Helena Müller

• PhD Psychology
• Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences

Beitrag in Zeitschrift für Wohnmedizin und Bauhygiene

Transdisciplinary projects depend on functioning interdisciplinary collaboration within the scientific teams. In practice, this can be a major challenge, as we experienced in a 5-year transdisciplinary research project at the Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (2018-2022). We faced issues of e.g., problem framing, mental models, and prejudice...

Local heating networks are a cornerstone to climate neutrality in the building sector. However, thus far, building owners and energy suppliers have hardly implemented this solution. The current debate on the heat transition opens a window of opportunity in this context. A research team brings together the relevant actors from politics, administrati...

The Transment Approach addresses socio-ecological problems that arise from unsustainable social practices. It takes up sustainability challenges that are already being discussed in public and for which a general normative orientation exists. Addressing these challenges requires typically changes in production and consumption patterns, often combine...

Recent cross-sectional and experimental research has found measures of climate change related distress to be positively associated with measures of self-efficacy. Authors of some of these studies have interpreted this finding in terms of motivated control, that is, people who experience climate change related distress are motivated to believe that...

The model presented here describes an evidence-based interdisciplinary approach to the evaluation, design and optimization of spaces, products and systems in the context of health promotion. Its application is not limited to explicit areas of therapy and health promotion (e.g. clinics and medical practices). It can also be used in other contexts (e...

The leather industry is a complex system with multiple actors that faces a fundamental transition toward more sustainable chemistry. To support this process, this article analyzes challenges of the industry and consumers' roles as a nexus of transition-relevant developments. We present findings of an empirical study (N = 439) among consumers on the...

Das hier dargestellte Modell beschreibt einen evidenz-basierten interdisziplinären Ansatz zur Evaluation, Gestaltung und Optimierung von Räumen, Produkten und Systemen im Kontext der Gesundheitsförderung. Seine Anwendung beschränkt sich dabei nicht auf explizite Bereiche der Therapie und Gesundheitsförderung (z.B. Kliniken und Arztpraxen). Auch in...

Current mobility systems put a burden on people and the environment, e.g., through greenhouse gas emissions, and depletion of natural resources. Therefore, a mobility transition including changes in legislation, infrastructure , and behavior as well as socio-technical innovations is required. Against this backdrop, the inter-and transdisciplinary p...

The building sector faces the challenge of becoming largely climate-neutral by the middle of the century. This will require far-reaching changes and novel solutions, particularly in existing buildings, where comprehensive insulation is often impossible. Local heating networks represent one such solution. These networks allow integrating different d...

A growing body of literature mainly in the context of consumer research indicates that the formal-aesthetic and conceptual design of objects can influence users’ thoughts, emotions and even behavioural patterns. While there is strong evidence regarding these effects on actual purchasing decisions, evidence on the effect of aesthetic design features...

Sustainability transitions can only succeed, if citizens play their part, e.g., by reducing consumption, adopting socio-technical innovations, and supporting political measures. In line with transdisciplinary transformative research, individuals’ roles are entangled in a system of complex societal and technological processes and need to be analyzed...

Recent discussion papers in environmental psychology have called for a stronger impact orientation, inclusion of contextual factors, and consideration of different actor groups in studying pro-environmental behavior (Lange et al., 2021; Nielsen et al., 2021). We argue that transdisciplinary (i.e., collaboration with societal actors) transformative...

With roughly half of the global population living in cities, urban environments become central to public health often perceived as health risk factors. Indeed, mental disorders show higher incidences in urban contexts compared to rural areas. However, shared urban environments also provide a rich potential to act as a resource for mental health and...

Concerning inpatient mental healthcare, the fields of design and architecture face enormous challenges. While focussing on meeting high safety and anti-ligature standards, many psychiatric facilities are designed as highly institutionalized settings. This institutionalization neglects essential psychosocially supportive elements, which promote heal...

People shape their physical environments - and vice versa. As such, cities provide both resources (e.g., job opportunities, cultural diversity) as well as stressors (e.g., crowding, noise pollution) to their residents and visitors. In this context, numerous studies illustrate a considerable influence of the built environment (townscape, architectur...

The design of objects, spaces and systems can have a profound influence on the behaviours as well as emotional and cognitive states of the people confronted with it. With regards to health behaviour, elaborating on Schwarzer's HAPA model (1992), the Design Model for Health Behaviour Change - DMHBC (Rehn, 2018) proposes the use of the built environm...

Aspects of mental health, society, space and environment share entangled relations being studied in health geography. Recreational spaces as well as places that are commonly perceived as strenuous, unsafe, or highly stressful are unevenly distributed within urban areas, which is also associated with spatial differences in mental disorders. Spaces i...

Space is a key element of human life that holds significance across the life course. Spaces, territories and symbolic arrangements are elements of social reality. This chapter examines the role of space in the context of transitions. Our conceptualization of space does not reduce it to qualities of an external environment but views it as a relation...

Städte und Gemeinden sehen sich aktuell mit vielfältigen Herausforderungen wie Energie- und Verkehrswende, Corona-Pandemie, Klimaschutz und Klimaanpassung konfrontiert, die teils tiefgreifende Veränderungen und innovative Lösungsansätze erfordern. Der Erfolg solcher urbaner Transformationen hängt maßgeblich davon ab, ob in deren Gestaltung verschie...

Der Beitrag führt in die Linking Ages Perspektive ein, die als Gegenentwurf zu tradierten Denkmustern ‚Alter‘ als relationale, in Übergängen hergestellte Differenzkategorie begreift. Anhand empirischen Materials aus vier Forschungsprojekten, die im Rahmen des DFG-Graduiertenkollegs Doing Transitions entstanden sind, wird gezeigt, wie sich Linking A...

Psychiatric facilities tend to resemble highly institutional settings in which patients experience a severe loss of control in impersonal and sterile built environments. Design features such as everyday objects offer the potential to be psychosocially beneficial by strengthening patients' internal locus of control and increasing their well-being. B...

When people suffering from severe mental illnesses are treated in psychiatric facilities, there appear conflicting priorities between security and individual control that are often skewed towards security. As a result, patients admitted to highly institutionalised psychiatric wards do not only suffer from mental illness but also from loss of contro...

The Covid-19 pandemic continues to change life as we knew it all over the world in various aspects. At the same time, the climate change crisis intensifies, as well. Given this unusual situation, we aimed to compare peoples’ attitudes on sustainable innovations – namely coworking spaces in rural areas to reduce commuter traffic – from before to dur...

Wohnen rückt in Zeiten von Wohnungsknappheit, Lockdown und barrierefreiem Bauen verstärkt in das gesellschaftliche Interesse. Psychologische Bedeutungen von Wohnen und damit verbundene Potenziale – auch und insbesondere – im höheren Alter sind jedoch noch wenig erforscht. Bisher liegen dazu außerdem vorrangig qualitative Studien vor. Ein solches Po...

Psychiatric facilities tend to resemble highly institutional settings in which patients experience a severe loss of control in impersonal and sterile built environments. Design features such as everyday objects offer the potential to be psychosocially beneficial by strengthening patients’ internal locus of control and increasing their well-being. B...

Gemeinschaftliche Wohnprojekte erfreuen sich seit Jahren wachsender Beliebtheit. Doch wie kommt es dazu, dass Menschen in ein gemeinschaftliches Wohnprojekt ziehen? Wie erleben Umziehende den Wohnformwechsel? Und was verändert sich dadurch für sie? Diesen Fragen widmet sich die Autorin aus einer umweltpsychologischen Perspektive. Grundlage dafür bi...

Because of its wide range of job opportunities, the Rhine-Main region is attractive for many employees. However, since most workplaces are concentrated in urban areas, many people commute from rural villages to the central and upper centers. It is these traffic streams that cause greenhouse gas and noise emissions, lower the activity in rural areas...

Based on concepts from environmental gerontology and life-span psychology, this study aims at comparing perceived housing and person-environment (p-e) fit across three age groups. Young (20–30 years old; n = 125), young-old (55–65 years old; n = 42) and old-old adults (80–90 years old; n = 21) filled in an online or paper-pencil questionnaire on pe...

Mit steigender Lebenserwartung und sinkender Anzahl von Mehrgenerationenhaushalten stellt sich die Herausforderung neuer Wohnlösungen (Wahl & Steiner, 2014), zu denen auch gemeinschaftliche Mehrgenerationenwohnprojekte gehören. Trotz der gesellschaftlichen Relevanz dieser Entwicklung und der psychologischen Bedeutsamkeit von Wohnen und Wohnentschei...