Architecture of Good Behavior: Psychology and Modern Institutional Design in Postwar America

Knoblauch, Joy

Inspired by the rise of environmental psychology and increasing support for behavioral research after the Second World War, new initiatives at the federal, state, and local levels looked to influence the human psyche through form, or elicit desired behaviors with environmental incentives, implementing what Joy Knoblauch calls “psychological functionalism.” Recruited by federal construction and research programs for institutional reform and expansion - which included hospitals, mental health centers, prisons, and public housing - architects theorized new ways to control behavior and make it more functional by exercising soft power, or power through persuasion, with their designs.

EAN

9780822945734

Publisher

University of Pittsburgh Press

Published

30 September 2020

Pages

264