Some of us are more attentive to the people around us and others to the place we’re in. McIntyre and Graziano report that, “Individuals differ in how they deploy attention to their physical and social environments…we conducted two studies to explore the links among attentional processes and interests in people and things…Outcomes from both studies suggest that attention and motivational processes are linked to differential interests in physical and social environments.” This McIntypre/Graziano study indicates, for example, that “place people” and “people people” reporting on previous experiences will focus on different aspects of the same situation.
Miranda McIntyre and William Graziano. “Seeing People, Seeing Things: Individual Differences in Selective Attention.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, in press.
Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.