Question

differentiate between physical and psychological environments

Answer 1

The physical environment refers to the external, tangible surroundings in which an organism exists and which can influence its behavior and development. It includes land forms, soil types and climate.

A loose definition of environment means the factors and conditions (such as economic, legal, political, and social circumstances) that generally affect everyone in an industry or market in more or less similar manner.

Now, Social Environment - “Human social environments encompass the immediate physical surroundings, social relationships, and cultural milieus within which defined groups of people function and interact. Components of the social environment include built infrastructure; industrial and occupational structure; labor markets; social and economic processes; wealth; social, human, and health services; power relations; government; race relations; social inequality; cultural practices; the arts; religious institutions and practices; and beliefs about place and community.The social environment subsumes many aspects of the physical environment, given that contemporary landscapes, water resources, and other natural resources have been at least partially configured by human social processes. Embedded within contemporary social environments are historical social and power relations that have become institutionalized over time. Social environments can be experienced at multiple scales, often simultaneously, including households, kin networks, neighborhoods, towns and cities, and regions. Social environments are dynamic and change over time as the result of both internal and external forces. There are relationships of dependency among the social environments of different local areas, because these areas are connected through larger regional, national, and international social and economic processes and power relations. “

Elizabeth Barnett, PhD, Michele Casper, PhD. Their reference for this paper is from the National Institutes of Health