An Arousal Optimization Model of Lighting Level Preferences

Both the lighting level of a setting and the social situation can affect arousal. If individuals attempt to maintain an optimal arousal level, then preferred lighting levels for a particular setting should vary with social variables. The purpose of this study was to examine this hypothesis. Male and female subjects (N = 105) were presented with 48 hypothetical situations and were asked to indicate their lighting level preferences for each. Some of the situations involved activities requiring a high degree of visual attention, while the other situations involved activities of a nonvisual nature. Activities were crossed with a social variable: a platonic friend present, a romantic partner present, or a group of platonic friends present. Across all activities, brightness preferences for the romantic partner situations were significantly lower than preferences for either the platonic friend situations or the group of friends situations. The effect of the social situation was very strong for nonvisual activities, but it was considerably weakened for visual activities. Also, brightness preferences were lower for situations with a group of friends than with one friend, but only for complex tasks. The results are consistent with arousal optimization theory.

[1]  R. Reisenzein.  The Schachter theory of emotion: two decades later. , 1983, Psychological bulletin.

[2]  L. Festinger,et al.  Some consequences of de-individuation in a group , 1952 .

[3]  Yakov M. Epstein,et al.  Crowding Stress and Human Behavior , 1981 .

[4]  D. Berlyne,et al.  Aesthetics and Psychobiology , 1975 .

[5]  Darrell L. Butler,et al.  Preferred Lighting Levels , 1987 .

[6]  Kenneth J. Gergen,et al.  Deviance In Dark , 1973 .

[7]  Robert B. Zajonc,et al.  Social facilitation of dominant and subordinate responses , 1966 .

[8]  John Innes,et al.  Social facilitation and social monitoring: A new look at Zajonc's mere presence hypothesis , 1982 .

[9]  John T. Cacioppo,et al.  Social psychophysiology : a sourcebook , 1983 .

[10]  L. Wankel.  Audience size and trait anxiety effects upon state anxiety and motor performance. , 1977, Research quarterly.

[11]  Gardner Murphy,et al.  Experimental social psychology. , 1934 .

[12]  D. Berlyne.  Novelty, complexity, and hedonic value , 1970 .

[13]  Robert B. Zajonc,et al.  Social facilitation of word associations. , 1968 .

[14]  Albert Mehrabian,et al.  Public Places and Private Spaces , 1977 .

[15]  R. Martens.  Palmar Sweating and the Presence of an Audience. , 1969 .

[16]  Robert B. Zajonc,et al.  Social psychology : an experimental approach , 1966 .

[17]  R. Geen,et al.  Drive Theory of Social Facilitation: Twelve Years of Theory and Research , 1977 .

[18]  D. Hebb.  Drives and the C.N.S. (conceptual nervous system). , 1955, Psychological review.

[19]  J. Freedman,et al.  Conceptions of Crowding. (Book Reviews: Crowding and Behavior; The Environment and Social Behavior. Privacy, Personal Space. Territory, Crowding) , 1975 .

[20]  G. William Walster,et al.  A new look at love , 1978 .

[21]  S. Schachter.  The Interaction of Cognitive and Physiological Determinants of Emotional State , 1964 .

[22]  C. F. Bond,et al.  Social facilitation: a meta-analysis of 241 studies. , 1983, Psychological bulletin.

[23]  S. Milgram.  The experience of living in cities. , 1970, Science.