Concurrents – Environmental Psychology: Visual Complexity, Stress, and Minimalism

Minimalism is getting a lot of attention. Design books/websites/etc. packed with photos of a sparse aesthetic abound. Marie Kondo leads a flock of swarming “clutter-busters.” There are oodles of books, websites and apps out there imploring us to get rid of stuff and detailing how we should do just that.

Some of this drive to minimalism may be a push to reduce the visual complexity in our world.

Sure, some people have way, way too much stuff; some individuals have a real and very serious issue with hoarding. They need to remove physical material from their lives; it’s crucial for their mental, and sometimes physical health. The push for minimalism that’s clogging media outlets is for the rest of us, the “non-hoarders.”

Having too much, or too little, going on visually around us amps up our stress levels. The middle magic level of moderate visual complexity, the one where our minds and our souls soar to higher levels of cognitive performance and wellbeing, is seen in residential interiors designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. In spaces with moderate levels of visual complexity there is some variety in viewed colors and shapes, for example, and there’s some order in how they are presented – but that variety is carefully managed to several selected options, and order is taken quite seriously.

Our brains seem to have developed to have a particular fondness for moderate visual complexity because it’s close to the sort of visual environment in which our species, in its early days, could live happily. We developed in places with bushes, grasses, animals, etc., not in the sort of stark spaces that can distress us now as too “empty.” In areas with moderate visual complexity, we could easily spot approaching danger, which meant we survived to look out for danger on another day. In areas with more than moderate visual complexity, it was too easy for us to become someone else’s lunch, so they make us tense, even today.

Our lives, at home and at work and in general, seem to be getting more stressful, day by day. The push to minimalism, if taken to a comfortable, not extreme, level could help counter that stress by reducing visual complexity. Also, minimalism, when implemented by the actual users of a space, means that they have some control over their physical environment, which is good for our mental and physical welfare as well as cognitive performance.

People with control of their physical world can choose to send a few nonverbal signals, via the design of their world, about who they are and what’s important to them as a person, and those messages don’t get lost in a flurry of stuff that’s built up over time, when time to manage the surrounding area was scarce. Sending the signals that we want to send cuts stress, both for ourselves and others (since they better understand who we are, they’re more relaxed interacting with us).

Minimalism is also a signal that whomever is pruning their stuff has had the resources and experiences needed to not only accumulate that extra stuff to begin with but now can devote some time and energy to winnowing their stash down. The ability to live minimally is, in its way, a status symbol.

Visual complexity is very important to environmental psychologists; it’s a topic that a lot of them have been thinking seriously about for a very long time. Now it seems to top-of-mind with many other people, as well.

Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. 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.