Research Design Connection: More on Plants, Nature, Green and Creativity

Studente, Seppala and Sadowska studied how seeing live plants, nature and the color green influences creative thinking. In their experiment, “Three groups [of participants] were used; one group in a classroom surrounded by plants and view to natural settings [creativity task presented on white paper], one with no views to nature but who completed the task on green paper, the third, with no plants present and no views to nature [creativity task on white paper]. Findings indicate visual creativity is increased by exposure to natural views, plants and the colour green.” Business students at a British university participated in this study and the number of plants that “surrounded” them was not provided.

Syvie Studente, Nina Seppala and Noemi Sadowska. 2016. “Facilitating Creative Thinking in the Classroom: Investigating the Effects of Plants and the Colour Green on Visual and Verbal Creativity.” Thinking Skills and Creativity, vol. 19, pp. 1-8.

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.