This paper is a review on systematic social observation. First, systematic social observation in sociology, established by Reiss, is introduced, and some methodological issues, pros, and cons of it are described. Then, in comparison with systematic observation in sociology, this method in environmental psychology is discussed. The discussion above points out that mainly because of its huge cost in time and budget, systematic social observation has rarely been adopted except for some sociology and environmental psychology studies. Next, the rapid expansion of usage of systematic social observation to assess the neighborhoods in the health environment studies because of the recent recognition of the importance of active living that permits and facilitates daily activity is noted. In addition, the expansion of feasibility of automated systematic social observation caused by growing accessibility to open landscape images and advancing machine learning is mentioned. As a closing statement, we refer to an expected role of environmental psychologists and social scientists in the broad sense, in the future systematic social observation research.

The present research examined the geographical distributions of Big Five personality traits in Japan. We conducted secondary analysis with three large datasets (survey 1: N = 4,469, survey 2: N = 5,619, survey 3: N = 4,330). We confirmed the spatial clustering of personality traits and mapped the geographical distribution in Japan. Moreover, we revealed the prefecture-level inequality of each Big Five domain across the three datasets. The results indicated that the metropolitan area and Okinawa showed higher Extraversion than Chugoku districts. Eastern Kyushu and Okinawa showed higher Agreeableness than Hokuriku districts. Tohoku district showed lower Conscientiousness than other districts. Tohoku and Chugoku districts showed higher Neuroticism than Okinawa. Northern Kyushu districts showed higher Openness than other districts. The results generally supported the hypothesis, and we discussed the regional characteristics obtained in the present study.