Visit Wiley.com to save 20% on Place Advantage by Sally Augustin, PhD, editor of Research Design Connections. Your discount will be applied automatically upon checkout. If you do you not see the discount being applied, please enter code aff20 in the Promotion Code field and click the Apply Discount button.
Spaces communicate nonverbally – we’ve known that for some time – but sometimes there’s debate about exactly what they're saying. Devlin and her colleagues have investigated the messages sent by displayed credentials and family photographs in therapists offices. Although this research is focused on therapists offices, it has implications for the design of workplaces in general, especially those used by human resource professionals and others providing professional advice. Devlin and her co-researchers used credentials that generally resembled diplomas or similar certificates. Completed analyses “indicated in general, the greater the number of credentials, the more positive the judgment of the therapist’s qualifications and energy. The presence of family pictures had no significant impact on judgments.” Credentials on display did positively influence impressions of friendliness but “it is not so much the number of credentials displayed that makes an impact on the qualities associated with friendliness, but their presence at all.” Displaying nine credentials instead of four did not influence how qualified therapists seemed to be, but therapists with nine credentials on display seemed to have more energy than those with four. Although no statistically significant effects were associated with the display of family photographs, a general pattern did emerge indicating that therapist assessments were more positive in general when family photos were on display.
Ann Devlin, Sarah Donovan, Arianne Nicolov, Olivia Nold, Andrea Packard, and Gabrielle Zandan. 2009. “’Impressive?’ Credentials, Family Photographs, and the Perception of Therapist Qualities.” Journal of Environmental Psychology, vol. 29, pp. 503-512.
