The Utility of Room Lighting
For most people, light is similar to air: essential, but often taken for granted. Depending on the environment, light can be used in design to affect human behavior. Stores can use light to make their products more enticing, and it can affect the mood of patients in hospitals. Indeed, from a design perspective, light is an important part of a building and, like any building material, can be tailored to achieve desired effects.
Light in a Retail Setting
Researcher Alison Jing Xu, assistant professor of management at UTSC and the Rotman School of Management, along with Aparna Labroo of Northwestern University, conducted a series of studies to examine the sometimes paradoxical relationship between lighting and human emotion. They found that bright lights will trigger a “hot emotional system,” meaning that people experience emotions more intensely in response to different kinds of stimuli in the environment, including objects (products, for example) and people. By reducing the brightness, people are able to make more rational decisions regarding product selection and price.1
Marketers may use this knowledge to their advantage. If emotionally expressive products such as flowers or engagement rings are being sold, bright store lights can help people make decisions. According to Xu and Labroo’s research, under bright lights, emotions are felt more intensely, so when people are making a happy decision such as choosing an engagement ring, their positive feelings would be intensified, and they may be inclined to spend more than they had intended.2
Tiffany & Co recently renovated its Vancouver flagship store, increasing its floor area from 3,322 square feet to 9,762 square feet. Its most striking feature is the addition of large windows allowing natural light to illuminate the store’s merchandise, in addition to the artificial light. This presumably enhances the store’s jewelry products, encouraging customers to feel positive and therefore increasing sales.3
The Effects of Light on our Body
In a study conducted by associate professor Agnieszka Tymula of the University of Sydney, it was shown that the higher the light levels, the worse people are with their money. In the study, over 2,500 people were asked to make decisions about participating in a lottery. They could receive the guaranteed payout of $5 (the worst option) or participate in the lottery at different risk levels. On days with the highest intensity of light levels, people made the worst decisions. This effect was also stronger on older participants, which suggest that their moods and thought patterns are more affected by environmental conditions than younger people. The stronger the light, the more optimistic people feel, therefore the more risks they take. In the study, on cloudy days, people were more risk averse.4,5
In other studies, it has been shown that, as people age, their eyes become more sensitive to glare. In traditional nursing home lighting, brighter light results in more glare that causes discomfort to senior citizens, resulting in annoyance. WalaLight, a U.S. company that uses “brain science” in designing its light products, has been providing LED lighting solutions for healthcare centres in the U.S. Research has concluded that their lights, installed in a nursing home, helped to improve the sleep quality of residents, thereby reducing agitation and aggressive behaviour among residents. As an additional benefit, staff was able to perform more efficiently in the absence of overly aggressive patients, resulting in reduced staff turnover rates.6,7
Dim Light Equals More Food Consumption
Dim light can calm emotions; however, too much of a good thing can also be detrimental. According to Michigan State University neuroscientists, the inability to find your car in a busy parking lot after spending a few hours in a shopping mall or movie theater may be the result of spending too much time in dim indoor lighting. Experimental rodents exposed to dim light over four weeks lost about 30 percent of capacity in the hippocampus, a critical brain region for learning and memory, and performed poorly on a spatial task in which they had been trained previously.8
Researchers at the University of South Florida surveyed 160 patrons at four chain restaurants and found that diners in dimly lit rooms ate more than those in brightly lit rooms. The diners in darker rooms ordered dishes with more calories and chose less healthy foods than those in brighter rooms. But the researchers stated that dim lighting isn’t all bad, since the diners also ate slower and enjoyed their meals more. Business Insider magazine believes that dim lighting is the reason that the Cheesecake Factory is doing so well!9,10
Whether your client wants people to eat more, buy more or be less aggressive, an awareness of the effects of lighting on human behaviour can help determine the success of your interior.
NOTES
University of Toronto. (2014, Feb 19). New research shows the way a room is lit can affect the way you make decisions. Retrieved from https://media.utoronto.ca/media-releases/education/new-research-shows-the-way-a-room-is-lit-can-aff ect-the-way-you-make-decisions/.
Alison Jing Xu and Aparna Labroo. “Incandescent Affect: Turning on the Hot Emotional System With Bright Light,” in Simona Botti and Aparna eds. NA – Advances in Consumer Research Volume 41, eds. Labroo, Duluth, MN: Association for Consumer Research, 2013.
BC Living. (2017, May 7). “Inside Tiffany & Co.’s Beautifully Renovated Vancouver Flagship Store.” Retrieved from www.bcliving.ca/Inside-Tiffany–Cos-Beautifully-Renovated-Vancouver-Flagship-Store.
Satherley, Dan. (2017, Aug 6). “Could bright lights be causing us to make bad financial decisions?” Newshub. www.newshub.co.nz/home/money/2017/08/could-bright-lights-be-causing-us-to-make-bad-financial-decisions.html.
Glimcher PW, Tymula A “Let the sunshine in? The effects of luminance on economic preferences, choice consistency and dominance violations.” PLoS ONE 12(8): e0181112, 2017 https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181112.
Changolkar, Sujatha and Rogers, Susannah. (2017) A Study on the Health Benefits and Financial Merits of Circadian Light for Elder Care Patients. Walalight. Retrieved from www.walalight. com/a-study-on-the-health-benefits-and-financial-merits-of-circadian-light-for-elder-care-patients/.
Walalight. A Study on the Health Benefits and Financial Merits of Circadian Light for Elder Care Patients. Retrieved from www.walalight.com/applications/adult-living-facilities/.
Michigan State University. (2018, Feb 5). “Dim Light May Make Us Dumber.” NeuroscienceNews. Retrieved from http://neurosciencenews.com/dim-light-dumber-8433/.
Houston, Gillie. (2016, May 27). Dim Lighting Makes You Eat More at Restaurants. Food & Wine. Retrieved from www.foodandwine.com/blogs/dim-lighting-makes-you-eat-more-restaurants.
Modos, Alyssa. (2016, Dec 16). Here’s the real reason the Cheesecake Factory keeps its lights so dim. Business Insider. Retrieved from www.businessinsider.com/why-is-the-cheesecake-factory-so-dark-2016-12.