a better
physical environment so that it leads to desirable human behaviors.
REFERENCES
Baum A., Singer J E and Valins S
(Eds) 1978 Advances in Environmental
Psychology: Vol I - The Urban
Environment: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.;New York
Bechtel,
R. & Churchman, A. eds., (2002). Handbook of environmental psychology.
New York: Wiley. Education Library Reserves Q. 155.9 H1913
Berry J W,(1976), Ecological and cultural factors in spatial perceptual development;
In: Environmental psychology (Eds) Proshansky H M, Ittelson W H and Rivlin
L G. Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Evans,
G.W. (2006). Child development and the
physical environment. Annual Review of Psychology,
57,423-451.
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