As I started out on my own quest during an LLM program to better understand what is, as Marvin Gaye crooned, goin' on at mediation, I encountered a great book by Kaplan, Kaplan and Ryan, With People in Mind, The Design and Management of Everyday Nature (link provided below) This an easy to understand book about how the ways that we design and manage "everyday nature" i.e. city parks and open spaces, corporate grounds, city streets and even our own backyards, can positively enhance our human experience. It offers practical advice, with illustrations, to explain human dislikes/fears as well as preferences and, with these, the challenges and opportunities that present in designing places and spaces. When we design with people in mind, people fare better in many ways.

While this book might not be on the reading list of most lawyers, mediators, law professors, etc. it should be. At least, that is, those who are concerned with understanding why people think, feel and behave the way they do. As the authors suggest, while the book is about nature, it is also fundamentally about people. It certainly contributed to my understanding of the human-nature interaction and started me on a path to reading as much as I could lay my hands on about how people are affected, for better or worse, by the settings we inhabit.

There are many ways in which environmental psychology can contribute to the field of conflict resolution. Many mediators, as I have explored in earlier posts, are thinking more about where they mediate and how the physical environments in which they mediate can affect the participants and thus the processes. I have recently been thinking about the situation facing self-represented litigants (SRLs) - the difficult and sometimes devastating effects of going to court without a lawyer - and about the many ways that environmental psychology can contribute to resolving this problem. RPM (see previous posts) offers some important lessons on tapping nature to create restorative spaces and vistas to enhance human effectiveness. The information contained in this book also translates well to how we design interior spaces to provide a sense of familiarity and comfort which is already understood to be important to the mediation process. And it demonstrates how to make better way-finding systems which can improve the human experience. If there is a group more in need of a better way-finding system than the SRL, I can't think of one now. If environmental psychologists are invited to these discussions, their insights will affect how the problem is framed and how the problem is addressed.


Previously posted at: http://therpmproject.blogspot.ca

http://www.amazon.ca/With-People-Mind-Management-Everyday/dp/155963...

Further reading:

Green is good for you
Psychologists' research explains the mental and physical restoration we get from nature--and has important implications for how we build our homes, work environments and cities. http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr01/greengood.aspx

Design in Mind, Psychologists can help to design smart, sustainable spaces for the 21st century http://www.apa.org/monitor/2013/11/cover-design.aspx