Lost in a familiar environment: moving through the environmental preference matrix

My partner and I rent a home in Victorville, California, which is in Southern California's Inland Empire (about an hour and a half straight east of L.A.) Victorville grew in population during the 80s and 90s and with it came cookie-cutter subdivisions. Because it is California, the streets are lined with lovely fruit trees, succulents, and bushes. Unfortunately, as a subdivision, each house looks more or less the same with a sand colored stucco exteriors, terracotta roof tiles, forward facing garage, and no front windows on the first floor.

Our House

The House next door

There are slight difference in the configuration of the houses on any of the streets, but when one glances up, they all look more or less the same. In addition, my subdivision is a big loop of houses that sits within a larger 2 block by 2 block square. On one side of the square (Mojave Drive), two main roads feed into the loop (called Reno Loop Drive). These two main roads are called East Trail Drive and West Trail Drive. I often take Mojave Drive to get to my house by going Mojave Drive to East Trail Drive to Reno Loop to Squirrel to Brown Lane. On my side of the subdivision, almost all streets are assigned tree names or tree dwelling animal names while the other side has a horse theme.

One day, right after my partner and I had recently moved in, I was driving home and looked up to notice I was not at my house like I should be but instead was on "Sorrel" road, which looked almost identical to my block and was oddly similar in name to Squirrel. I had taken the exact same turns from Mojave (right onto East Trail, left onto Reno Loop, right onto Squirrel, and left onto Brown) so I was very confused and turned around. I tried to retrace my steps to get back to East Trail Drive, which, at that point, was the only way I knew to get to my house from Mojave. It took me a long time to realize I had taken a similar, but very different street, called West Trail Drive (which I didn't know existed at that point). It was a very disconcerting moment and one that aptly demonstrates the environmental preference matrix.

While driving, I was experiencing an environment that was low in preference but high in familiarity because everything more or less looked the same. As such, it was an environment that was highly coherent and highly legible - the structure of the environment was identifiable like sidewalks, walls, and plants all being more or less in the same place. The houses all fit together and fit with my understanding of what was to come (a turn onto a side street, Squirrel, that led to a turn onto my block, Brown Ln, with my house being the sixth on the left), and my cognitive map was established enough to lead me to go through the motions without really paying attention. However, when I began to slow down to get ready to turn into my driveway, I realized that the house looked slightly different. It was not a huge difference, but it was noticeable enough that I went from being in a highly coherent and legible environment to one that was highly coherent but with low legibility.

What I find interesting about this experience in the context of preference is that the environmental setting of  being on the other side of the neighborhood initially made me feel uncomfortable and worried, however, I quickly felt capable of figuring out how to get home given my understanding of the subdivision being constructed in a loop, thus moving me from a highly coherent and highly legible state to highly coherent and low legibility, to a moderately complex and highly mysterious one. Even as a subdivision that truly is "little boxes on the hillside" like Malvina Reynolds sings, getting lost did not stop me from experiencing my subdivision as a preferred environment because it involved new processes. As Kaplan explains "environments that are likely to be preferred are those that permit involvement and making sense" (1982, p. 148). Although a simple example, I believe it demonstrates human preference because while reorienting myself, I was able to organize the setting as the other half of the neighborhood (coherence), realize that the streets, though similar, were in fact different and thus, new representations (complexity), extend my cognitive map of the larger region (mystery), and feel reassured that given the circular loop in the subdivision, the "environment yet to come would be manageable" (Kaplan, 1982, p. 149) because it would eventually get me to Squirrel Lane.

Kaplan S. and Kaplan J. (1982). Humanscape: Environments For People. Michigan: Ulrich's Books Inc. 

Kaplan, Stephen. "Aesthetics, Affect and Cognition: Environmental Preference From an Evolutionary Perspective." Environment and Behavior, Vol. 19, No. 1, January1987, pp. 3-32.

Basic Needs and Metrics of Rationality

Rationality is a default ability that drives human to survive and prosper as a species: we maximize our benefits. Some would argue that sacrifice is actually a process of making optimal choices after exploring all the possibilities. I would like to believe that people are still ‘rationally’ making decisions but based on diversified needs and cognitive maps/values under different contexts. Based on Maslow’ hierarchy of basic needs, people are all making efforts to meet their basic needs: Physiological needs, Safety needs, Needs of Love, and belongingness, Needs of Esteem, and Needs for self-actualization (Maslow 1943). No matter how decisions are shaped, people are rational towards their needs.

 Meeting needs at different time.

For example, for the nights of weekdays, some people may choose to spend happy hours with friends whereas others bury themselves in Library instead. In this case, both these types of people want to maximize the outcome of meeting the needs of love/belongings, self-esteem and self-actualization. Spending time with friends will forge the friendship, belongings and thus boost the chance of making actualize oneself. Studying in the Library is not necessarily a sacrifice of a good time if one speculates it as an investment for future happiness or a personally preferable form of gaining pleasure and belongings from learning.

Meeting needs in different forms.

Likewise, it is true that those so-called selfish people focus more on themselves while people who dedicating time in serving others are more other-oriented. The word ‘selfish’ is based on the assumptions that humans live in a common society and thus you’ll need to take others’ needs into to consideration. In terms of meeting their needs, it does not mean that altruism is irrational: we all want to have belongings and self-actualization, one may just gain more happiness and satisfaction through helping others rather than focusing on themselves.  

Meeting different needs across Contexts.

Moreover, people are meeting different needs under different contexts. Some frugal parents may become so generous regarding the education of their kids. In this case, parents value the prosper and reputation of their family more than money. They are still meeting their needs but in the lenses that value more on belongs and self-esteem rather than self-actualization. Also, besides from making decisions based on the metrics of cost-benefits analysis, governments expedite on social welfare and justice as a way to address on market failure. It means that governors are also using social values in addition to dollar values when they are making decisions. It suggests that one is not always making decisions based on consistent metrics.

Like the old saying goes: ‘One man’s food is another’s poison’. The diverse metrics of needs that our rationality base on colorized our human world.

Maslow, Abraham Harold. "A theory of human motivation." Psychological review 50.4 (1943): 370. 

Heuristics vs. Rationality

Rationality is a way of solving problems by logics and based on clear reasons. It basically involves 3 steps: 1. Evaluate things with a single metric. 2. Compare possible alternatives knowing their values and expectancies. 3. Choose the option with the highest expected value. The highest expected value is resulted from the outcome of expectancy timing value, which is called the expectancy-value theory that pursues the best answer.

Making a decision based on the best answer – sounds quite reasonable, right? However, this is not what humans always do. Many of the times, we solve problem in a non-rational way – we use heuristics. Rationality and logics always applicable in a well-defined problem, not an ill-defined one with unclear goals or options. For example, how to figure out whom you are going to marry? Is there a single metric to evaluate every person around you, compare, and make the “best” option? When you follow a specified sequence of steps in a rationality, you can sooner or later reach the solution. But for Heuristics, it is kind of a “short cut”. It does not guarantee the best answer, but it is quick and easy.

Here are some of the weakness of Heuristics. One of them is the availability heuristics, which means people intend to estimate a high likelihood if an event if it is easily recalled. Another one is framing effects. For example, a packet of ground beef with a tag of “75% lean” will make you think it is healthy. But the same thing with a tag of “25% fat” may make you think it is unhealthy. These biases are some examples illustrating why you cannot always get the correct answer using heuristics.

Architects, city planners, and other designers treasure the moment when a great idea suddenly hit the mind. This moment is supported by insight and creative thinking rather than strict rationalities or logics. Urban planning is an interdiscipline where many considerations and evaluations are required. There is no specific sequence that we can follow. Sometimes there is an entry point by which we start our ideas and concepts before we find out all the possibilities. What we do is trying our best to make this alternative as good as possible (good enough), not to choose the best from all the possibilities. Actually there are unlimited possibilities, which human brain cannot figure out.

Ideas and philosophies are generated by heuristics, but we can also use rationality as a supportive tool. In planning process we also do analysis such as demographic analysis in order to see whether the proposed land use and housing units would accommodate a certain number of projected populations in the future. So as for rationalities and heuristics, there is no such thing as which one outweighs which one. They have their own operating context.

Since rationality follows a certain evaluating metric and a certain sequence, it can be programmed into a computer. Heuristics cannot be programmed because there is no “correct” or “best” answer, and it is quite adaptable. Computers or artificial intelligence can beat us in terms of speed, and they do better with “directed attention” and “channel capacity”. But they can hardly achieve heuristics as good as we do, which is based on human’s “internal representations” and “cognitive maps” That’s why I think heuristics characterize human beings. It makes us special and cannot be substituted by artificial intelligence.

References:

Gigerenzer, G. (2008). Why Heuristics Work. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 3(1), 20-29. doi:10.1111/j.1745-6916.2008.00058.x

Kaplan, S., & Kaplan, R. (1982). Humanscape: Environments for people. Ann Arbor, MI: Ulrich's Books. p. 121-141.

Psychology, (11th Edition). David Myers and C. Nathan Dewall, and 40 Studies that Changed Psychology, (7th Edition), Roger Hock.

Rationality and system thinking

When you tackle a maximization problem, you may need to consider an observer and his objective. System thinking tells you that you also need to define a system for the stakeholder. When we think this together with rationality, things become very interesting.

We know that humans are not rational agents. We do not use one measurement and freely substitute one thing for another. Due to limited information processing capabilities, we process information with heuristics which enables speedy and adaptive decisions. In other words, we sacrifice some immediate gain for other benefits such as cognitive speed and flexibility. Decision made by using heuristics are considered non-rational. However, I want to argue that in a system of long-term real life, it can be rational. Because we live in an uncertain and unstable environment, it is very important and beneficial that we can make quick response. Moreover, in the long run, only if we make flexible decision, that we can adapt to this unpredictable world. That is, we may maximize our long-term gains with heuristics although it seems irrational that some immediate benefits are forgone. Therefore, when we talk about rationality, it is wise to think about a well-defined system.

Here is another example about rationality and system thinking. I extract an example from Hardin’s article The Tragedy of the Commons and display it in the context of system thinking.

Picture a pasture open to all. Assume there are 1,000 herdsmen living in the day when the long-desired goal of social stability becomes a reality. The carrying capacity of the land is 10,000 cattle. Each herdsman also has a capacity of 100 cattle because of the limit of his energy. The utility of one herdsman who keeps Q cattle can be described as a function: U = Q – 1/1000 Q. This utility has one negative and one positive component. The positive component refers to the gain received by the herdsman from sale of animals. The negative component represents the effect of overgrazing shared by all the herdsmen. Now we can focus on each herdsman. How could each of them maximize his own utility? This can be translated into a mathematical problem. For each herdsman as a rational being, we can identify the objective function, decision variables, and constraints as following:

Objective function: max U = Q – 1/1000 Q

Decision variable: Q

Constraints: 0 (less than or equal to) Q (less than or equal to) 100

The solution is that Q = 100.

From above, we can see that for each herdsman, if he wants to maximize his utility, he will keep 100 cattle. Everyone on this pasture wants to maximize their own utility.  As a result, each herdsman owns 100 cattle and in total there will be 100 *1000 = 100,000 animals relying on the pasture which has the carrying capacity of just 10,000. The pasture ecosystem would collapse rapidly. At this point, we can finally understand the inherent logic of commons remorselessly generates tragedy. 

The problem here is that everyone just focuses on a very limited system, in this case, themselves. If they consider a bigger system namely the pasture, they may make a very different decision. Therefore, if we want to change human behaviors to more sustainable ones, we can always think about how to describe the system for them so that they can make relatively favorable decisions. 

Satisficing in economy

The main goal of the rationality process is optimizing, or to achieve the best solution possible, but in an information-rich world, where time is a constraint and the resources to get there are limited, selecting the best option from a sea of infinite options is a gargantuan task. Knowing this, why is economy based on the principle that humans always maximize their benefit when common sense says that they don't?

Economy is a science that involves humans as the main driving force, as opposed to physics or chemistry where natural concepts are involved. A rock does not decide to fall, it just does. A human might decide to buy or not to buy something. Economy also involve quantities, instead of qualities like the rest of the social sciences that study human qualities (even in quantitative studies, numbers are used to study qualities of something or someone). So Economy stands in an awkward place: for it to be a science it needs to abstract its main driving force: human behavior. But to abstract human behavior and model it, as we have learned so far, is a complex task.

Basic economic theory avoids complications and is based around the premise that humans act rationally or, what is the same maximize their benefits whenever they can. For a science that is so significant in our days, that statement is a huge leap of faith. Economists might argue that more complex economic theories address constraints and information gaps and therefore, model the decision making scenario more correctly. But, still, that's the issue.

When physicists and chemists model chemical reactions or heat transference, they model processes that are governed by strict and stable properties. Outcomes vary from a thread of connecting causes, and scientists’ ability to predict them is always limited. But when they model a process they know the effect that each introduced variable produces on the outcome and while they might fail to account for some undetected variable and predict wrongly, there's causality in the model: for example, in heat transference, if one increases the heat flow and everything else remains constant, the temperature will rise. In economy, that causality does not necessarily exist: if a person has to choose between two options and one is more attractive, does not mean it will be chosen. We can increase the attractiveness and it still might not get chosen. We can even decrease the attractiveness and it could be now chosen. There are ways to predict behavior, but they are not infallible.

Is it okay, then, to base economy in the concept of optimizing? Could optimizing be the underlying reason behind exponential growth and the overexploitation of Earth's natural resources? Have we, in our continuous search of optimums, spent unnecessary amounts of resources when we have probably needed less?

H.A. Simon defines the concept of satisficing as settling for a satisfactory solution instead of seeking the best one. Do you think an economy of satisficing instead of one of optimizing is what we need for a resource limited future?

Get to know a place by walking through it and leading the way on your own

I want to first share a story about my Mom and myself. My mom is really poor at way finding, but for years she had kept driving me to school (about 30-40 minutes) when I was very young. I knew that she remembered in heart how to get to my school from home and how to get back home by seeing the road signs – first go along this road and then turn right onto that road, etc. I didn’t get it because I could easily figure out the route by recognizing some features on the road, such as a bridge, a park, or a fancy building around a corner. When I saw the bridge I knew we need to go across it; when I saw the park I knew we need to keep going until the next corner and it’s time to change lane; when I saw the fancy building I knew that we were almost there at our destination. My mom and I have different schemata of navigation and orientation. If she by mistake makes a wrong turn before the park, she loses her route. But as for me, I know pretty well that if we go around the park, we can easily go back again onto the original route. Obviously I have a better cognitive map than my mom does.

Now I am here away from home and I have my own car. It’s my second year staying here, but at first Ann Arbor was totally a new place to me, so that whenever I went out in my car I set up Google Map navigation. The first time I need Google Map, the second time I still need it, the third time, the fourth time… Now I cannot live without it! I live in North Campus but it took almost a month until I was able to drive within North Campus without navigation. Moreover, it’s been one year and I still cannot find the way to Rave Cinemas without Google Map! I have to admit that I rely on it too much. And I learned that such a navigation can never help you build your mental maps.

Central Campus seemed even worse to me. If I hadn’t taken two courses at central campus this semester and have to commute every day, you may probably still see me holding the google map when I walk through the Diag trying to find a building. I have driven to central campus many times within the past one year, but I still failed to have an effective mental map depicting what central campus is like. However, only a week after this semester started, I got to know it pretty well. I know where the DANA building, the East Hall, the Angel Hall, and the Modern Language Building is. I have classes in these buildings and I have to walk among these places. As a result, I also got familiar with the surrounding areas such as E Washington Street, S University Avenue, N University Avenue, and S State Street. I knew these places before in pieces, but now I finally gained an overview, and have in mind a combined network of these places as well as how they connect to each other.

Based on so many experiences, I believe that building an effective mental map, or a cognitive map requires two major elements: attention and working process. Driving or taking a car/bus impedes attention, while driving with Google Map navigation impedes both. Compared with walking, a car or a bus moves faster. Walking gives us more time to pay attention to objects nearby and more time to digest the surrounding features. It slows down the speed of mental processing, which gives us enough time to build the internal representations as well as the association between them.

 When driving with the navigation on, we have to spare some of our attention focusing on the navigation rather than the road itself. What’s more, with the navigation, we have the confidence that we will get to the destination, because even if we go onto a wrong way, the navigation can quickly fix it up. In this case, we tend to be lazy and don’t bother to think by ourselves. The same is true when we go somewhere with a tour guide. What we do is just following, with no need to figure out the route by ourselves. By leading the way on our own, we can build a cognitive map through thinking and learning.

That is not to say that navigation or a map in hand is not good at all. It may not help with building a cognitive map during the time we are travelling, but it does help prior to the traveling. By studying a city’s map before going there, we may have some kind of expectations about that place. We may have in mind where the down town is. Maybe there is a river, a park, a museum, etc., that we can go to. We may figure out a general route connecting all these interesting sites. Expectations toward an event have been verified to have a positive effect on the interaction with it. And that is why the professor ask us to do the readings before the lecture.

Resouces:

1. Kaplan, S., Weaver, M. & Fu, L. (Draft) Chapter 4: Building Models. In A Small Brain In a Big World.

2. Hunt, M. E. (1984). Environmental learning without being there. Environment and Behavior. 16, 307 - 334

3. Falk, J. H., & Dierking, L. D. (1992). The museum experience. Washington, DC: Whalesback Books. Excerpt pp.30 - 35.

Knowing through New and Repeated Experiences

As spatial-processing and object-oriented species, we learn by building internal representations (IR) of objects and storing them in cognitive maps. Overtime, new experiences expand our mental maps while repeated experiences strengthen them.

Retrieved from http://www-levich.engr.ccny.cuny.edu/webpage/hmakse/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2015/06/brainnetworks.jpg

1. Knowing through New: the more we know, the more we don’t know.

In acquiring new knowledge and experiences, the more we learn about something, the less we seem to know about it. Why this oxymoron?

Let me try to explain this from the perspective of mental maps.

Our ability to store information efficiently through cognitive maps and be innately creative and curious at the same time allows us to learn quickly and at great capacity. These two abilities co-influence each other in that curiosity drives the search for knowledge, the need for predictions, and hence the expansion of metal maps; and knowledge, in return, drives more curiosity.

To illustrate conceptually, let’s consider a network of three IRs of objects. If we assume that each IR allows us to generate 2 new predictions related to the objects, which we don’t know whether are true or not prior to evaluation, then the network can produce a total of 6 predictions. If for every prediction evaluated we discover something new, and hence add an IR to the network, then by the time we’ve evaluated all 6 of the predictions and expanded our network by 6 IRs, we would’ve triggered 12 new predictions. As this process perpetuates, we can see that the number of predictions we can make exponentiates.

As we expand our cognitive maps with new experiences, we are also expanding our capability to ask more and deeper questions about the world. With more knowledge stored in our brain, we can simulate more and richer predictions ahead of real time. In the process of finding answers to our questions and evaluating our predictions, we become exposed to new things and events, which fuels our curiosity to know more. Thus the more we know, the less we know at the same time.

2. Knowing through Repeated: In building expertise, be mindful of openness to new ideas.

Repeated experience allows us to build expertise. With repeated experiences, the IR of the things we learned condenses and simplifies, allowing for quick recognition. However, with increasing familiarity, we become more inclined to jump to a conclusion quickly whenever a salient feature is detected in a familiar setting and activates the map correspondingly. This is not always helpful and can sometimes lead to grave consequences. For example, doctors can sometimes misdiagnose their patients based on the salient symptoms commonly encountered in their practice. Chronic abdomen pain can mean inflammatory bowel diseases to a general physician; but to an oncologist, it often means cancer.

Repeated exposure enriches and reinforces the structure of our mental maps, enabling effortless access to the networks. However, as these maps strengthen, it also becomes harder for us to rewire and overwrite them with new information, particularly with information that is contradictory to the IRs already in our maps. That’s why we often hear the saying that it’s hard to teach an old dog new tricks. This is why it’s hard to change people’s deep-rooted preconceived notions, which are anticipations arisen naturally from mental maps that have been concretized through time. Thus, as we become expert in what we do through repeated experiences, we must also be mindful that we do not generate stereotypes from our IRs, jump to conclusions too quickly, or close ourselves off from experiences that do not conform to our mental maps.

Culture Shock and Mental Maps

Why do we experience culture shock when moving to a new environment? I believe that the way that we create mental maps may provide some of the answer.

There are many theories regarding culture, but the one most familiar to me is Peter Adler’s five stage theory. According to this theory, the first stage is that of a tourist, where everything is new and exciting, but the person is still rooted in their home culture and experience. The next stage of culture shock involves feeling overwhelmed by the new culture and environment, and often a feeling of inadequacy. In the following next stage, the person can navigate the new environment more effectively. However, it is common to feel anger and resentment during this stage. The second to last stage includes increased navigational competency, and the ability to see both good and bad in the new environment. The final stage is when the person is equally as functional in the new environment as the old. Many people believe that the final stage can never be reached.

Me and some classmates completed a scavenger hunt shortly after arriving in Thailand. We went all over the city, used public transportation, and tried lots of food. This was our program's way of helping us build effective mental maps.

So what do mental models have to do with culture shock? I believe that much of the feelings of discomfort, resentment, anger, and being overwhelmed come from grappling with mental models that are insufficient to inform someone how to act in unfamiliar circumstances and new environments. The longer that person is in a new place, the more they incorporate new information into their mental models, or create new mental models if the information can’t be incorporated into a preexisting model. As these model become more functional as time passes, negative feeling begin to subside and it easier to experience more positive feelings.

A time in Thailand when one of my mental maps failed- I didn't realize that the oven used Celsius and overcooked all the cinnamon rolls. 

There are two times I remember experiencing culture shock in my life. The first was when I moved to Thailand and lived there for six months. The second was when I moved to rural northern Michigan for a year. Interesting, I experience more culture shock living in the rural town in Michigan than I ever did in Thailand, even though I am a Michigan native. I think there are a few reasons for this. Before moving to Thailand, I prefamiliarized myself with lots of aspects of Thai culture. While I still needed to adapt my models upon my arrival, my familiarity with Thai culture made these adaptations relatively easy. I did not prefamiliarize myself with the culture in the Michigan town I moved to, because the thought never crossed my mind that I would need to. Yet upon there, I realized that many of my preexisiting mental maps did not provide me with information on how to navigate small town life. It also took me a long to create new mental maps, probably because I wasn’t anticipating having to do so.

After I couldn't find any jobs using my degree, I adapted to country life and took a job farming.

Have any of you experienced culture shock? How do you think it relates to mental maps?

Knowing - Building and Using Cognitive Maps

When I lived in Washington, DC for a few years, I used cognitive maps to navigate around my new city.  The framework of my map was based on the city’s street grid system, where north-south streets are numbered and east-west streets are alphabetized.  Thus, even though I was new to the city, when someone said they were at 19^th & K or 31^st & M, I was able to refer to the grid in my head and could deduce a pretty accurate estimate of where in the city they were geographically.  Of course, the radial avenues could always throw you off a bit, but with time your mental map was able to account for those as well.   Another major piece of my cognitive map were the monuments and institutions, especially the White House, Washington Monument, Capital, and Mall that acted as points of reference. 

Additionally, even if I hadn’t been to an exact location in the city before, I might have an idea if the area were a residential neighborhood or commercial district, and my knowledge of the geographic location would be supplemented with representational imagery of what the area probably looked like.  The North-West area of the city would have stately townhomes, whereas the further east you went the residential housing became more simple working class housing.  Thus, when meeting someone at 19^th & K, even if I had never been there before, my mental map would allow me to reasonably predict what the street might look like, how safe it might be, and give me some options on how to get there.  My mental map would include the Metro system’s subway and even bus routes when contemplating navigation choices.  My mental model went beyond my experiences to create a multifaceted tool for navigation.  The longer I lived in the city, the more my map expanded and improved through repeated exposures to different areas.  I was able to create more representations that enriched my mental network through experience.  However, this map would also have it’s limitations.

When my parents would come to visit they would often rent a car because they were used to driving.  I however did not own a car in the city and got around by walking and taking public transportation.  This became a problem because while I knew my way around the city on foot, my mental maps did not include traffic patterns or controls because I hadn’t experienced them.  Therefore, I was not aware of which roads were one-way and which had turning limitations and I struggled to direct my parents to drive in my own neighborhood.  My cognitive map had simply not had to consider vehicular traffic controls before because as pedestrian, there are no one-way streets or limits on turning.  My mental map only included my experience as a pedestrian and public transit user, and there were definite gaps in my ability to navigate a vehicle through the area.  However, with each wrong turn we had to take, I was able to mentally map where we were and recalculate how we might get back onto our route at the next intersection.  It was an imperfect map, but it was still functional and I was able to strategize several options for arriving at our destination.  It is safe to say that my cognitive map had greatly expanded after the trip and now contained new information and representations gleaned from my experiences driving.  Thus, a cognitive map is always a work in progress, never complete and constantly being refined.

Creating an attention restoration-friendly office

When we think of the office, as well as work, it is usually less related with comfort, happiness, or fun; instead it is more associated with stress and dissatisfaction. The articles I found when I searched for keywords “office” and “happiness” in the Internet triggered this assumption. Most of the articles I found included language such as: “How to make you office a happy place,” “37 ways to feel happier in work ASAP,” “25 little things that will make you happy at work,” “How to design an office to maximize happiness,” or “How to make your office a happier place.” All of these tips and self-help articles show how people are not quite as happy as they would like in the office, thus the environment needs improving.

But, what if I told you that with a minimum investment, an office could also be a “happy” place that could play a big role in restoring your attention from directed attention fatigue (DAF), while boosting the productivity? Good news, that kind of office—with relatively low interior design budget—it actually exists!

This is what you will see in a reception/ waiting area of that office. Yes, a collection of plants.

Tiny corner garden at the reception area

It’s Greenpeace Indonesia’s office. Aside from this collection of plants, the office also has a lot of plants in every corner, and has a fluid interior design by using short bamboo (less than 1.5 meters) as separator between departments. They believe that seeing green will help to give you a peaceful mindset and boost your productivity. This belief is supported by research saying that having plants in the office will increase productivity more than 40% and also is related to the Attention Restoration Theory.

Attention restoration theory explains three different kind of restoration: basic restoration, deep restoration, and wise management. One of the quickest ways to pursue is basic restoration that can be achieved by resting the mental resource. By resting the mental resource for a while, the mind will become fresh and ready to be productive again, or perhaps even more productive than before. Meanwhile seeing the green, or having vegetation (plants, trees, etc.) around is one way to rest the directed attention and switch to involuntary fascination, says the theory. Hence having a greener office will help to restore the mind, and at the end help boost the productivity of employees.

Aside from being surrounded by green, another way of practicing the basic restoration according to attention restoration is by taking a nap — providing a resting area supports this practice.

Lounge/ beanbags area normally use to have a quick rest,
or just to have a relax position while working.

This beanbag area is often used by employees to take a rest and have a quick nap during the day, so they will be able to go back to work fresh and with a clearer mindset.

More than just providing a beanbags area, the office is also very supportive with work-life balance and taking care of your mental capacity. For example, the office has a strict rule about building hours. The workspace will not be open before 8.00 AM and will be locked at 6.00 PM. If staff need to work before and after that time they can order a key. However, the office will not provide electricity before and after the official office hours. If staff urgently need to work overtime at the office, they have another option, which is to pay 75,000 Rp/hour (5.7 USD) for electricity, or 125,000 Rp/hour (9.6 USD) including air conditioning. These barriers prevent employees from being overworked, which might result in DAF.

In addition to working time, another way employees avoid DAF is through the regulations related to working hours. Staff are only eligible to work 40 hours a week. Staff will not get paid for working overtime. However, holiday (in a form of time in lieu/ TIL) will be provided as a substitution, as much as the amount of overtime, and this holiday should be taken within three months of the working time.

Furthermore, another way proposed by attention restoration theory to avoid DAF is by doing deep restoration, which can be completed by doing the basic restoration plus the effort to pursue reflection and reduce internal distraction. Yoga and meditation are two examples that can lead to deep restoration. Greenpeace Indonesia supports this practice by providing Healthy Living Benefits, which is an incentive that can be reimbursed for some activities: yoga and meditation are two of them. The idea behind giving these benefits is not about giving as much benefits to make an employee do it, but it’s rather about giving incentives as a trigger to do something beneficial for themselves. This way, the habit will be created and hopefully will be sustained.

Last but not least, attention restoration theory also proposes wise management, which includes the practice of eliminating external distraction and selecting preferred environments. This incentive is provided by giving freedom for staff to work from wherever. Most of the staff work from their office desk, but some move to more isolated rooms when they need more silence to reflect. The freedom to choose a workplace is extended to outside the office area. Some staff might choose to work from home, or wherever is more convenient to get their work done. This way they are able to choose familiar domains in order to avoid unnecessary effort, which could cause more DAF.

Creative Room only have one bright yellow sofa (with pillows and stuffed animals),
 and some floor-seated options, staff can use this room to do work, to contemplate, or to have a meeting.

This example might be not ideal if we compare to some other offices (Google’s office for example) which have a real nap room, play ground, or sophisticated technology. However, it shows that big investments are not a necessity in order to be able to provide spaces for attention restoration during the workday. Every office can do it, or even should do it, because, as we know, burned out people won’t be able to save the planet!

Sources:

Griffiths, S. (2013, December 6). Could having a plant on your desk get you a Promotion? Houseplants 'make workers 40% more productive and creative'. Daily Mail. Retreived from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2519437/Houseplants-make-workers-40-productive-creative.html

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of environmental psychology, 15(3), 169-182.

Nieuwenhuis, M., Knight, C., Postmes, T., & Haslam, S. A. (2014). The relative benefits of green versus lean office space: Three field experiments. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 20(3), 199.