Research Design Connections: Evening Nature

Klotz and colleagues studied the implications of employees experiencing outdoor nature after spending a day at work indoors.  They determined that – “Our results, based on three studies employing different methodologies (i.e., an experience sampling study, an experiment, and a recall study), indicate that evening nature contact positively relates to beginning of [next] workday positive affect [mood] and subsequent work effort. However, this effect emerged only for employees with high-levels of nature connectedness—an individual difference reflecting individuals’ innate connection to the natural world.”  Nature connectedness is described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_connectedness

Anthony Klotz, Shawn McClean, Junhyok Yim, Joel Koopman, and Pok Tang.  “Getting Outdoors After the Workday:  The Affective and Cognitive Effects of Evening Nature Contact.” Journal of Management, in press, https://doi.org/10.1177/01492063221106430

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.