Unit 6 LISTENING 1 Environmental Psychology

Professor: Welcome to Lesson 15, Module 1, of 1…………….. Psychology.

This week I'll be introducing you to the field of environmental psychology,

which is an area that studies the 2…………………. between human behavior
and environments. Environment refers to the natural environment such as parks,
natural resources, and outdoor 3…………….. and built environments, or those
structures and spaces which are constructed rather than those that occur
naturally. Today, we'll be concentrating on 4………………. of behavior and our
connection to the space around us, focusing on 5.………………, eye contact,
and our need for privacy.

We know that our need for space and our reactions to perceived 6…………. of
our space are different for men and women. Males often 7……….. to face-to-
face invasion. Sitting directly across from a male is often more 8…………… to
them than sitting next to him. However, females often object to 9………….
invasion. This has to do with competition versus 10………….. goals. Males are
expected to compete and women to affiliate.

It's not necessary to 11…………………. someone who is sitting across from

you, but if someone sits next to you, it's often felt that you should
12…………….. some 13………… behavior, if you're a female. If you're a male,
on the other hand, an adjacent invasion is not as important as a face-to-face, or
across from you, invasion.

When males and females try to 14………… one another, this can often lead to
15……………. Females will often sit next to men in an adjacent seat, trying to
make 16……………., but males do not even see this as approaching them
because they're used to face-to-face invasion for people who matter. They
17……….. ignore those who sit adjacent. Females have exactly the
18…………. view.

What we know is that, because these gender 19…………. exist, you can also
look at where people put their 20……………….. Belongings are often placed to
avoid invasion. Females will often place their 21……… or belongings to the
side of them in a 22……….. seat in order to force people to have to make
another kind of invasion. Males, on the other hand, will often put things across
from them to 23………. that they are taking up the 24………… in front of them
to prevent face-to-face invasion.

In addition, we mark our 25………… with our belongings, for example, putting
your 26……….. on the chair next to you, or putting your book on the table in
the space that you feel belongs to you. In fact, 27…………… of students sit in
the same seat all semester during a large 28……….. course. This is quite
29……………. There's nothing really about that seat specifically that makes it
theirs, but we have this very territorial behavior 30………………………. us.

31…………. important, we know that when males mark their territory, these
markers are taken very seriously. If you look at desks, office space, and
32………, you'll find that you 33………… in a very different way depending on
to whom the office belongs. If you enter an office and you believe that a male is
in that office, you will respect the desk and office space and seating
34…………….. However, females' offices tend to be 35……………. and
manipulated; that is, people will move things on the desk, play with 36………..
on the desk, take up their office space, choose a different seat, move the chairs,
and so on. In short, the gender of the owner affects our reaction to his or her
territory.

Another study that shows this reaction to how seriously we 37……… people's
territories is called the jacket study. In this study, researchers put a clearly
38………. or clearly 39…………. jacket on a chair when no one else was
around. They then measured who would sit where and why. If it was a male
jacket, people kept their 40……………; they sat several chairs away. However,
if it was a female jacket, people often would move the jacket or turn it in to lost
and found. They didn't see it as a 41………...

We know that people engage in territorial behavior, and males have larger
territories than females. This begins when they are children. If you ask young
children, who perhaps have just received a 42…….. and have begun to explore
the neighborhood using the 43…………, you will find that the male children are
often able to 44………. out a much larger area of the place in which they play
than females. Females typically draw perhaps their block or the houses across
the street, but not much beyond that, whereas males will often draw three or four
blocks, sometimes even a six-block 45………… around their own home.

You can also look at yourself in terms of whether or not you are territorial.
Often when you go to a restaurant and the 46……….. puts your plate in front of
you, you can't help but touch it. This is why they always warn you the plate is
hot, because they know your 47………. is to touch the plate. The next time you
eat out, try very hard not to touch the plate. It's very difficult to
48………………… doing so, and now that I've made you aware, maybe you'll
see just how territorial you really are.

Eye contact is also an 49…………. of how we feel about personal space. One
study of eye contact was conducted in post offices in three environments.
Researchers looked in Parksford (a rural community), Bryn Mawr (a
50…………… town), and Philadelphia (a big city) and found that males and
females within each community typically engage in eye contact at the same
level. However, both genders were less likely to make eye contact in the city,
51……………… likely to do so in Bryn Mawr, and most likely to do so in
Parksford. That is, in Parksford at the post office, you're expected to look at
everyone, say hello even. However, in Philadelphia, you should not make very
much eye contact, and only about 52………. of people did.

This is a way of maintaining space. In a rural area such as Parksford, you often
feel that you have enough space and you aren't being 53………, so there's no
need to be territorial. There is also no reason to feel like you might be invading
someone else's territory. However, in Philadelphia, you can maintain a sense of
54………… by not making eye contact with others. It's even considered
55…………, and when people do make eye contact, it's often thought to be
strange, weird, or cause for 56…………...

Another form of visual 57…………….. is the ability to see or be seen. This is

usually seen as 58………... Restaurants or offices have been made to give a
sense of privacy. However, even though they add 59………… or other clear
panels, this does not 60………… visual intrusion or give anyone a sense of
privacy. What we know about college students is that those who drop out are
more likely to be students who had to live in 61………… with roommates and
use 62………….. bathrooms and showers. So, if you need an 63………….. for
getting your own apartment, this could be it.

LISTENING 2 What Your Stuff Says About You

Neal Conan, Host: This is Talk of the Nation. I'm Neal Conan in Washington.
The framed items on the wall of my office include my FCC third-class radio
telephone operator's 1………… from 1973 and the New York Times crossword
2……….. from the day my name was used as a clue. There's a baseball on my
desk, not signed or anything, just a baseball. Some toys sit on top of the speaker:
a beach chair with a life preserver, a double-decker London bus, and a
corkboard has family pictures, John F. Kennedy behind the wheel of a PT-109,
and a 3……….. of Giants Stadium in New Jersey. Sam Gosling, are those few
things enough to tell you anything about what kind of person I am?

Sam Gosling: Yeah, they certainly could tell us a lot. There's a lot of
information, a lot of it not so 4………, but there's a lot of information in places
like people's personal spaces, their offices or their living 5………….

Conan: And not just what they are, but the way they're arranged. For example,
if the family pictures look out to the guest in the office or, um, or 6……….. to,
uh, to the person who occupies it.

Gosling: Yeah. It's really 7………….. to combine not only what they are, but
how they've been placed. Because how they've been placed gives us good
information on the psychological function that they serve. So if we have photos
of, say, our family and our beautiful 8……….. facing us, that shows us, it's for
our own benefit. Um, it's what you might call a social 9………….., something
we can snack on to make ourselves feel better over the day. If it's turned the
other way, then it's more for the benefit of others, which doesn't mean it's
10……………….. It may not be trying to pull the 11………… over people's
eyes, but it, uh, informs the function that the photo serves.

Conan: Sam Gosling studies personality by looking at stuff. Stuff in offices,

bedrooms, cars, and bathrooms. What's there and how it's arranged can provide
12………… about who we are and what's important to us. So we want you to
call or email us and describe the room or the car you're in right now. What's on
the wall or the desk, the videos and the CDs, the 13……… stickers, your radio
presets. Our phone number is 800-989-8255. Email us, talk@npr.org. You can
also join the conversation on our blog at npr.org/blogofthenation. Later on in the
show, the romance and 14…………… involved in real archeology. But first,
Sam Gosling. He's an associate professor of psychology at the University of
Texas in Austin. His new book is called Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About
You, and he joins us today from the studios of member station KUT in Austin.
Thanks very much for coming in.

Gosling: Pleasure.

Conan: And your book is called Snoop, because that's what you 15…………..
to teach us what to do.

Gosling: Yeah. Snooping around people's, uh, places, and I should say that I
16…………., uh, "places" very broadly. Not only our, our physical
environments but our oral environments, too, such as our music collections, our
17……….. environments like our, our personal home pages or our Facebook
18………….. So if people, if people who want to call in want to talk more
broadly about spaces, that would be fun, too.

Conan: And of course, to figure out what personality type-what stuff tells you
about you, you have to know what personality types are to begin with.
19…………, 20…………, are two that I guess everybody knows about.

Gosling: That's right. And there are a number of ways of thinking about
personality. And, uh, you can think about personality 21…………., which is
what most research has done on it, and within that 22………… there's, uh, the,
uh, system known as the "Big Five;' or the "five-factor 23……………;' which
talks about these different traits. As you say, 24………….-25……………. is the
main one, but there are other important ones, too.

Conan: And how did you get interested in this? Are you a natural-born
26…………?
Gosling: Well, I think we're all natural-born snoops. And, I mean, some of us
are more curious than others. Some of us will open the medicine 27………..
when we go to a party, and some of us won't. But I think we all do because it's
crucial. If you think, who, who are the people who are-what is the element of the
environment that's most important to us in terms of, of how well we get on in
terms of professional lives and personal lives? It's other people. So I think we're
naturally 28…………. to picking up on whatever information is out there, and
there is a lot of information out there in people's spaces. So I think we all do it.

Conan: And so we size people up as soon as we see them, as soon as we shake

their hand, for example.

Gosling: Yeah, as soon as we shake their hand. And there's a you know, the
handshaking has been a part of 29………….. books for years and years and
years, but it was only recently that it was really subjected to a really
30………….. study. And there was a study done by Bill Chaplin in 2000 which
looked at exactly that. It looked at what can you learn about someone from a
31……………...

Conan: And sometimes, it's, it's interesting, uh, you can learn something about
it but you can also come to a conclusion that's, easily wrong.

Gosling: Right. That's the point, yes. For example, taking the example of
handshaking, if somebody, uh, 32………… your hand firmly and looks you in
the eye, uh, and smiles as they're doing it, then we form an overall positive
impression of them. We, we form all kinds of positive things. Yet it turns out
that the handshaking, uh, 33…………. is only a clue to some traits. So we are
going 34………. the evidence. And so, it's really important to know which are
35……… clues and which ones are 36…………….

Conan: And in the clip of 37………. that we heard at the beginning of the
program and, uh, throughout your book, you use the example of Agatha
Christie's great 38……….., Hercule Poirot.

Gosling: That's right, because it's really important-you know, if I had one wish,
one wish in the world, it would be that one clue told you something about a
person. If you had a 39…….. teddy on your bed, it meant something, you know.
But the world is more complicated than that. So unfortunately, it doesn't work
like that because there are many reasons why we might have, say, a stuffed
animal on our bed or something like that. And so really, you can't use a
40………….. approach where x means y. What you have to do is you have to
build up a picture piece by piece, and sometimes you only have a very little
piece and you have to hold your view very 41…………... But that will, that will
guide your search for more information.
Conan: So that postcard of 42………… Stadium, well, it could tell you that I'm
a Giants fan, which is true, but it could also tell you I grew up in New Jersey.

Gosling: It could, or it could tell you-it might have 43…………… meaning.

Who is it from? Is it from somebody important? And so in 'order to resolve that,
what we would do is we would look for other clues. So the baseball there would
begin to help us resolve the meaning of the, of the, um, uh, the postcard itself.
We might also see, well, these other items, the crossword puzzle, these other
things which, which might 44………… the meaning that, which helps us
resolve-OK, so maybe 45…………… is important. We learn that you're
somewhat sentimental. And that helps us 46…………….. the meaning of each
clue.

More practice
Questions 11 and 12
Choose TWO letters, A-E
11-12 Which TWO tasks the students have already completed?
A. an outline for the assignment’s structure
B. the central part of the document
C. the introduction to their report
D. data gathering on globalised businesses
E. a summary of their research methodology
Questions 13 and 14
Choose TWO letters, A-E
13-14 Which TWO effects did Burger King’s approach have when it launched
restaurants in India?
A. positive opinion of the brand around India
B. stores spread throughout the region
C. certain products put off consumers
D. enhanced image in neighbouring countries
E. its menu was seen as inappropriate
Questions 15 and 16
Choose TWO letters, A-E
15-16 Which TWO elements of its ads did a Swedish vodka company change
for each region?
A. the type of graphics used
B. the language of promotional material
C. the size of printed advertisements
D. the colours used in materials
E. the brand names of products
Questions 17-20
Choose the correct letter, A, B, or C.
17. The advertisements shown for Calvin Klein caused problems because
A. they were considered not temporary enough.
B. they focused too much on younger consumers.
C. they were deemed inappropriate by some consumers.
18. A design feature that Calvin Klein introduced in its 2013 line was
A. new and brighter colours.
B. clothes tailored to each age group.
C. aspects of traditional outfits.
19. How will students include graphs in their report?
A. in an appendix at the end
B. in a separate printed leaflet
C. inserted throughout the text
20. What will the students probably do next?
A. find images to use for their assignment
B. go to a library to check out reference books
C. create their own marketing plan