Retail Environments

A soon to be published study, authored by Brett Martin of the Queensland University of Technology confirms that people dislike being crowded, even when holiday shopping.  Martin found that “The belief that men like being touched by women they don’t know is not true . . .

Research conducted by Sreedhari Desai and Francesca Gino confirms the importance of the nonverbal cues we find in our physical environment.  They found that “Adults are less likely to cheat and more likely to engage in ‘pro-social’ behaviors when reminders of children, such as teddy bears and crayons, are present.”  When asked to discuss the research, Desai responded that “Child-related cues might unconsciously activate notions of goodness and drive us to get to a pure state and not want to pollute it

Recent research links traveling through doorways and forgetting.  Researchers linked passing through doorways with forgetting thoughts, decisions, and actions.

Pham and his colleagues have determined that when consumers are relaxed, their monetary valuations of products are higher.  This column regularly reviews elements of the physical environment that are relaxing or energizing.  The researchers summarize their findings:  “Participants who were put into a relaxed affective state reported higher monetary valuations than participants who were put into an equally pleasant but less relaxed state.

Researchers at the Kellogg School of Management (Adam Galinksy and Li Huang) have found that “when bodily expressions are in conflict with one’s actual feelings . . . people become more likely to accept and embrace atypical ideas.”  The details of one of the studies constructed suggest ways that designers might apply this finding in spaces where service developers will brainstorm, for example: “Some participants were made managers and others subordinates. . . .

In this blog, I frequently discuss ways the physical environment can be used to increase the likelihood that people are in a positive mood.  Nadler and her colleagues have collected additional evidence indicating that when people are in a positive mood, they are more likely to be creative.  Previous research has shown that people in a positive mood think more broadly, which is not only good for tasks such as brainstorming but also social ones such as negotiation. <

Brager and Baker investigated occupant satisfaction in mixed-mode buildings.  They define “mixed-mode” as an “approach to space conditioning that uses a combination of natural ventilation and some form of mechanical ventilation and/or cooling.”   At the study sites, the natural ventilation was provided through operable windows.