The Psychology of Office Space

In Sunday’s Wall Street Journal, neuroscientist-writer Jonah Lehrer outlined some recent research on the psychological impact of building design:

Recently, scientists have begun to focus on how architecture and design can influence our moods, thoughts and health. They’ve discovered that everything—from the quality of a view to the height of a ceiling, from the wall color to the furniture—shapes how we think.

A lot of the work in this area addresses the office environment. One of the studies Lehrer mentions, which appeared in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation last August, examined the effects of the workplace on a person’s stress. For nearly a year and a half the research team followed 60 people who worked in a government building. Some work in old office space with tall partitions and no window views, while others worked in a renovated space with an open feel and improved lighting.

In the end, the people who worked in the older offices experienced significantly more stress, as measured by cortisol levels and heart-rate variability, than those who worked in the newer space. The finding has broader health implications, because these same physiological responses have been found to play a role in the relationship between stress at work and heart disease (full paper):

Thus, our study suggests that the physical work environment may affect at least some of the underlying physiological factors associated with the negative health effects of increased work stress without the individuals being consciously aware of a stressful experience.

This study reminded me of recent research by psychologist Peter Kahn Jr. of the University of Washington, which I came across while writing about the psychological benefits of exposure to nature. In a study published in 2008, Kahn and colleagues observed three groups of workers: Some sat near a glass window overlooking a natural environment; others sat near a television screen that displayed a similar view; a third group sat beside an empty wall.

Kahn and company found that people in the first group, near the window, recovered from stress more quickly than those in the other groups. The more intriguing finding is that the researchers recorded no difference in the stress responses of people who watched nature on the screen and those who stared all day at the blank wall:

What is striking about our findings is that the physiological and psychological experience of nature would appear to differ depending on the medium (transparent glass or digital display) through which one views nature.

Architects and building designers take note: There might not be much workers can do about their poor office environment, but what a poor office environment does to its workers is becoming painfully clear.(The Infrastructurist)