University of Twente Student Theses
Let’s bring the outdoor environment indoors! : To what extent do plants and daylight in an office environment influence the creative performance positively as mediated by mood?
El Ahmadi, Zainab (2022) Let’s bring the outdoor environment indoors! : To what extent do plants and daylight in an office environment influence the creative performance positively as mediated by mood?
|
PDF
721kB |
| Abstract: | Objective Creative performance is of high importance and beneficial for individuals to produce new and useful ideas to improve overall performance. This study investigated the effect of a combination of nature-related environmental office elements, plants and daylight, and their influence on creative performance, mood & restoration. The underlying mechanism of mood and restoration is based on the Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1995). In addition, the combination of environmental elements expands knowledge in the field of environmental psychology of office design. Method An experimental study was conducted with students (N=100) in an office environment, given that the environment has an influence on the individual. This study was designed as a 2 (daylight vs. non-daylight) x 2 (plants vs. non-plants) between-subjects experiment. The response was measured in terms of creative performance and frequency (number of ideas). The effect of mood was measured twice, once before and once after the experiment. In addition, the environmental preference and the restorative effect were measured (taken from the Attention Restoration Theory). Results Daylight had a significant effect on creative performance. No effect of plants on creative performance was found. Regarding the number of ideas, the interaction between plants and daylight showed that daylight only has an effect when there are no plants in the environment. Negative and positive mood had no mediating effect on the relationship between the environment and creative performance. Exploratory analysis showed that plants do have an effect on environmental preference. Conclusion This study indicates that more of a specific element (nature) may not necessarily lead to enhanced results. Investments in daylight should be made, as it adds significant value on creative performance, but care must be taken with elements that cancel out the effects of daylight. Organizations can use these insights strategically to design the environment according to needs. For example, when there are many ideas to be collected (brainstorming sessions), plants should be removed. |
| Item Type: | Essay (Master) |
| Faculty: | BMS: Behavioural, Management and Social Sciences |
| Subject: | 05 communication studies |
| Programme: | Communication Studies MSc (60713) |
| Link to this item: | https://purl.utwente.nl/essays/92870 |
| Export this item as: | BibTeX EndNote HTML Citation Reference Manager |
Show download statistics for this publication
Show download statistics for this publicationRepository Staff Only: item control page