Jeffrey D. Fisher

Bell et al’s Environmental Psychology is considered to be the most authoritative textbook available for this course. It is the only environmental psychology book to appear in five editions. It is noted for its focus on the application of science and theory to the solution of problems involving natural and altered environments. The book reviews the application of practical solutions to everyday environmental problems. The authors integrate theory, research, and application using their unifying, eclectic model to demonstrate human-environment interaction. The book reviews how we are a product of our environment, our biology, and the interaction of the two. It discusses how our physical environment such as noise and weather impact us. It also reviews how we can modify our environment through design principles such as aesthetics, and how we modify our environment when we disregard the impact other people and/or elements have on our ecological system. Each chapter addresses both micro and macro- environmental influences, including the short- and long-term effects of both. The opening chapter provides a historical context and introduces the reader to the research methods central to the discipline. The next 4 chapters introduce environmental attitudes, values, and ethics and the principles that apply to environmental assessment; models of perception & cognition, including how we process and store environmental information; and the major theories of human-environment interaction. The next 6 chapters explore a variety of environmental influences such as noise, climate, natural disasters (including the effects of pollution), crowding, and city life, and how they impact us. The next 2 chapters examine how environmental psychology principles can be applied to residences, institutional settings (i.e.schools) and work and leisure environments. The book concludes with a chapter on how we can change behavior that harms the environment. The book is intended as a text for courses on environmental psychology, environment and behavior, social ecology, architectural psychology, ecological psychology or environmental design or studies, taught in departments of psychology, sociology, environmental science, and biology.

Large Group Awareness Training: An Historical Context Groups associated with the human potential movement have been a controversial feature of American life during the last three decades. In the 1950's and 1960's, the movement was dominated by various types of small groups (SGs), which included sensitivity training groups, encounter groups, as well as several others (see Lieberman, Yalom, & Miles, 1973). Some people viewed SGs as an effective means for attaining personal and organizational growth, and Carl Rogers, one of the founders of this movement, labeled small groups as . . the most rapidly spreading social invention of the century, and probably the most potent" (Rogers, 1970). In contrast, others attacked SGs as "the most extreme exhibition thus far of man's talent for reducing, distorting, evading, and vulgarizing his own reality" (Koch, 1973, p. 639). Nevertheless, SGs generally became an accepted tool for personal development and were incorporated into university curricula and mana­ gerial training programs. During the 1970's the prevalence and appeal of SGs declined (cf. Back, 1978), and at about the same time, large group awareness training programs (LGATs) appeared. ' LGATs are offered to the general public by profit-making or­ ganizations and examine philosophical, psychological and ethical issues concern­ ing personal effectiveness, decision-making, personal responsibility and commit­ ment After addressing these topics, participants are encouraged to apply their recently attained insights to their lives.