Human Behavior in Built Environment - Research Proposal Example

Name: University: Course: Tutor: Date: Human Behavior in Built Environment Abstract The paper seeks to analyze whether inbuilt environment affect human behavior in any way. I have collectively and exhaustively analyzed the hypothesis in order to come up with reliable results. The paper is however subdivided into several subtitles to give it flow and sequence. The introductory part provides the background information required to understand the paper. It also contains the theme statement which guides the reader to capture the main focus of the paper. The literature review section gives a thorough analysis of the theme statement supporting it with the relevant theories and arguments. This section also provides the reader with information showing how the inbuilt environment affects the physical and emotional activities of the human beings. The research question or hypothesis section established the hypothesis which captures the theme statement. Research design section explains the method used to analyze the research proposal. In my case I have used qualitative method since the nature of the paper requires detailed information on how the inbuilt environment influences the human behaviors. There is also a data collection section which show how the information used throughout the research proposal are obtained. The analysis section seeks to analyze the collected and thus formulate a conclusive statement on whether or not to accept the hypothesis H1. The conclusion section on the other hand gives the researcher’s stand. In my case I have accepted my H1 and therefore concurred with the statement that, “there is a strong correlation between inbuilt environment and human behaviors”. My research proposal has a time and budgetary schedule which gives the timeframe and amount used to obtain the information and also to compile the proposal. The validity and reliability is the final section which seeks to authenticate the research proposal conclusion basing on the analysis. Introduction It is eminent that individual behaviors are at times influenced by the inbuilt environment. The environment in this case can be physical, social, objective or subjective. The physical environment which is exhibited by either climate or any other environmental information can impact positively or negatively on the individual moods and behaviors. For instance a dizzy morning will tend to lower the individual moods while a bright sunny day positively transforms it. The social environment which is mainly determined by the traditions and norms may also influence the behavior of individuals in either direction. The social environment tends to limit the behavior of people as they seek to act in line with the community norms and values. People living in different localities will tend to behave differently due to the social backgrounds around them. Moreover, the objective and subjective environment significantly influence the actions and behaviors of people in a given society. All the above environmental conditions are known to be the major determinants of people’s behaviors in our society. And since the feelings and moods of an individual keep on changing, similar trend is assumed by their behaviors. Individual behaviors have continued to positively or negatively impact on others in the same neighborhood. The negative behavioral impacts are mostly seen when an individual action distort the physical or psychological peace of the people living around him or her. The positive impact on the other hand is attained when people exhibit mutual relationship amongst them. Such mutual coexistence is mainly triggered whenever individuals like the inbuilt environment. People can also adjust the surrounding environment in order to effectively suit them. Appropriate space and structural design assist them to alter the environment surrounding them. This research proposal seeks to determine whether the inbuilt environment affects the behavior of human beings in either way. Literature review Human behavior is mostly pegged on the environment surrounding them. However, people tend to adapt quickly whenever there is need to do so. That’s why human character enables him or her to settle in any habitable environment. According to (Lang, 1994, p. 27) human behaviors are transformed in order to fulfill the basic and necessary requirements in life. The cognitive needs may however be easily attained depending on the inbuilt environment. Maslow hierarchy of needs theory also seems to heavily support the fact that individual needs determine the behavior and actions of people in the society. The differentiated levels of needs separate human behaviors within the organization or in a given society. The Maslow theory shows the potential and capability of human beings in adjusting their behaviors as their needs changes. This therefore approves the adaptability capacity of the human beings. At the bottom level of the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, individuals exhibit high tolerance capability. The survival at this level is guaranteed by the basic necessities. As the individual needs changes into safety, loving and belonging, esteem and self-actualization their behavioral characters also changes. People also tend to be more selective of the locality and environment as they drive towards self-actualization level. Peculiar feelings and reactions can thus be attributed to the people’s inbuilt surroundings. People will also tend to associate with their counterparts in the same environment and not with people from other different environment. However some appropriate designs and buildings have been able to uniformly adjust the moods and behaviors of people regardless of their different backgrounds. For instance it is believed that people working and visiting a similar commercial premises, stadiums, airports and casinos are likely to behave more or less the same. Such studies enable the scholars to argue that the buildings and surrounding environments influences the behavior and moods of people in the society. The surrounding attachment will therefore trigger similar behavior to all the customers visiting a given mall, casino or airports. The place legacy tends to be transmitted from one generation to another. For instance people tend to be more cheerful and jovial while watching a game in a stadium. This behavior has always been transferred to all people who visit such places. People also acquire the sense of belonging whenever they interact with certain places. There are scenarios where people tend to totally forget their personal status and just behave similar to other persons in the same place. Such intimate connections between individuals and the place increases self esteem and happiness amongst people. Security and confidence is also improved in such instances. People also tend to develop sense of comfort whenever they become more connected to certain places. It is because of such reasons that some people feel at home whenever they visit certain club joints and hotels since they have already developed a connection with such environments. According to (Alexander & Fairbridge, 1999, p. 223) there is a close relationship between environment and individual behavior. The environmental psychology which is advocated by this book argues that human beings can predetermine the kind of environment they wish to live in. Individuals can do this by establishing environmental conditions which will influence decent and creative behavior of the self. Some measures can also be undertaken to improve the current environmental design, thus enhancing reasonable and improved behaviors amongst the inhabitants. Individuals have the power to predict the likely negative outcomes which are caused by the failure to meet the prescribed conditions, and with such knowledge viable diagnose can be put in place to prevent such negative situations. The behavioral understanding is however possible with a clear knowledge on how people perceive the environment. It is believed that both voluntary and involuntary stimuli trigger the environmental awareness of the human beings. Humans are therefore supposed to improve or maintain their voluntary capacities in order to enhance effectiveness. It is also important to consider the image perception of built environment in the minds of individuals. As a matter of fact it is the image perception that triggers personal behaviors and emotions towards a certain place. The knowledge that people have on environment is more of an internal than an external perception. This is because individuals always maintain a prior knowledge and expectations on the environment (Brooks Et al, 2004, p. 4). People are also selective in nature; they will therefore tend to prefer living or visiting areas where they feel safe and confident. The coherence and the legality of the environment also greatly influence individual behaviors. The complexity and mystery of environment are important as they trigger the exploration behaviors. People will therefore seek to explore areas and cites with new features and historical information’s. Individuals have the creative ability which can assist them to model their preferred environment. There are also some environmental stressors which influences the human behavior. Stimulus overload and unpredictability are some of the environmental stressors which can consistently undermine the behaviors of human beings. In some extreme cases physical illness, fatigue and helplessness are some of the outcomes of the environmental stressors (Wasserheit, Aral & Holmes, 1991, p. 166). Care and proper interpretation of the inbuilt environment is therefore required in order to prevent such stressful effects. It is equally important to understand that people will seek to adjust their behavior in order to conserve environment. Environmental conservation has therefore influenced the behavior of many individuals engaged in different economic activities. For instance, environment conservation is currently been emphasized in all production and manufacturing industries as it’s aimed at ensuring future economic sustainability in the world. The increased industrial pollution in the world has immensely cause more harm to the environment and hence the need to improve on it. People have therefore agreed to adjust the production techniques by improvising new environmental cautious techniques of production. The move is however aimed at ensuring future economic sustainability of the firms and other production industries. To some level the conservation also seek to ensure that the current generation does not exhaust natural resources. In that way some proportion of natural resources are preserved for the future extractions and use. All the environmental factors mainly influence and regulate the human behaviors. Human beings also seek to utilize their technological and social knowledge to improve the environment thus making it safer and better to live in. Research questions/Hypothesis testing This section will seek to develop research questions and hypothesis for the research proposal. The hypothesis section assists the reader to familiarize him or herself with the research proposal. It captures the research proposal theme. For my case the paper seeks to determine whether there is any correlation between inbuilt environment and the human behavior. The section will comprise of two subsections, the first one being the propositions subsection and the second one being the hypothesis testing subsection. The two subsections are closely interconnected in order to retain the proposal theme. Below are the research propositions which I formulated in relation to the paper. P: Inbuilt environment has a significant impact on the human behavior. P: A change in environmental condition causes a change in human behavior. From the above research propositions I have developed the following hypothesis H: There is a strong correlation between inbuilt environment and human behavior. H2: There is no any correlation between inbuilt environment and human behavior. In this case the inbuilt environment becomes my independent variable (IV) while the human behavior acts as my dependent variable (DV). Both the IV and DV will be measured and evaluated using some qualitative measures. Research design Quite a good number of research designs can be used to effectively bring out proper and reliable analysis. For instance the research paper can have a literature review which has a secondary data analysis incorporated together with the qualitative research (McNabb, 2004, p. 78). The qualitative research in this case will seek to have an in-depth analysis on the subject field. Since this research paper is a purely qualitative, qualitative methods have been used for data analysis. It is important to note that due to the research nature and time I was not able to use interviews. Instead I mainly based my paper on the information I acquired from the participative and non-participative observations of photographs and pictures and social events in stadiums and parks. In addition I have effectively utilized the reflective journals and books which have relevant information on the correlation between inbuilt environment and human behavior. The research however is a non-experimental as it seeks to generalize the correlation between the inbuilt environment and human behavior. It can also not be categorized as a cross-sectional research paper since the data obtained does not fall between specified periods of time. The overall human behavior is generalized in order to capture the impacts of the inbuilt environment on the human behaviors in the modern society. Among the measurement issues which limits the researcher’s ability includes the precision and accuracy of data and the accessibility trade-offs. For instance the lack of proper measure for gauging and evaluating human behavior greatly impacts on the data and information collected. Although the laboratory measures are more reliable, they are costly, inconvenient and inapplicable as far as the data collection for this research is concerned. I have therefore relied on the self and scholars interpretations to understand how the inbuilt environment affects the human behavior. I have used objective and subjective measures to support the research paper. The objective factors such as parks, schools, residential areas are some of the important places which I have used in analyzing the human behaviors. The data is also subjective since I have used the individual perceptions on the inbuilt environment. Data collection Despite the measurement limitations highlighted above, the sources used to acquire relevant information was effective. Throughout the data collected I have sufficiently and conclusively been able to address the research question. The data collection section seeks to analyze the data collection method used to gather the relevant information. Throughout the research proposal, I have used personal visits and books pictures and journals information in order to capture relevant information. According to the articles and books which I sort, there is a close relationship between inbuilt environment and human behaviors. People from different continent, region and country tends to portray different character, this is however pegged on the environmental conditions subjected to those people. A clear observation of a picture taken from a stadium where people had gathered to watch an international football match proved that human behavior is determined by the inbuilt environment. Despite the fact that people had gathered in the stadium from diverse background, they all tended to behave similarly. The Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory has also exhibited the different situational levels where individuals behave differently. It therefore shows that environment is one of the factors which influence the behavior of people within the society. Analysis It is evident that there is an interrelationship between inbuilt environment and human behavior. Human behavior is however affected by other factors which environment is among them. Although the human behavior is mainly triggered by the genetics, social norms, attitude and perceived behavioral control factors, it is important to understand that inbuilt environment is incorporated in all the factors. To start with the geographical and climatic condition may influence the genetic formation of an individual. The genetic adaptation is also said to be influenced by the environmental background. This is the reason why the some genetic problems have an ancestral background. Attitude may on the other hand be influenced by a specific location or area. Environment can trigger favorable attitude which influence individuals towards positive behaviors. Conversely, environment can trigger an unfavorable personal attitude which might similarly result to a negative human behavior. Environmental changes are also believed to cause behavioral changes which are either positively or negatively inclined. Such behaviors are however controllable since individuals have power to specifically decide on whether or not to improve his or her current environment for a better future. The selfish nature of a human being also greatly influences the kind of attitude that individuals exhibit in their daily lives. An inbuilt environment such as the social status of an individual can also trigger personal attitude and hence the behavior. The social norms are also significantly influenced by the environmental conditions in which an individual lives in. The social norms and believes which mostly influence the social behavior of an individual is based on the environmental condition which the individual dwells in. The social norms can trigger an integrative of discriminative behavior. The integrative behavior in this case advocate for mutual coexistence between people, while the discriminative behavior divides the human species. The division of the human species can be based on the social class, the color, language and the wealth which an individual possesses (Ashford, LeCroy & Lortie, 2009, p. 175).The social needs can also determine people’s behavior in a given society. The “have” and “have not” can determine inbuilt environment which enhances people to act and behave in a certain trend. Likewise the perceived behavioral control also influences the behavior of human beings. This is mainly because people will tend to react and act on what they perceive right to act on. The reaction however can be positive or negative depending on the perception sent into their minds. If an individual sense danger or develop an insecurity feeling, then a reaction intended to protect and safeguard the life of that individual will be triggered. On the other hand if a harmonious perception is communicated in the person’s minds, then a sense of togetherness and oneness will be observed amongst people. An inbuilt environment therefore dictates the kind of reactions that people portray to the society or to the self. Since the inbuilt environment is mainly determined by the building structures, neighborhoods, basic needs source, roads and the recreational facilities, individual behaviors will in most cases be influenced by such surroundings. Personal observations of how people behaves within a neighborhood and in social and public gathering has assisted me to fully understand how inbuilt environment triggers human behavior. People tend to behave uniformly in sport arenas but this is not the case in the work place and residential areas. Our inhabitants, place of work and the learning environment also tend to determine the way we behave. People therefore have differentiated behaviors depending on the place they are at any given time. Differentiated behaviors can be exhibited by similar people while at home, at working place or learning institution. Such mixed reactions assist us to understand how inbuilt environment affect human behaviors in the society. For instance a woman will tend to behave in a humbled manner while at home, a behavior which immediately changes when she is at the work place (Greene, 1999, p. 15). If she happens to possess a senior office an authoritative behavior may be exhibited. The human behavior therefore tends to adjust accordingly depending on the environment surrounding the people. The argument can also be supported by a thorough scrutiny of the reactions exhibited by children while at home, schools and also in the recreational facilities. Many children tend to possess a relaxed mood while at home since the environment does not stress them at all. Such moods can also be attributed by lack of challenges in the dwelling places. The behavior may however change when the children attend schools and other learning institutions. The brainstorming and challenging tasks usually available in such places triggers seriousness into the children’s minds. The presence of rules and regulations in such places also make the children to behave in an orderly manner. Additionally, if the same children are set out in a recreational facility like a play ground, a sense of team working and happiness may be observed. Children will also tend to be more attached to the recreational places since their happiness and comfort is maximized in them. The inbuilt environment also influences the human decision making process. It may also determine how people behave in the residential areas; place of work and also in the recreational facilities. The environment also determine when to work, eat or even visit a recreational facility. The behavior will also tend to be influenced by the neighborhoods and the society in which one dwells in. If the neighborhoods have developed a culture of visiting recreational facilities on Sundays, then any person who happens to reside in such areas will be influenced to adopt similar trend in order to feel comfortable. The neighborhood therefore acts as a driving force which changes the behavior and perceptions of those living in it. Children from such neighborhood grows up with a strong believe that being taken out on Sundays is a normal thing which should not be compromised by anybody. The influence can therefore be transferred from one generation to another. The children who happen to be brought up in such neighborhoods will automatically transmit the same to their children and so on. Such influences explain how the inbuilt environment influences the behavior and decision making process of human beings. The multidimensional nature of the inbuilt environment makes it hard for us to have accurate measurements for establishing a hypothesis testing. However, the diverse arguments from the various books and journals ensure the reliability of this research proposal. Conclusion I accept my H1: hypothesis which stated that there is a strong correlation between inbuilt environment and human behaviors. The stand is realized after a thorough scrutiny of the gathered information and also theories which support that environment dictates human behavior and reactions. By accepting the H1: it means that I have rejected the H2: hypothesis which indicated that there is no any strong correlation between inbuilt environment and human behavior. Time and budgetary schedule The research proposal has taken approximately three months. The data gathering and collection has taken two months. The data collection involved some frequent travelling to residential houses, parks, stadiums, schools and some selected work places in order to capture how the inbuilt environment affect the behaviors of individuals. After the data collection it has taken me approximately two weeks to analyze the data and also two weeks to compile the data and information gathered into a proposal. That is the time schedule which I have followed to come up with this complete research proposal. Below is the budgetary schedule which has guided me throughout the research work. In order to compile my research proposal a total of $290 has been spent. The amount is however spent on some differentiated activities. The funding of this research proposal was obtained from the American non-governmental organizations working with women groups. In order to offer a proper breakdown of how the amount was spent, stationary consumed the largest portion of $100, while labor transport and miscellaneous consumed $85, $71 and $34 respectively. The budgetary schedule is important since it enables the reader and the users of the research proposal to understand the cost incurred to come up with the final copy. The organization however intends to use the proposal to effectively address on how people can positively transform the inbuilt environment and thus favorably impact on their behaviors. Validity and reliability section It is true that data collection for the above research proposal has not been easy. Measurement problems have also challenged the data collection section since there is no any acceptable behavioral measure. But it is also important to understand that the scholarly materials and theories which I have used to analyze the relationship between the inbuilt environment and human behavior are reliable. The research conclusion which acknowledges that inbuilt environment affect the behavior of human beings is strongly founded in scholarly journals, books and articles and personal observations. Work cited Alexander, David & Fairbridge, Rhodes. Encyclopedia of Environmental Science. London, Springer, 1999 Ashford, José., LeCroy, Craig Winston & Lortie, Kathy. Human Behavior in the Social Environment: A Multidimensional Perspective. Belmont, Cengage Learning, 2009 Brooks, Rodney. Sensing and Manipulating Built-For-Human Environments. Massachussett, World Scientific publishing company, 2004 Greene, Roberta Rubin. Human Behavior Theory and Social Work Practice. New York, Transaction Publishers, 1999 Lang, Jon. Urban Design: The American Experience. New Jersey, John Wiley and Sons, 1994 Wasserheit, Judith., Aral, Sevgi & Holmes, King. Research Issues In Human Behavior And Sexually Transmitted Diseases In The AIDS Era. Washington, ASM Press, 1991 Read More