Two professors from Texas A&M University’s College of Architecture contributed to a study on anger at the workplace that was the most frequently read article in the environment and behavior category on the Sage Journals online website in June 2008.
The study indicates nature paintings reduce males’ stress levels in an office setting.
Louis Tassinary, professor of architecture, associate dean for research and director of graduate studies and Roger Ulrich, professor of architecture and holder of the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design, teamed up with Byoung-Suk Kweon of the University of Michigan, and Verrick Walker of PageSoutherlandPage, for the study.
“One out of four American workers report themselves to be chronically angry, which has been linked to negative outcomes such as retaliatory behavior, revenge, interpersonal aggression, poor work performance, absenteeism, and increased turnover,” wrote the researchers in the study’s abstract. “We hypothesized that people who work in office environments decorated with aesthetically engaging art posters would experience less stress and anger in response to task-related frustration.”
The researchers created a faux office at Texas A&M, varying arrangements of abstract and nature posters for different parts of the research.
In the study, 210 college students performed four mild anger-provoking computer tasks in different office conditions with abstract and nature paintings on the walls, then reported on their levels of stress and state anger, which is anger at a given moment.
“For men … the effect was dramatic,” wrote Levi Novey in an article in planetsave.com about the study. “The landscape posters that depicted nature relieved stress and anger levels dramatically.” The researchers found that abstract posters did as well.
“Interestingly, for women, the settings with posters created little difference in reducing anger and stress levels when compared to the experimental setting where there were no posters,” wrote Novey about the study’s findings.
The team took into account previous research showing gender differences regarding anger and stress.
For Novey’s article about the study, see the PlanetSave website.
