Light as a positive situational cue at work: Satisfaction with light relates to judgements of other's warmth and competence

Workplace illumination is known to impact mood, performance and decision-making. Based on the idea that positive feelings associated with light might influence social judgements in workplaces, we propose that satisfaction with light as a specific affective response to light would lead to positive judgements of other individuals. In a laboratory experiment (N = 164), participants assessed their satisfaction with light and rated other person's faces on warmth and competence. Results showed that satisfaction with light positively influenced judgement of others. We replicated the positive relation between satisfaction with light and social judgements in a field study with employees (N = 176). These findings highlight the importance of satisfaction with light for social judgement in workplaces. We discuss theoretical contributions and practical implications concerning the design of settings involving the evaluation of other individuals. Practitioner Summary: The design of work settings where the evaluation of others takes place is an important topic. A laboratory experiment and a field study demonstrate that satisfaction with workplace illumination influences judgements of others. The results provide interesting possibilities for the design of work settings that involve the evaluation of others. Abbreviations: ANOVA: Analysis of Variance; ANSI: American National Standards Institute; C: celsius; CI: confidence interval; Cm: centimeter; EN 12464 Lighting of indoor workplaces, English version; IESNA-RP: illuminating engineering society of North America, Recommended Practice; ISO: International Organization for Standardization; K: kelvin; Lx: lux; Min: minutes; PANAS: positive affect and negative affect scale; Ra: colour rendering index; SD: standard deviation; SE: standard error; WMA: World Medical Association.

When Do People Rely on Affective and Cognitive Feelings in Judgment? A Review

Although people have been shown to rely on feelings to make judgments, the conditions that moderate this reliance have not been systematically reviewed and conceptually integrated. This article addresses this gap by jointly reviewing moderators of the reliance on both subtle affective feelings and cognitive feelings of ease-of-retrieval. The review revealed that moderators of the reliance on affective and cognitive feelings are remarkably similar and can be grouped into five major categories: (a) the salience of the feelings, (b) the representativeness of the feelings for the target, (c) the relevance of the feelings to the judgment, (d) the evaluative malleability of the judgment, and (e) the level of processing intensity. Based on the reviewed evidence, it is concluded that the use of feelings as information is a frequent event and a generally sensible judgmental strategy rather than a constant source of error. Avenues for future research are discussed.