Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

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Journal of Environmental Psychology

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Quality of life and sustainability: Toward personenvironment congruity

Gabriel Moser*
Paris Descartes University, Laboratory of Environmental Psychology, CNRS, UMR 8069, France

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Available online 9 February 2009

In the light of sustainable development requirements, environmental psychology has an increasing role
to play in addressing peopleenvironment congruity. Peopleenvironment congruity refers to the
interrelation between the individual and his or her (especially: residential) environment, considering the
match between individual life satisfaction and objective standards of living. Promoting human wellbeing requires looking beyond singular effects of environmental features and considering peoples
overall relationship to their environment. This leads us to look at the residential environment as the
place where peopleenvironment congruity is crucial, and to propose a framework of analyses of the
conditions of congruity between objective and subjective assessment of environmental stressors in
relation to the individual and social expression of well-being. The paper concludes with the implications
of peopleenvironment congruity for research and policy-making about sustainable development.
2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Sustainable development
Peopleenvironment congruity
Well-being
Quality of life

In the light of sustainability, researchers and policy makers are

urged to address quality of life issues. Sustainability means that
people are provided with satisfactory living conditions so that they
can identify positively with their own environment. Policy-making
in environmental matters specically providing citizens with
satisfactory living conditions is certainly among the priorities of
this millennium. Acting on a concern for peoples well-being
requires looking beyond singular effects of environmental features
and to consider peoples overall relationship to their environment,
in order to identify the environmental conditions of human wellbeing. Environmental psychology, in addressing quality of life in the
framework of sustainability, plays a crucial role in achieving
peopleenvironment congruity. Peoples life space, specically in
urban contexts, is expected to serve various functions, to provide
safety and to facilitate different kinds of social development. The
effects of separate stressors such as polluted air, noise, safety and
the like are only part of the story. These conditions get much
greater signicance if considered as factors deducting from the
desired congruence in the personenvironment relationship.
Peopleenvironment congruity (Barker, 1968; Fuhrer, 1983; Stokols, 1982; Wicker, 1972) is the result of a particular interrelation
between the individual and his or her residential environment. It
concerns the extent of the possibilities for the individual to fulll
his/her goals and needs through his/her environment, the latter
being an essential condition of human well-being. Needs are
different in different countries; they are societally constructed and

* Paris Descartes University, France.

E-mail address: gabriel.moser@parisdescartes.fr
0272-4944/$ see front matter 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2009.02.002

therefore culturally bound. From an individual point of view a high

quality of life in the context of sustainability might be best characterized by a peopleenvironment congruity. This would mean
that a sustainable quality of life is only achieved when people
interact with the environment in a respectful way, on one hand, and
when that environment in turn is not impeding or threatening
what the individual considers as their quality of life, on the other;
this renders possible the capacity for the individual to satisfy their
needs (Uzzell & Moser, 2006). An individuals congruity with their
environment, i.e., a congruent situation, would be achieved
through a positive relationship between the objective qualities of
the environment accompanied by an expression of satisfaction
concerning this environment.

1. Sustainable development and quality of life

The Brundtland Report (WCED, 1987) opened the way to
concerns about quality of life by dening sustainable development
as a development capable of satisfying the needs of the present
generation without compromising the ability of future generations
to satisfy their own needs (chap. 2, toward sustainable development). The commissions reference to human needs indicates that
development should not only be harmonious toward and respectful
of the environment (including other living species), but should also
recognize and enhance human individual and collective well-being.
Even if the following analyses refer to environmental sustainability,
reaching conditions of environmental sustainability may facilitate
social sustainability through peoples well-being and attachment to
their place of living. The study of human quality of life focuses on

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G. Moser / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

the factors contributing to peoples general satisfaction. According

to the WHO denition (WHO, 1994), quality of life consists of the
individuals perception of their position in life in the context of the
culture and value system in which they live and in relation to their
goals, expectations, standards and concerns. The ideological thrust
of the quality of life concept is to promote means for people, within
their environments, to live in ways that are best for them. But it has
to be kept in mind that high quality of life has been brought about
largely by unsustainable resource use. Unsustainable resource use
does not necessarily lead to decrements in local environmental
quality particularly in global economies where unsustainable
resource use in one location is used to support high quality of life in
other locations.
Individual well-being is expressed not only in terms of satisfaction concerning interpersonal relations, family life, employment,
career, health and nances, but also in terms of relations to
different aspects of the physical environment (see, e.g., the list used
by Poortinga, Steg, & Vlek, 2004). Quality of life measures are
increasingly recognized in the medical and psychological literature
as important indicators of physical and social well-being (Utsey,
Bolden, Brown, & Chae, 2001).
Traditionally, the term quality of life has been associated with
four areas of public policy and applied psychological research:
health, individual life satisfaction, objective standards of living, and
sustainable development (Uzzell & Moser, 2006). The linkage
between environmental sustainability and quality of life is based on
the assumption that without the achievement of an objectively and
subjectively sufcient environmental quality, a sustainable development of society cannot be attained.
According to Donovan and Halpern (2002, p. 7), quality of life is
similar to social welfare, and it is often measured using objective
indicators. As a counterpart: Life satisfaction is a subjective
measure of human welfare where each individual judges his or her
own level of life satisfaction which could be determined by social,
economic, environmental, spiritual and other factors. The
distinction between objective indicators of quality of life and
subjective assessments of how material and non-material conditions impact upon quality of life, was made, for instance, by the
Committee of the Regions of the European Union (CoR, 1999). This
distinction illustrates the controversy between two approaches:
one based on objective environmental qualities, the other based on
subjective evaluations. However, because a specic environment
may have specic meanings for specic people, research on
peopleenvironment relations is aimed at the relation between the
objective features of the environment and individuals subjective
judgments about it, as an integrated approach that gives a more
adequate picture of peoples relations to their environment.
Objective measures of quality of life focus on general standards
of living. Quality of life has typically been understood to be
synonymous with nancial resources, availability of a certain
number of amenities, facilities in the neighborhood and objectively
measurable environmental qualities (Jackson, 2002). Nevertheless,
material wealth is generally not a precondition of subjective wellbeing (Belk, 1985; Richins & Dawson, 1992; Swinyard, Kau, & Phua,
2001). Thus, the environmental aspects of common quality of life
questionnaires (WHO Group, 1998) include facets such as physical
safety and security, health and social care, home environment,
opportunities for recreation/leisure activities, air pollution, noise,
trafc density, climate, transport facilities, and opportunities for
acquiring new information and skills.
Conversely, subjective quality of life measures are focused on
peoples general satisfaction with their (current) lives, although
they can be extended to examine individuals longer-term life goals
and aspirations, as well as peoples self-reported psychological
health and mental state. The emphasis in quality of life studies has

been on the subjective experience of well-being, whether related to

health, living and working conditions, recreation, or intellectual
stimulation. Subjective experience is always mediated by personal
expectations and social comparisons. Having friends and strong
personal relationships is critical to life satisfaction, and married
people are signicantly happier than those who are single,
widowed or divorced (Donovan & Halpern, 2002).
In the light of sustainable development, several quality of life
measures including objective as well as subjective indicators have
been developed at the institutional and international level. An
example instrument is the set of European Common Indicators.
This initiative, supported by the European Commission and the
European Environment Agency since 1999, aims at monitoring
environmental sustainability at the local level (Tarzia, 2003). The
set of eleven indicators includes subjective assessment measures
(i.e., citizens satisfaction with the local community), other selfreported measures (i.e., local mobility and passenger transportation, journey by children to and from school, products
promoting sustainability) and objective measures (i.e., local
contributions to global climatic change, availability of public areas
and services, quality of ambient air, sustainable management of the
local authority and business, noise pollution, sustainable land use,
and ecological footprint). However, hard measures (both
objective and self-reported) of residential quality so far are
prominent.
2. Quality of life and attachment to ones living environment
It is within the framework of a comparison between former
conditions and actual ones, that people react to what they consider
as a threat to their quality of life (Pol, Dimasso, Castrechini, Bonet, &
Vidal, 2006). Fear of health consequences and distrust of authorities
are the most salient impacts anticipated by people faced with
environmental threats, which goes along with reduced feelings of
control of the incriminated environmental conditions (see Fischer,
1976; Garcia-Mira, Real Deus, Blanco, & Losada, 2004).
Residential satisfaction is necessarily purposive, i.e., it
depends on peoples goals and focuses (Canter, 1983). Is has, for
instance, been shown (Levy-Leboyer & Ratiu, 1993) that a sense of
neighbourliness in the immediate environment can compensate
for mediocre living conditions. Those satised with their living
conditions (46%), are characterized by an attachment to the
current dwelling and a positive view of the situation. They judge
their living conditions to be agreeable and are satised with the
neighborhood and the area. On the contrary, those who are
dissatised (54%) with their actual living conditions, are characterized by an anchorage in childhood, nostalgia for the past, no
attachment to the current dwelling, and a negative personal
experience of the situation. They judge their quality of life as
disagreeable, are dissatised with the facilities, and are only
slightly satised with the neighborhood and the area. Although
the size of the dwelling is essential for subjects satisfaction about
space, other living conditions depending on the sensitivities of
the subject modulate its importance in the overall habitat situation (Moser, Ratiu, & Fleury-Bahi, 2002).
Looking at peoples perception of their residential environment
and their expectations in terms of quality of life enables one to
account for the associated priorities. In a study with inhabitants of
Paris and Sao Paulo and their respective outskirts implementing the
theory and instruments of social representations (see Abric, 1993),
it was shown that people do have an implicit theory of the city
based on an archetype of the city, the valorisation of the centre and
the stigmatisation of the periphery (Moser, Tassara, Felonneau,
Marchand, & Okamura, 2005). Along with the various behaviours
developed in the neighborhood, this conditions peoples

G. Moser / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

environmental evaluation and their topological anchorage. Thus,

beyond various residential conditions, more general characteristics
contribute to quality of life, such as the transport system, and the
quality of air and water. In this sense, quality of life studies touch
upon peopleenvironment relations in a multidimensional way. For
a sustainable quality of life the environmental conditions should
not be impeding or threatening what individuals consider as being
essential for their well-being. A congruent personenvironment
situation would be achieved through a positive relationship
between: (a) the objective qualities of the environment, and (b)
reported satisfaction about different aspects of this environment,
considering the different environmental aspects in terms of interacting and combined effects.
The evaluation of an individuals neighborhood raises the
question of attachment to ones place of living. Place attachment
(Giuliani, 2003) is a positive bond that people develop over time
with their social and physical environment (Brown & Perkins,
1992). It encompasses cognitive, motivational and behavioral
aspects, reected in psychological correlates such as the tendency
to express a favorable evaluation of ones place of living, ones
motivation for ameliorating it and ones reluctance to move away
from it. Social aspects of the neighborhood and a sense of being
a member of a community are equally important as the amenities
of ones residential environment. The social ties dwellers have
been able to establish in the neighborhood contribute to peoples
well-being and quality of life. According to a study on citydwellers networks in Paris and in a provincial town (Moser,
Legendre, & Ratiu, 2003), in a big city like Paris nearly half (48.2%)
of all relationships arose from either the workplace, through
contacts in the neighborhood or from organizations in which
respondents were involved. If workplace relationships are
factored out, it appears that the network is largely developed
from local contacts. This underscores the importance of place
attachment.
Given the importance of local ties, it is not surprising that some
authors, whose research is centered on specic groups, extend the
previous conceptualizations of personenvironment congruity
from individual to community settings, focusing on neighborhoods
(Kahana, Lovegreen, Kahana, & Kahana, 2003). The authors
consider the applicability of the congruence concept for understanding the quality of life of neighborhoods. They argue that the
characteristics of the person, those of the environment itself, and
those of the personenvironment t (in their terminology) are
important factors determining residential satisfaction. In the
authors view, peopleenvironment t focuses on four physical and
two social aspects of neighborhood environments, viz. physical
amenities and resources, aesthetics, safety, stimulation vs. peacefulness, homogeneity vs. heterogeneity of the population, and
interaction vs. withdrawal. The preferences concerning the latter
three bi-polar aspects may vary according to individual and/or
collective preferences of the inhabitants of a specic neighborhood.
In this latter conceptualization, however, environmental quality
(noise, pollution, etc.) is missing.
In a similar context, Horelli (2006) speaks of human-friendly
environments. A human-friendly environment is a complex
multidimensional and multi-level concept, which refers to environments or settings that provide support to individuals or groups
so that they can implement their goals or projects, that bear
a potential impact on subjective well-being at both the individual
level (personenvironment congruity) and the group level
(collective-environment congruity). Those developments are
demanding attention for the role of satisfactory interpersonal
relationships and community ties in peoples well-being and residential satisfaction, providing interesting cues for neighborhood
satisfaction assessments.

353

3. Threats to quality of life in residential environments

In many places throughout the world, individual health and
well-being suffer from environmental quality shortages such as
lack of adequate infrastructures (water, energy, sewerage system,
etc.), polluted air, trafc noise, crowding and criminality, which
together are perturbing the individuals living environment.
According to a French report to the European Commission (Lambert
& Vallet, 1994), 170 million EU residents live in places where their
acoustical comfort is not guaranteed, even though noise levels are
below the high level of 65 dB(A), and noise is one of the major
sources of subjects complaints (Harrop & Nixon, 1999).
Research about residential satisfaction has typically utilized
perceived environmental quality indicators combined with objective records (e.g., Carp & Carp, 1982; Craik & Zube, 1976; Marans,
2002). In an extensive study on the perceived quality of the residential environment, Van Poll (1997, 2003) showed that urban
quality is determined by physical as well as social and planning
aspects. It appeared that perceived residential quality not only
depends on the quality of buildings and open space characteristics,
but includes aspects like social ties in the neighborhood, safety and
environmental deterioration.
There is much evidence to demonstrate that many people are
environmentally concerned, and that lack of environmental quality
is being seen as an important threat to their well-being. Noise and
pollution, problems of security, inadequate facilities in the neighborhood and lack of satisfactory transport, are repeatedly
mentioned by city dwellers as threatening their quality of life (Rizk,
2003). From extended surveys in the USA (e.g., Marans, 2003) as
well as in Europe (DEFRA, 2002) it is reported that approximately
three quarters of the respondents are willing to pay higher taxes in
order to improve living conditions in their immediate environment.
Searching for the conditions of congruity between the individual
and the environment means considering quality of life in terms of
peoples satisfaction with respect to their living environment. Only
if people are satised with the different aspects of their environment can the (environmental) requirements of sustainable development be met (see the CIS-model; Pol, 2002; see also Bonaiuto,
Aiello, Perugini, Bonnes, & Ercolani, 1999).
A broad cross-cultural study led by the WHO-QoL Group (Power,
Harper, Bullinger, & WHO-QoL Group, 1999) demonstrated that
environmental conditions are at least as important as other variables like family life, health and security, in predicting overall
quality of life. Health problems and bad environmental conditions
are also the most disturbing stressors identied via a French
version of the Hassles scale (Badoux & Robin, 2002; DeLongis,
Folkman, & Lazarus, 1988; Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The relevant
questionnaire was published in an issue of Science et Vie,
a monthly French magazine with a circulation of about 23 thousand
a month. The Hassles scale comprises 61 items describing hassles
such as family problems, being jobless or ill, etc., to be rated by
subjects on a 4-point scale going from not at all disturbing to
extremely disturbing. From all over France 2266 individuals
returned the questionnaire; 1791 correctly lled-out questionnaires (including gender, age, profession and place of living of the
respondents) were considered for statistical analyses. Respondents
are more likely to be in the higher socio-professional categories
or to be a student and also tend to be younger than the general
population. Among the ve items with the highest mean scores and
the ve items most often rated 1, 2 or 3, are two important environmental items: affected by noise and affected by pollution.
Noise and pollution along with health problems of a family
member, are obviously considered the most severe problems by the
respondents. Twenty-seven per cent of the respondents gave the
highest score (3) concerning health problems of a family member

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G. Moser / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

(1st rank of all items), 24.8% declared being severely affected by

noise (2nd rank of all items), and 22.5% were highly affected by
pollution (3rd rank).
Furthermore, some environmental features usually seen as
being urban-specic, such as noise and air pollution, are obviously
considered as equally threatening to the quality of life of both urban
and rural inhabitants. Breakdown of the percentage of people
considering pollution and noise as stressful according to place of
living, reveals that except for noise in very small communities
pollution and noise affect everyone in roughly the same way,
regardless of the size of their community (Moser & Robin, 2006).
These ndings suggest that, in spite of living under varying
conditions, a majority of people do feel stressed by environmental
problems. Since noise exposure is expected to increase with the
size of the town (see for instance: The U.S. Environment Protection
Agency Ofce of Noise Abatement and Control, 1974), such data
indicate that the awareness of noise issues, at least partly depends
on normative social constructs (Moser & Robin, 2006). Thus, it is
not the objective quality of the environment, but the way people
interact with it that provides the principal explanation for human
well-being (Uzzell & Moser, 2006).
4. Looking for personenvironment congruity
Situational factors have been identied as crucial in noise
annoyance. Among these, individuals ties to their environment in
terms of place identity play an important role. Residents who have
low place identity feel more annoyed by trafc noise than those
who report strong ties to their neighborhood (Jonah, Bradley, &
Dawson, 1981). The authors conducted a survey with 1150 individuals in order to relate individual annoyance reports on trafc
noise to subjects health and to other non-acoustical predictors. Up
to (only) 25% of the variance in annoyance was accounted for by
noise. Various non-acoustical predictors were related to subjective
annoyance responses, of which neighborhood satisfaction, anxiety,
and concern about trafc accidents were the most important.
Negative responses increased with subjects concern about accidents and decreased with neighborhood satisfaction, an important
indication of place identity.
Traditionally, the human impact of environmental conditions
has been assessed by looking into the effects of particular features
such as noise. In particular, noise effects are widely documented
(see Miedema, 2007). The limitations of this approach, however, are
that the context of subjects annoyance is insufciently attended to
and that the combination of one particular feature and other
potentially stressful environmental conditions receives little
attention. Research generally shows weak correlations between
average levels of noise and expressed annoyance (Cohen & Weinstein, 1981, 1982; Levy-Leboyer & Moser, 1987). Such weak correlations have been variously explained. First, when rating
annoyance, important inter- and intra-individual differences in
sensibility due to personal vulnerability and to cognitive apprehension of the situation mediate annoyance and coping with the
situation. Second, at equal levels of noise, situational differences
account for different evaluations. Situational parameters can for
instance explain the level of annoyance and victims reactions
toward the noise originators (Levy-Leboyer & Naturel, 1991).
Obviously, the evaluation of a single environmental variable
depends on the general context and that variable is only one aspect
of the situation, on which the subject is concentrating or is asked to
focus. It has been shown that the correlation between annoyance
and physical parameters may be increased when participants are
offered a reference point (Berglund, Berglund, & Lindvall, 1975).
This demonstrates that perception depends on norms concerning
the situation under evaluation, norms that are derived from

individual and situational conditions. It is therefore important to

consider overall living conditions, beyond subjects exposure to
specic environmental stressors. Concentrating on peoples exposure to any noxious environmental condition necessarily reects
both a restricted and a reductionist point of view, because it focuses
on the relation between an individuals specic response and
a particular, often conspicuous aspect of the environment.
If one is interested in the reasons why an individual perceives,
evaluates and expresses annoyance about a specic stimulus, one
also has to take into account situations of relatively low exposure.
Within a transactional perspective, basically two rationales may be
followed: a stimulus-driven or environment-oriented approach,
and a response-driven or subject-oriented approach. In other
words, besides looking into the different consequences of being
exposed to specic environmental stressors, a different rationale
involves looking into the individuals expression of discomfort or
annoyance, whether or not she/he is exposed to noxious environmental conditions, in order to search for annoyance explanations in
a wider stimulus context. In taking the individual as point of
departure one assumes: (1) that the perception and the expression
of annoyance are not necessarily correlated with the actual exposure; i.e., one may express annoyance about a specic environmental stimulus even though its objective level does not reach
a critical level, and (2) that the expression of annoyance corresponds to discomfort or stress, which reects a perturbation of
peoples comfort and harmony with their life space and which may
have long-term effects on health (DeLongis et al., 1988; Moser,
1992, 1995). Consequently, not only high objective exposure to an
environmental stressor, with either high or low (reported) annoyance, but also high annoyance under low objective exposure may
be considered as threatening peoples well-being and as generating
stress. Taking complaints about noise as point of departure, to
measure noise exposure and then to somehow protect populations
identied as exposed to the noxious stimulation, is insufcient for
enhancing peoples quality of life. Surveys concerning residential
environments taking into account peoples satisfaction, lead to the
identication of four different cases; see Table 1: (1) people
annoyed by a specic stressor to which they are objectively
exposed, (2) people who do not express annoyance or discomfort in
spite of being exposed to an objectively identiable stressor, (3)
people declaring to be annoyed in spite of not (or hardly) being
exposed to a specic identied stressor, and nally, (4) those who
are not exposed to any stressor and express no annoyance or
discomfort, i.e., those enjoying peopleenvironment congruity. In
other words, of the four different cases in Table 1, only one situation
may be representative of a good quality of life, namely the one
characterized by congruity: low exposure as well as low expression
of discomfort or annoyance (Case 4; lower-right quadrant).
High exposure to noxious environmental conditions accompanied by an expression of discomfort or annoyance (Case 1), should
obviously lead to a stimulus treatment (e.g., reducing air pollution,
noise, etc.) in order to reduce the undesired stimulus impacts. This
usually concerns the highest proportion of dwellers. Case 2, high
exposure to noxious environmental conditions and little or no
expression of discomfort stands for situations where respondents
probably nd a psychological or a physical compensation for the
exposure. A series of variables contributing to the minimization of
annoyance such as strong social ties in the neighborhood or being
economically dependent on the company being the main source of
pollution have been identied in the literature (Evans & Jacobs,
1982). Taking the long-term effects of exposure into consideration,
however, relevant populations should benet from the same
stimulus treatment as those expressing annoyance (Case 1). If
a signicant proportion of the population expresses annoyance
and/or discomfort under low exposure to noxious environmental

G. Moser / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

355

Table 1
Relation between exposition to noxious stimulus and expression of discomfort: the conditions of peopleenvironment congruity.
Expression of discomfort and/or annoyance

Exposure to bad, inadequate and/or noxious

environmental conditions

High
Low

High

Low

Case 1: state of disturbance due to overt and hidden

effects of the noxious conditions
Case 3: state of disturbance due to inadequacy
of environmental qualities

Case 2: subjective well-being: no overt but hidden effects

of the noxious conditions
Case 4: congruity between objective and subjective
conditions of well-being

stimulation (Case 3), a discontentment is revealed about certain

aspects of peoples living conditions. Such a discrepancy between
the objective conditions of exposure and subjective annoyance, of
course, deserves further exploration, for example, in terms of
group-specic sensitivities, personal circumstances, and possibly
other stressors that may enhance the incriminated source of
annoyance. It may also be due to unrealistic expectations by the
people or the community. In any case, in order to reach sustainability, the conditions at the origin of the annoyance have to be
identied and treated adequately, whether they are located in the
external environment, the social surroundings, or the individuals
personal situation.
The different cases of peopleenvironment incongruity shown in
Table 1 allow one to distinguish between objectively bad environmental conditions as a cause of residential dissatisfaction (Case 1)
and general dissatisfaction with the neighborhood (and/or ones
personal life), as expressed through the incrimination of particular
environmental conditions (Case 3). Only if individuals are not
objectively exposed to noxious stimulations and do express general
well-being can we speak of personenvironment congruity (Case 4).
5. Implications for environmental research and
policy-making
Peoples relationship to their own living environment is a crucial
issue for understanding their personal well-being and quality of
life. This is an important issue for sustainable development. As
advocated in a recent evaluation of European noise research and
policy-making (Vlek, 2005), effective policies should deal with the
multidimensional quality of living environments. There is much
evidence to demonstrate that lack of environmental quality is
perceived as an important threat to peoples well-being. Environmental noise and neighborhood pollution, problems of security,
insufcient neighborhood facilities and services, lack of satisfactory
transport, are repeatedly mentioned by city dwellers as threatening
their quality of life (see, e.g., Marans, 2003; Rizk, 2003).
The impact on peoples quality of life of a specic neighborhood
may be assessed by looking into the relation between the objective
facilities and services on one hand, and the perception and evaluation of peoples quality of life on the other, as these two factors
may substantially differ according to personal factors like age,
gender and cultural background (see Diener, Suh, Lucas, & Smith
1999). Identifying the environmental conditions of human wellbeing requires inventories of the specic physical and social
conditions that may be threatening individuals quality of life.
These may be objectively assessed by detached experts, but also via
reports by affected individuals about their environmental
conditions.
Thus, the quality of a residential environment can be evaluated
from at least two different perspectives: the technical, experts
assessment and the subject-based, laypersons assessment
(Bonaiuto, 2004; Gifford, 2002). The former is referred to as
objective because it involves general measures about the qualities of the environment, while the latter is referred to as subjective because it relies on self-report tools through which the person

expresses her/his own observations and evaluations. Both kinds of

environmental assessments aspire to objectivity, inasmuch as they
strive to have reproducible measures which are valid, reliable,
sensible and useful (Craik & Feimer, 1987). Similarly, both share
subjectivity, because technical assessment relies on human decision-making about dimensions to be examined, sampling times
and places, and in interpreting the results (Uzzell, 1989).
Integrative data combining objective and subjective assessments of environmental quality permit action not only on obvious
noxious conditions, but also on subject-identied aspects of the
physical and social environment which are considered as unsuitable by a majority of individuals. Peopleenvironment congruity
can only be reached when the competent authorities adequately
respond to all incriminated environmental aspects and try to
ameliorate them appropriately. In the light of sustainability, as
Bonnes, Uzzell, Carrus, and Kelay (2007) advocate, there has to be
a place-specic and more social psychologically based approach
(see also Bonnes & Bonaiuto, 2002; Uzzell, Pol, & Badenes, 2002).
Treating incriminated aspects of peopleenvironment mismatches
creates conditions of environmental appropriation and positive
identication to ones living place, which enhances a sustainable
quality of life.
Practical methods and procedures in this domain, such as the
ones implemented by Marans (2002), Carp and Carp (1982) or Craik
and Zube (1976), as well as multi-attribute evaluation procedures
as used by Van Poll (2003), contribute to identifying the environmental features that produce dissatisfaction in a particular neighborhood. Similarly, the SID (Social-Human Detection of
environmental Impact); developed in Barcelona, Spain (see Moreno
& Pol, 2002), provide detailed grids for the evaluation of the social
and environmental aspects of a specic neighborhood. Such
approaches help to locate eventual incongruities between environmental exposures and peoples well-being, and to identify the
aspects on which these mostly depend. Furthermore, procedures
implemented in Post-occupancy evaluation (see Zimring, 2002),
can usefully be adapted to neighborhood diagnostics. Such procedures consist in looking at (a) the relationship between experts
and laypersons environmental assessments, and (b) the relation
between more molecular (i.e., water and air quality, etc.) and
more molar (i.e., neighborhood satisfaction or quality) indicators.
From an environmental policy perspective, environmental
quality at the local level is mostly affected by sound, odor and air
pollution, as well as by external safety risks. It has been repeatedly
proposed to give more attention to the combined effect of different
environmental stressors (Amerigo & Aragones, 1997; Babisch,
2002). To illustrate, Van Poll, Stellato, Kruize, and Heisterkamp
(2005) examined the relationship between peoples noise and odor
annoyance and their perceived environmental quality, measured as
residential satisfaction. Homeowners appeared to be more satised than tenants. People living in semi-detached houses appeared
to be more satised than those living in ats. Annoyance from noise
and (offensive) odors was a relatively strong, predictor of residential satisfaction: residents who reported more annoyance were also
less satised with their residential situation. Conversely, the more
facilities present in the dwelling, the more satised residents

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G. Moser / Journal of Environmental Psychology 29 (2009) 351357

appeared to be. Thus, although annoyance appears to be an

important factor of residential satisfaction, tenure and dwelling
type appear to be, relatively, even more important.
In conclusion, problem diagnosis has to be two-fold: (1) identify
objective environmental conditions, for instance, identify places of
high exposure to noxious environmental conditions (pollution,
noise, etc.), (2) record residential satisfaction by assessing individual expressions of discomfort or annoyance concerning environmental conditions and establish a catalogue of the
incriminated environmental aspects. This allows one to compare
two types of territories, territories of high exposure to noxious
conditions, and territories of high expression of annoyance and/or
discomfort. The comparison of these territories helps to identify the
cases of incongruity as described in Table 1, and it provides a quite
clear picture of the different reasons of dissatisfaction related to the
individuals living space.
An approach based on merely looking into the effects of specic
environmental stressors is necessary but insufcient, because it
restricts itself to expressed annoyance, it disregards more fundamental impacts such as psychological stress or ill-being, and does
not take into account the broader context whereby quality of life
effects may be aggravated, or ameliorated. In order to provide
residents with a sufcient quality of life and to act toward
sustainability, environmental policy has to focus on peopleenvironment congruity by considering both physical and psychological
indicators of human well-being. In the words of Wandersman and
Hallman (1993, p. 681): To respond effectively to environmental
problems, policy makers must know as much about the social,
emotional and behavioral impacts of environmental threats as they
do about the biological effects of such hazards.
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