This study explores the assessments made by the inhabitants of eight Latin American countries regarding the current state of the environment, at a local, national and global scale, and how it is perceived looking ahead to the future. It also examines the assignment of responsibility in the future management of the environment. A total of 944 people took part in the study from the eight participating countries, men and women over the age of 18 with different levels of education. The study uses the Environmental Futures Scale to which two relevant items have been added to assess the environment in the region, as well as the Assignment of Environmental Responsibility Scale. The results show differences between the countries, although in general they are pessimistic regarding the current and future state of the environment at the local, national and global level, with the exception of Brazil. In general, and with the exception of Brazil, in the countries surveyed, people assign a high level of responsibility to external social agents at the different levels, increasing their judgement of external responsibility at the national and global levels of analysis. The implications of these findings for environmental policy and education in the countries of this region are also discussed.

BackgroundBased on the results of prior studies, the purpose of the present investigation was to identify relationships between environmental and physical variables and variables of perception of institutional image as generators of stress in female patients waiting for doctor appointments in waiting rooms in a public hospital. MethodThree waiting rooms with different design features and a sample of 253 women were evaluated: the physical variables measured were: noise, lighting, air speed, environmental humidity, temperature, suspended particles in air, and social density. Valid and reliable psychometric scales were developed to measure each socioenvironmental variable: Physical Comfort: Functionality, Physical Comfort: Spatial Perception, Wayfinding, Environmental meaning, Confidence and security in medical service, Human quality of care and Stress.

This paper shows space syntax as a useful tool for evaluating buildings as well as for research on environmental perception. With this methodology, the spatial organization of a building was measured, obtaining a quantitative description of the relationships among the spaces within the building. This measurement is given in terms of how closely each space of the building is connected with the others. We analysed the relationship between the level of integration of each space and the perception of the settings in terms of way finding, communication, and ease of displacement. The results showed that 39% of the variance of perception is explained by the spatial configuration of the building. It suggests that space syntax measures could be helpful in foreseeing how people perceive spatial orientation.

Microsystems are described as contexts formed by a subject, their roles, their interactions, and a specific physical space and time, such as housing and the school environment. Although several studies suggest the importance of studying this type of environment and its repercussion on children's development, in a Latin American context, few studies integrate the interaction of two primary settings in the development of executive functioning. The present study explores the effects of the quality of housing and school environments on the perception of stress, decision making, and planning among children. A total of 114 children (43% girls and 57% boys, M age = 10.57) from a primary school located in a community classified as poor participated in the study. The following was measured: the environmental quality of classrooms, housing, stress, and executive functioning of children. The results reveal a model linking environmental quality levels in children's homes and schools and executive functioning. We also obtain a mediating role of stress between microsystems and performance, finding a deficit in executive performance when children experienced higher levels of stress as a result of poor environmental quality both in their homes and in their schools.

Air pollution is caused by human activities and affects health. As an imminent risk to the inhabitants of Mexico City's Metropolitan Area, both environmental and socio-cultural aspects must be taken into account. Because of the psychological dimensions' relevance as predecessors of environmental behaviour, the aim of this study is to describe air pollution's perception, causal attribution and their relation. Results show differences by age, education, location and awareness. The use of cars and of public transport is attributed to behavioural characteristics, while household energy saving and car maintenance are attributed to personal factors. The perception of causes and effects points out energy saving as attributed to personal factors. To attribute car use to circumstances leads to explain the use of public transport to personal factors. Identifying these characteristics will allow policy makers to design tailored informational campaigns, address specific necessities and intervene more effectively.

The practice of pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) can generate positive consequences for the environment and for those who engage in such behaviour. This study suggests that such consequences can, in turn, promote the future practice of pro-environmental actions. A structural model was tested, including the intrinsic and extrinsic benefits of PEB experienced by people as exogenous variables, and PEB as the endogenous variable, on a sample of 360 inhabitants of Mexico City. The model fit the data adequately and explained 24% of variance in PEB. Intrinsic and extrinsic benefits positively and significantly affected PEB, and also presented a moderately strong relationship between them, which could indicate that both types of benefits might jointly foster pro-environmental actions.

ResumenEl propósito de este estudio fue generar un instrumento que permita medir el clima social organizacional en el entorno mexicano de manera confiable y válida. Para lo cual, se adaptó la Escala de Clima Social Organizacional (WES) versión en español (Moos, 2008), conformada por 90 reactivos con 6 opciones de respuesta; para realizar su validación psicométrica se aplicó a 490 trabajadores mexicanos, de entre 18 y 66 años de edad, 261 mujeres y 229 hombres con diferentes grados de escolaridad. Se llevaron a cabo análisis para conocer el poder discriminativo de los reactivos; la confiabilidad y la estructura factorial válida para la población laboral nacional. La escala final estuvo constituida por 18 reactivos, organizados en tres factores y un indicador: Clima laboral, Aspectos físicos, Normatividad organizacional y el indicador Cambio.

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