The
environment has always had an effect on people’s behaviour. Going to the beach,
the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore has a calming effect on people.
The bright blue sky contrasting the dark blue ocean waves is always a pretty
sight. Horror movies always try to paint the environment with dark red colors.
The ominous dark red stains of blood on the wall mixed with the pitch black
environment always manages to give the viewers that highly alert terrified
feeling that something could pop out of the screen at any moment. Thus, it’s
not surprising that the environment would have an effect on the productivity in
the workplace; more specifically, the color predominantly surrounding a person,
aka, the walls of an office space.
Why exactly
color? While, yes, one of the reasons is its relation to the theme of this
blog, it’s also a widely researched topic. Color is everywhere around us. One
of the ideal icebreakers would be: What’s your favorite color? Everything has
color and the sense of vision is usually the one we rely on the most. So, it
makes sense that our environment’s color has an effect on the way we behave.
One of
these environments would be the work place. One of the oldest tricks in the
book, according to various articles found online, is to paint your work place
blue. Blue increases productivity.
However,
where did all this research come from? And how exactly, why exactly, does blue
manage to increase productivity?
According
to one of the latest research by Kwallek and colleagues (2007), their results
imply that the often cited “blue increases productivity” is an oversimplified
statement of previous research from before. While, yes, technically, it is true
that blue increases productivity, the operational definition of productivity is
quite limited.
Things are
actually more complicated than just painting your work place (or your room) a
shade of blue to keep things going. Previous researches have shown that it’s
not actually the color blue that directly affects your processing and your
productivity; blue indirectly affects it. One research attempted this through
letting a participant interact with a blue object before the actual testing,
there was no correlation, nor was there a change in their performances of
physiological and cognitive tasks.
So what
exactly is it about the color blue that affects people’s productivity? The
answer is in its wavelength.
Bright and colorful, like our childhood, like the rainbow.
To our
brain, we don't actually process things by pointing out “Oh, hey, that’s the
color yellow, that’s the color blue, etc.”. Perceiving color is actually
processed through its wavelength. Each color has a different wavelength. If
you’ve ever wondered why rainbows are in that order (yes, attempt to remember
that acronym, ROYGBIV from elementary school), that’s because red has the
longest wavelength whereas violet has the shortest (well, according to the
visible spectrum on the wavelength, the others the naked eye really can’t see
and require the use of tools to identify them).
Through the
help of scientists from the past, it’s been identified that the color red
excites the eyes more than any other color and attracts attention. This is also
the reason why red cars statistically get pulled over more than any other car.
Not because people who drive red cars are reckless but rather red cars attract
more attention than other cars. Whereas, colors from the shorter wavelengths
(like blue and green) don’t exude as much attention and excitement compared to
the longer wavelengths.
But what
does this mean in the work place, exactly? It’s been found that when their
surrounding walls are red, workers tend to make more mistakes in their work in
typing and took more time doing the work compared to those working in green
rooms. It has been suggested that because it has been found that red is a
highly exciting color; it would have distracted the workers from their tasks.
Note that
the activity chosen in the above mentioned research was “typing”. This is what
is considered to be the operationalized definition of productivity for most
because it’s one of the activities most often done in a work place.
Hello? Yes, I'm quite productive right now.
So, in the
latest research, they created each room exactly the same except for one variable:
the predominant color of the room. One was painted white, the other painted
red, and the last one painted a predominantly blue-green color. The
participants were separated into these three groups to work for a week. Results
show that participants performed better in the blue-green color, then white,
then red. However, it also depended on how sensitive they were to the stimulus
in their environment (individual environmental sensitivity), as it was found
that results varied to this.
It was
found that it wasn’t just the predominant color of the office that had an
effect on the work productivity. It was a mixture of the visual complexity
(processing the colors and their complements) and individual environmental
sensitivity (whether it was high or low). All of these had an effect on the
productivity of each person. As said earlier, productivity was defined in terms
of clerical work. It may be different for creativity activities, brainstorming
ideas, or physical grunt work.
As it’s
standing, while the whole “paint your office blue to increase productivity”
seems to work, if you look into the research, it could also be paint your
office green. As long as you understand the science behind it (aka the
wavelength) and the psychological part of it (the stimulus sensitivity), then
you’re bound to be able to use this research properly and not just identify the
color blue as the predominantly productive color but rather discover an entire
wavelength of it.
References:
Kwallek,
N., Soon, K., & Lewis, C. M. (2007). Work week productivity, visual
complexity, and individual environmental sensitivity in three offices of
different color interiors. Color Research & Application, 32(2),
130–143. http://doi.org/10.1002/col.20298
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