I have just returned after nearly a month away. I was struck by the explosion of green that has occurred across the landscape. The first indication came as the taxi from the airport climbed and wended its way along the serpentine road through the forest on the climb to the village – a view of impenetrable greenness on both sides of the road. The second indication came when I opened the gate to the garden path, as shown above.
I have been composing this post in my mind over the past couple of days, only to find that some of the things I wanted to address have already been covered in an earlier post (surprisingly titled Return to Avren). Specifically, I wanted to put on my psychologist’s hat (admittedly it is a bit cobwebby and frayed at the edges) and talk about how our behaviours are elicited by our environments. The underlying processes involve both classical (i.e. Pavlovian) and instrumental conditioning. The former plays more of a role in our emotional responses. These processes help to explain why we can slip into different patterns of behaviour as easily as slipping into a comfortable pair of slippers when we switch between different but familiar (rather than novel) environments.
I alluded to these processes in my earlier post, but a new thought occurred to me. In psychology jargon, I was thinking about the “demand characteristics” of environments. This is mostly about how we learn through socialisation to behave in specific environments. For example, there are demand characteristics when you go into a pub and queue at the bar to order your drinks. Or when you attend a wedding or job interview. However, I am not sure who else might have written about or researched this, the Covid-19 pandemic posed a direct challenge to these demand characteristics. Most obviously with the social distancing, lining up in single files with our trolleys outside supermarkets in the rain. I imagine that there have since been more permanent changes in how we are expected to behave is certain situations. To return to the pub (hey, great idea!) there is more of an expectation that we will order from our tables using QR codes rather than hanging around at the bar.
Okay, time to take off that old hat. Another thing I noticed on my return to Avren was that the road mending fairies have been out and about. The road that leads onto our lane did not have anything as common as potholes – it had canyons. There were two in particular that the local mayor was starting to take bookings for from abseiling enthusiasts. The good news is that they have now been filled in. But bad news for the abseilers and the mayor’s wallet.
Psychologist on the Move 