Examining Controlled Spaces in the Context of Environmental Psychology: A Case of One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest and the Shawshank Redemption

Controlled institutional environments such as prisons and psychiatric hospitals shape human behaviour through surveillance, discipline, and spatial regulation. Although these environments have been extensively examined from architectural and sociological perspectives, comparatively few studies have systematically investigated their psychological implications using an environmental psychology framework. This study examines how controlled institutional spaces influence environmental perception, privacy, belonging, proxemic relationships, crowding, environmental stress, and spatial discipline through a comparative analysis of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) and The Shawshank Redemption (1994). A qualitative comparative film analysis was conducted using a structured analytical framework derived from environmental psychology and supported by theories of surveillance, discipline, total institutions, and hegemony. Twenty-four candidate scenes were initially identified and independently coded by two researchers according to predefined observable spatial and behavioural indicators. Following the coding process, four scenes exhibiting overlapping analytical characteristics were excluded, resulting in a final dataset of twenty scenes. The findings demonstrate that architectural elements such as surveillance visibility, hierarchical spatial organization, controlled circulation, restricted privacy, and shared institutional environments shape psychological experiences including alienation, environmental stress, adaptation, resistance, and place attachment. At the same time, the comparative analysis shows that similar spatial conditions may generate different psychological responses depending on individuals’ interactions with institutional environments. The study contributes methodologically to qualitative film analysis through a systematic scene selection and coding procedure while providing a comprehensive framework for examining environmental psychology concepts through the cinematic representations of controlled institutional environments. The findings should be interpreted as analyses of cinematic representations rather than empirical evidence of real prison or psychiatric hospital environments.