Wood in the interior office environment: Effects on interpersonal perception

Environmental psychologists have long recognized the interdependence of people and their physical environments and that people receive part of their personal identity from their surroundings. This study sought to discern the effects of wood on interpersonal perception using the interior office environment as a model setting. Photo-questionnaires were used where three male and three female office occupants were digitally superimposed into three office schemas varying in the use of wood in furniture and flooring. Respondents reported biographical information such as gender and ethnicity and completed a rapid personality test before describing their first impressions of the office occupants in both structured and open-ended response formats. Five attributes of identity display were assessed: professionalism, success, honesty, caring, and creativity. The results suggest that the use of wood for interior office decoration leads to an overall more favorable first impression of the occupant, and did not lead to discrimination between the individual attributes. There was also no evidence of an interaction between office environment and occupant, suggesting that the effects are somewhat generic. European respondents seemed to give greater consideration to the office environment than Asian (mainly Chinese) respondents. We view this evidence as pointing to wider personal and social qualities connoted by wood in the built environment, which are highly relevant to the development and marketing of future wood products.