Environment

and Behavior
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The Effects of Interior Design on Communication and Impressions of

a Counselor in a Counseling Room
Yoshiko Miwa and Kazunori Hanyu
Environment and Behavior 2006 38: 484
DOI: 10.1177/0013916505280084
The online version of this article can be found at:
http://eab.sagepub.com/content/38/4/484

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ENVIRONMENT
10.1177/0013916505280084
Miwa,
Hanyu / EFFECTS
AND BEHA
OF INTERIOR
VIOR / JulyDESIGN
2006

THE EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN ON

COMMUNICATION AND IMPRESSIONS
OF A COUNSELOR IN A COUNSELING
ROOM

YOSHIKO MIWA is a graduate student in the doctoral program at Nagoya University. She majors in clinical and environmental psychology and works as a counselor at
a junior high school in Mie, Japan. Both theoretically and practically, she is interested in environmental factors related to counseling. Currently, she also studies environmental factors related to adolescents solitude and self-insight.
KAZUNORI HANYU is an associate professor of psychology at College of Humanities and Sciences of the Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from
the Ohio State University in 1995. His current research focuses on meanings of places
and environmental issues in crimes.

ABSTRACT: This study aimed to investigate effects of the interior design of a counseling room on participants self-disclosure and impressions of a counselor. The
authors examined the effects of lighting and decorations. It tested four conditions
crossing decorations (with or without home-like decorations) and type of lighting
(bright or dim). Eighty undergraduate students (clients) were randomly assigned to
one of the conditions and individually underwent a structured interview with an interviewer (a counselor) and then completed a questionnaire. The results showed that dim
lighting yielded more pleasant and relaxed feelings, more favorable impressions of
the interviewer, and more self-disclosure than did the bright lighting. However, the
authors found no predominant pattern of the decorations. Thus, the pleasant and relaxed feelings related to dim lighting may well enhance the perceived attractiveness
of a counselor and self-disclosure from clients. The results imply that interior design
could influence communication and other relationships in counseling rooms.
Keywords:

counseling room; interior design; communication

Can a room environment facilitate counseling, affecting clientsself-disclosure

or the interpersonal relationship between a client and a counselor? Although
ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR, Vol. 38 No. 4, July 2006 484-502
DOI: 10.1177/0013916505280084
2006 Sage Publications

484
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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 485

mental health professionals have believed that the counseling setting can
influence treatment and outcome (Gross, Sasson, Zarhy, & Zohar, 1998), little research has examined the healing potential related to the design of the
counseling space (Pressly & Heesacker, 2001). Anthony and Watkins (2002)
consider the treatment setting as an intriguing area of overlap between environmental and clinical psychology. Their informal interviews with therapists revealed 12 issues of importance in the design of the counseling setting:
location, image, degree of visibility, proximity of rest room, privacy, easy-toread clocks, entrance and exits, furniture, lighting, views, plants, and artwork
(Anthony & Watkins, 2002).
Miwa and Hanyu (2002) studied the furniture arrangement of 74 counseling rooms in Japan and interviewed 23 counselors about the physical environments where they work. They found that the counselors paid attention to
the atmosphere (e.g., relaxing, soft, natural, or plain), plants (e.g., flower
vases and foliage plants), and sound (e.g., soundproof doors and walls and
background music) in the rooms. Yet, because the counselors often selected
the location of their rooms on economic grounds or within a general plan of
their parent organizations (such as a university or public institutions), they
reported that they could do nothing about the physical design of the rooms or
the buildings in which the rooms were placed (Miwa & Hanyu, 2002). Thus,
most counselors have found the importance of physical conditions of counseling settings from their experience. If and how those conditions affect the
counseling conditions and outcomesthe counselors and organizations
should be made aware.
INTERIOR CONDITIONS AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR

An early work by Maslow and Mintz (1956) showed that the aesthetic
conditions in rooms affected participants ratings on photographs of human
faces. The study tested three room conditions: A beautiful room had beigecolored walls, an indirect overhead light, a soft armchair, a mahogany desk
and chair combination, paintings on the walls, some art objects, and so on. An
average room had battleship-gray walls, an indirect overhead light, two
mahogany desk and chair combinations, two straight-backed chairs, a metal
bookcase, and so on. An ugly room had battleship-gray walls, an overhead
bulb with a dirty, ill-fitting lampshade, two straight backed chairs, a small
AUTHORS NOTE: Please address correspondence to Kazunori Hanyu, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Science, Nihon University, 3-25-40,
Sakurajousui, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-8550, Japan (e-mail: khanyu@chs.nihon-u
.ac.jp).

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486 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

table, mops, trash cans, and so on. Participants assigned to the beautiful room
tended to describe it as attractive, pretty, comfortable, and pleasant, and they
rated the photographs of faces as having more energy and well-being than the
same photographs in the average or ugly rooms. In a study of the long-term
effects on participants, Mintz (1956) found that the participants in the ugly
room were more likely to complain of monotony, fatigue, and headache and
showed irritability and hostility.
Several studies on the impact of university environments on students
responses supported these findings. For example, Campbell (1979) and
Morrow and McElroy (1981) reported that the students felt more comfortable and welcome when seated in a clean office with foliage plants and posters, and they expected the professor of the office to be more affable, less
harried, and to talk common interests. In contrast, students perceived the professors in cluttered offices as hurried and busy, thereby decreasing their
pleasant feelings (Campbell, 1979; Morrow & McElroy, 1981). In Locassos
(1988) replication of Maslow and Mintzs study, controlling experimental
artifacts such as time spent in the rooms, symbolic instructions to participants, and social-interaction effects; however, he found no effects of the interior environment. Locasso concluded that the effects would have arisen
through social interaction over time on which he did not test the effects of
aesthetics (Locasso, 1988). The effects by aesthetic interior design may be
likely to become more significant through the interaction of visual quality
with interpersonal factors and longer-term exposure.
The character of the room may also affect communications. Sommer
(1969) found that female geriatric participantsconversation levels improved
in a warm or sociofugal atmosphere that consisted of flowers, magazines,
vases, and so on. Chaikin, Derlega, and Miller (1976) found higher levels of
self-disclosure to an interviewer in a soft room (pictures on the wall, cushioned furniture, rugs, and soft lighting) than in a hard one (cement block
walls and fluorescent lighting). Note the overlap between the soft versus hard
room and the Maslow and Mintzs (Maslow & Mintz, 1956; Mintz, 1956)
beautiful versus ugly room. Perhaps the effects on feelings, impressions of
others and communication apply to counseling settings. Our study sought to
investigate the effects of room quality on participants self-disclosure and
impressions on an interviewer.
COMPONENTS OF PLEASANT INTERIOR DESIGN

Many of the previous studies (e.g., Chaikin et al., 1976; Kasmar, Griffin,
& Mauritzen, 1968; Locasso, 1988; Maslow & Mintz, 1956; Mintz, 1956)
examined the effect of many interior elements at once without testing effects

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 487

related to a particular feature. Although beautiful rooms may have salutary

effects, we do not know what features or combinations of features account
for those effects. For example, Maslow and Mintzs (1956) beautiful room
had beige-colored walls, an indirect light, a soft armchair, a mahogany desk
and chair combination, paintings on the walls, and some art objects, and their
ugly room had battleship-gray walls, an overhead bulb with a dirty ill-fitting
lampshade, two straight backed chairs, a small table, mops, trash cans, and so
on. In Kasmar et al. (1968), the beautiful room had a burned yellow carpet, an
abstract picture on a wall, artificial plants, a wooden wastebasket, and indirect lighting, and the ugly room had an overflowing, gray, metal waste basket
and ashtray, unkempt work papers strewn on furniture, and overhead fluorescent lighting. The soft room used by Chaikin et al. (1976) had an oriental rug,
a cushioned armchair, framed pictures, magazines, an ashtray, a floor ramp,
and a table ramp, and their hard room had a brown asphalt floor, cement
block walls painted yellow, a rectangular table with a straight back chair, and
overhead fluorescent lighting. Obviously, the difference between beautiful
rooms and ugly rooms was mainly made by the quality and quantity of furniture, decorations, and lighting in total.
Gifford (1988) pointed out two important features of rooms to provide
positive impression and feeling: home-like decorations and dim lighting.
Gifford believed that the presence of art posters and decorative rugs help to
create a home-like atmosphere, which might enhance comfort and intimate
communications. He also believed that lower (i.e., dim) lighting would produce lower arousal and increase calmness and intimate communication
whereas bright light would increase arousal, and make people more talkative
in general (Gifford, 1988).
Giffords study found that bright light increased both general communication and intimate communication to friends in the written communications
move than dim light (Gifford, 1988). Perhaps the findings do not apply to oral
communications with an unknown interviewer, serving as a counselor. Dim
lighting plays an important role on relaxing feelings and emotion to others in
rooms (e.g., Flynn, 1988, 1992; Flynn, Spencer, Martyniuk, & Hendrick,
1973). Flynn has examined three salient dimensions of artificial lighting
(uniformnonuniform, overheadperipheral, and brightdim) and found
judgments of visual clarity, spaciousness, relaxation, privacy, and pleasantness related to them. Of particular relevance to the present study, he found
that dim lighting increased peoples impression of relaxation and privacy that
implied feelings people could talk more intimately to others (Flynn, 1988).
Other research has found that people give higher ratings to an imaginary
employee under lower (dim) than higher (bright) illumination (Baron, Rea,
& Daniels, 1992). Thus, lighting and in particular its brightness may well

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488 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

influence clients impressions of environments, the counselor, and interpersonal communication.

With regard to decorations, Gifford (1988) found that home-like decorations improved both general and intimate communications among female
undergraduate participants. He suggested that home-like decorations probably induce comfortableness while evoking sense of refuge and guardedness
that is associated with home, both of which might encourage communication
(Gifford, 1988). Thus, we believe that counseling settings with home-like decorations would evoke comfortable feelings and more open communication.
Decorations and lighting might interact. If the lighting harmonizes with
decorations, people should judge the space as more pleasant (Steffy, 1990).
As both home-like decorations and dim lighting should increase relaxation,
their combination may accentuate the pleasant feelings more than either
feature alone.
This study primarily aimed to investigate the pleasant effects by interior
design on participantsimpression on an interviewer and their self-disclosure
in a counseling room. As the major components of aesthetic or pleasant
rooms, we examined the effects of dim lighting and home-like decorations.
To investigate the independent and interactive effects, we employed four
conditions, the combinations of existence of home-like decorations (with or
without), and types of lighting (bright or dim). First, we hypothesized that
participants would judge the conditions with dim lighting and with homelike decorations as more pleasant and relaxing than with bright lighting and
no decorations. Furthermore, and similar to impressions of the environment,
the interviewer would be evaluated more positively, and the amount of participants self-disclosure to the interviewer would be greater in the conditions
with dim lighting and home-like decorations than with only bright lighting.
Second, the combination of dim lighting and home-like decorations would
promote participants relaxed impression most, so their positive impressions
on an interviewer and the amount of self-disclosure would be greatest in all
the conditions.

METHOD
PARTICIPANTS

Eighty undergraduate students (male = 39, female = 41, mean of ages =

20.2 years) from introductory psychology classes of Nihon University
served as participants.

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 489

Figure 1: Four Conditions in a Counseling Room: (A) Without Decorations and

Bright Lighting, (B) With Decorations and Bright Lighting, (C) Without
Decorations and Dim Lighting, and (D) With Decorations and Dim
Lighting

CONDITIONS IN A COUNSELING ROOM

The room in this study was used for actual counseling. It was 250cm
(height) 230cm (depth) 220cm (width) with one door and no windows.
The room had white walls, two fluorescent lamps (40W) in the ceiling, two
incandescent lamps (36W) on the east wall, and an incandescent table lamp
(36W) on a table. A 110cm (height) 100cm (depth) 120cm (width)
wooden table with two steel chairs with leather cushions on either side, and a
third incandescent table lamp (36W) was placed in the center of the room.
The interviewer sat on one chair, and the participant sat on the other. A video
camera was place on the corner of a 120cm (height) 25cm (depth) 220cm
(width) ledge.
Figure 1 shows the four room conditions. The without decorations and
bright lighting condition had no decorations in the room, the incandescent
lamps off, and the fluorescent ceiling lamps on. The with decorations and
bright lighting condition had a beige carpet on the floor, a beige tablecloth on
the table, various small objects (such as two stuffed dolls, three framed

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490 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

pictures of flowers, and artificial flowers on a vase placed on the ledge), and a
framed drawing of a bridge decorated one wall faced by the participant. The
incandescent lamps were off, and the fluorescent ceiling lights were on. The
without decorations and dim lighting condition had no room decorations, the
fluorescent ceiling lamps off, and the incandescent lamps on. The with decorations and dim lighting condition had the same decorations as the with decorations and bright lighting condition and the same lighting as the without
decorations and dim lighting condition: The incandescent lamps were
switched on, and the fluorescent lamps in the ceiling were switched off. The
intensity of illumination on the table was 750lx in the two bright-lighting
conditions and 150lx in the two dim conditions.
INTERVIEWER AND CONTENT OF INTERVIEW

A female graduate student (24 years old) majoring in counseling psychology at Nihon University served as the interviewer. We did not inform her of
the purpose of this experiment, and we eliminated students who knew the
interviewer from the study. She interviewed every participant, according to a
script, based on the Ego Identity Status Interview for university students
(Muto, 1979) that had 20 questions. These questions were designed to extract
self-reflective answers and standardized to minimize the effect of the interviewers bias (Kii & Miwa, 2002).
MEASURES

Impressions of the interior environment. We employed the Affective

Appraisal Scale (Hanyu, 1997, 2000) to investigate the differences of
participants impressions of the environment across the four conditions
and to check the manipulation of the interior physical appearance as independent variables. The scale had six 5-point bipolar adjectives to assess the
affective appraisals of the environment: pleasantunpleasant, interesting
uninteresting, excitingboring, relaxingdistressing, safefearful, and active
inactive. 1 and 5 stood for very, 2 and 4 for fairly, and 3 for neutral.
Impressions of the interviewer. We used the Personal Characteristic Scale
(Hayashi, 1978) to measure the participants impressions of the interviewer.
The scale that was based on Osgoods three dimensions of meaning (e.g.,
Osgood & Suci, 1955) was made to assess general impressions of persons.
The scale had 20 7-point bipolar adjectives where 1 and 7 stood for very, 2
and 6 for fairly, 3 and 5 for slightly, and 4 for neutral (see the appendix).

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 491

Self-disclosure. The duration of speaking times of each participant were

measured by a chronograph in the recorded video tapes. We measured the
duration of speaking times up to 15 min from the first question in the interviews. We also used three 7-point scales (from 1 = not at all to 7 = very much)
to assess participants reactions to their talking: How much could you speak
about yourself to the interviewer? How much did your talk reflect your private aspects? and How much did you feel relaxed to speak in the conversation? These served as measures of the adequacy of the self-disclosure by the
participants.
Procedure. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the four
conditions. Instead of the actual purpose of this study, we instructed each participant that the interview aimed to investigate adolescents self and identity
as follows:
Starting now, you are individually interviewed about yourself and your identity
by a female counselor for 20 min in a counseling room. The counselor is waiting for you in the room. Meanwhile, we will record your conversation in the
room by a video camera to check your protocols; however, the recorded video
tapes would be kept confidential. Please go into the room and freely respond to
the questions asked by the counselor. In addition, please answer a questionnaire after the interview in the room.

In the room, the interviewer was sitting on the chair that faced toward the
door and waiting for the participant. When the participant entered the room,
the interviewer asked him or her to sit down in the chair faced by the interviewer. The participant entered and sat on one chair and then the interviewer
started to interview him or her. Each interview lasted about 20 min. After the
interview, the interviewer asked the participant to complete a questionnaire
that included the Affective Appraisal Scale (Hanyu, 1997, 2000), the Personal Characteristic Scale (Hayashi, 1978), and three question items to rate
his or her talk while sitting in the interviewers presence. Then, the participant was debriefed about the true purpose of the study.1

RESULTS

Preliminary analyses indicated no gender differences on any of the dependent measures. Consequently, the data from male and female participants
were combined in all the analyses.

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492 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

TABLE 1
The Factor Structure of the Affective Appraisal Scale

Variables
Pleasantunpleasant
Relaxingdistressing
Safefearful
Excitingboring
Activeinactive
Interestinguninteresting
Eigenvalue
Variance explained by each factor (%)
Cumulative explained by each factor (%)
Interfactor correlations
Factor 1
Factor 2

Factor 1

Factor 2

Communality

.85
.79
.68

.37
2.44
40.56
40.56

.49

.75
.51
.51
1.63
27.14
67.71

.81
.70
.47
.57
.29
.32

1.00
.24

1.00

NOTE: Values less than 0.2 have been showed as .

IMPRESSION OF THE INTERIOR ENVIRONMENT

A factor analysis performed on the Affective Appraisal Scale (Hanyu,

1997, 2000) yielded a two-factor solution as statistically viable (eigenvalue
of Factor 1 = 2.44, eigenvalue of Factor 2 = 1.63, and variance explained by
the two factors = 67.71%). Because the two factors were correlated with each
other (r = .24), we obtained the results shown in Table 1 by using an oblique
rotation method (Promax Rotation). Factor 1, which had high loading for
pleasant, relaxing, and safe was labeled pleasantcalming factor. Factor 2,
which had high loading for exciting, active, and interesting was named
arousing factor.
The mean scores of the two factors were calculated from the scores of the
items whose loading on a factor exceeded 0.50. Table 2 shows the mean
scores of the two factors in all conditions. To examine the differences of the
impressions of the environment among the four conditions, a two-way
(Types of Lighting Existence of Decorations) crossed design of
multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) was performed on the mean
scores of the two factors. The result showed a main effect of types of lighting
(F[2, 75] = 8.24, p < .01; using Wilkss lambda criterion). Follow-up
univariate analyses showed that the mean scores of the items included in the
pleasantcalming factor were significantly higher in the dim than the bright
light conditions (F[1, 76] = 15.56, p < .01). No significant differences
emerged for the arousing factor scores across the conditions.

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 493

TABLE 2
The Differences of Mean Scores of Indexes of Each Factor
(PleasantCalming or Arousing) in the Affective Appraisal Scale
Among the Four Conditions

Bright Lighting
Without
Decorations
Variables
Pleasantcalming**
Arousing

SD

3.00
2.47

0.60
0.55

Dim Lighting

With
Decorations
M

SD

3.22 0.74
2.70 0.59

Without
Decorations

With
Decorations

SD

SD

3.63
2.45

0.82
0.74

3.83
2.70

0.66
0.45

NOTE: n = 80 in each cell.

**p < .01.

IMPRESSION OF THE INTERVIEWER

Because some studies (Hayashi, 1979, 1981, 1982a, 1982b) have shown
inconsistencies in the factor structure of the Personal Characteristic Scale
(Hayashi, 1978), we examined the factor structure of the data obtained in this
study. First, a factor analysis performed on the 20 bipolar items in the scale
yielded a three-factor solution (eigenvalue of factor 1 = 5.64, eigenvalue of
factor 2 = 3.14, eigenvalue of factor 3 = 2.34, and variance explained by the
three factors = 55.86%). Eliminating items of which loading on one factor
were smaller than 0.50 or overlapped on one or more factors, we repeated the
factor analysis on 11 items. Because some items of the scale were correlated
with each other, we obtained the results shown in Table 3 by using Promax
Rotation. These three factors obtained in this study corresponded with
Osgoods three dimensions of meaning: evaluation, activity, and potency
(e.g., Osgood & Suci, 1955). Factor 1, which had high loadings for pleasant,
good-humored, familiar, pretty, and modest would represent the evaluative
dimension of meaning (e.g., Osgood & Suci, 1955), and it was labeled
evaluative factor. Factor 2, which had high loadings for firm, passive, and
servile would represent the active dimension, and it was labeled activity factor. Factor 3, which had high loadings for shy, prudent, and discreet would
represent weak or private and its opposite meanings might represent public or
more potent. Consequently, we labeled factor 3 as reticence factor.
The mean scores of the three factors were calculated from the rating of the
items of which loading on one factor exceeded 0.50. Figure 2 shows the mean
scores of each factor in each condition. To examine the differences of impressions of the interviewer among the four conditions, a two-way (Types of

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494 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

TABLE 3
The Final Factor Structure of the Personal Characteristic Scale

Variables

Factor 1

Pleasantunpleasant
Good-humoredspiteful
Unfamiliarfamiliar
Prettyhorrible
Conceitedmodest
Firmtimid
Servilemajestic
Passiveactive
Prudentimprudent
Indiscreetdiscreet
Shyshameless
Eigenvalue
Variance explained by each
factor (%)
Cumulative explained by each
factor (%)
Interfactor correlations
Factor 1
Factor 2
Factor 3

Factor 2

Factor 3

.86
.82
.80
.80
.64
.25

3.35

.21
.21

.87
.83
.69

.31
2.25

.46
.82
.77
.69
1.61

30.45

20.49

14.60

30.45

50.93

65.54

1.00

1.00

1.00

Communality
.75
.68
.65
.68
.44
.77
.73
.63
.70
.63
.55

NOTE: Values less than 0.2 have been showed as .

Lighting Existence of Decorations) crossed design of MANOVA was performed on the mean scores of the three factors. The result showed a significant main effect of types of lighting only (F[3, 74] = 2.28, p < .05; using
Wilkss lambda criterion). Follow-up univariate analyses showed that only
the mean score of the items included in the evaluative factor the interviewer
was rated significantly higher in the dim lighting conditions than in the bright
lighting conditions (F[1, 76] = 8.24, p < .05).
SELF-DISCLOSURE

Figure 3 shows the means of the duration of speaking times of the participants in each condition. The result of a two-way (Types of Lighting Existence of Decorations) crossed design of analysis of variance revealed a
significant main effect of the types of lighting (F[1, 76] = 8.99, p <. 01). The
participants in the dim lighting conditions spoke longer (without decorations
and dim lighting: M = 492.20 s, SD = 97.62: with decorations and dim lighting: M = 463.00 s, SD = 109.33) than those in the bright lighting conditions

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 495

Without Decorations &

Lighting
With Decorations &
Lighting
Without Decorations &
Lighting
With Decorations &
Lighting

Mean Scores

Evaluative

Activity

Reticence

Figure 2: The Mean Scores of the Items That Loaded on Three Factors (Evaluative Factor, Activity Factor, and Reticence Factor) of the Impressions
of the Interviewer in the Personal Characteristic Scale in the Four
Conditions

500
480
Duration of Speaking Time (s)

460
440
420
Without Decorations
With Decorations

400
380
360
340
320
300

Bright

Dim

Figure 3: The Mean Duration of the Participants Speaking Times (s) in the Four
Conditions

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496 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

(without decorations and bright lighting: M = 378.60 s, SD = 112.41, with

decorations and bright lighting: M = 436.10 s, SD = 99.00).
The three questions about participantsself-rated feelings about their selfdisclosure had little internal consistency (Cronbachs coefficient alpha =
.35). Furthermore, to examine the differences of the three questions among
the four conditions, a two-way (Types of Lighting Existence of Decorations) crossed design of MANOVA was performed on the scores of each
question. The result showed a marginal significant main effect of types of
lighting only (F[3, 74] = 2.65, p < .10; using Wilkss lambda criterion). Follow-up univariate analyses showed that the participants in the dim lighting
conditions rated the question of How much could you speak about yourself
to the interviewer? more highly than in the bright lighting conditions (F[1,
76] = 6.76, p < .05). For the other two questions, there were no significant differences among the four conditions.

DISCUSSION

The results showed that lighting affected participants impressions of the

rooms and the interviewer and the amount of self-disclosure. The favorable
responses to dim lighting agreed with the expectation for it. For home-like
decorations, we found no predominant pattern.
The types of lighting always had significant effects on the most dependent
variables. First, the conditions with the dim lighting were rated more pleasant, relaxing, and calm than with the bright lighting (Table 2), and under the
pleasant dim lighting, the impressions of the interviewer also became more
pleasant, good-humored, pretty, and modest than under the bright lighting
(Figure 2). This fits Mintzs (1956) conclusion that visual-aesthetic surroundings could have significant effects on persons exposed to them and that
the participants pleasant feelings about the environment would spread to
their impressions of the interviewer in that environment.
Moreover, as to the improvement of the interviewers impression in the
conditions with dim lighting, there is another possibility that the interviewer
might have viewed the conditions with the dim lighting as more pleasant, like
the participants and unconsciously conveyed her positive attitudes produced
by the pleasant feeling to the participants. That is, the interviewers attitude
might mediate the effect of lighting, then influence the participants response. Locasso (1988) urged that aesthetic effects on persons impression
be mediated or amplified by social interaction. Thus, although the contents of interviews were controlled in the present study, the improvement of

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 497

the interviewers impression in the conditions with dim lighting might be

caused by interaction between the participants and the interviewer during the
interviews.
However, unlike the Maslow and Mintzs studies (Maslow & Mintz, 1956;
Mintz, 1956), no independent variable induced the participants interesting,
exciting, and active impressions on the environment in our study (Table 2).
Maslow and Mintz instructed the purpose of study to participants as an experiment of facial stereotype in a laboratory; however, we instructed it as an
interview about the participants and their identity in a counseling room. The
participants in the present study might have seen the experimental room as a
real counseling room, and counseling rooms in general might (and should)
have a calm, tense, and inactive atmosphere rather than an interesting, exciting, and active atmosphere. Thus, the difference of role of settings (laboratory vs. counseling room) and tasks in the settings (experiments vs.
interview) studied might explain the differences between Maslow and Mintz
(Maslow & Mintz, 1956; Mintz, 1956) and the present study.
Our results also supported the hypothesis that physical environments in
counseling rooms, especially by the dim lighting could affect speaking time
(Figure 3). In addition, scores of one question about the participants selfrated feelings about their self-disclosure (How much could you speak about
yourself to the interviewer?) were higher in the dim lighting conditions than
the bright lighting conditions. These results suggested that the participants
might share more information related to them when they could speak longer.
This agrees with Chaikin and Derlegas (1974) suggestion that an attractive
and soft room, which is more similar to the environment in which friends
interact, would facilitate self-disclosure, and Sommers (1974) argument that
hard, impervious architectural designs led to alienation from the place and
people in it.
There are some possible explanations for the results about the participants self-disclosure. First, the participants saw the dim lighting as more
pleasant and relaxing than the bright lighting, and perhaps the environments
atmosphere itself may induce their intimate behaviorthat is, moderate selfdisclosuredirectly. Furthermore, the relatively less pleasant atmosphere
from the bright lighting may possibly inhibit their intimate behavior. Second,
the favorable impression of the interviewer might mediate the participants
self-disclosure to her. Wada (1986) found that people disclosed more frequently to conversation partners who were regarded as more favorable. In our
study, under the dim lighting, the participants rated the interviewer more
favorable than under the bright lighting (Figure 2). In the conditions with dim
lighting, the participants might disclose themselves more frequently, because
they regarded the interviewer in them as more favorable than the conditions

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498 ENVIRONMENT AND BEHAVIOR / July 2006

with the bright lighting. Finally, the same as our interpretation about the
results of impressions of the interviewer, it would be possible that the interviewers feeling and various attitudes to the participants would become more
familiar under the pleasant dim lighting, and she might extract the participants self-disclosure more smoothly. We carefully controlled the interviewers speech, but even if this possibility would be the case, we considered
that such change of interviewers behavior would be important for counseling. Thus, it is possible that a part of the environmental effect on the participants may be an indirect one, through the interviewer.
Although Gifford (1988) revealed that the brighter lighting increased general and intimate communication more than lower lighting, our result showed
the participants self-disclosure was induced by the dim lighting. Gifford
(1988) suggested that the situation in his study differed from those in Chaikin
et al. (1976), which examined oral self-disclosure to a counselor. Gifford
focused on established friendships between participants by written communication. As our study was conducted in the same situation as Chaikin et al.
(1976), we expected to find similar results and we did. Conversations with an
unknown interviewer (i.e., a counselor) may be less easy than writing letters
to well-known friends. Thus, as Gifford noted, the effect of dim lighting may
change with the situation.
Although Gifford (1988) found definite effects of home-like decorations,
we found none. A possible reason for this is that the participants might feel
tenser and concentrate more in the interviews with an unknown interviewer
than in writing a letter to a friend. Thus, in the live interaction with the counselor, they may pay less attention to the surrounding decorations.
The findings suggested that dim lighting induced pleasant and relaxed
feelings, favorable impression of the interviewer, more speaking time, and
self-rated self-disclosure moderately. Although the pattern of the effects for
dim lighting differed from those found by Gifford (1988), our findings suggest that in the counseling situation with an unknown interviewer, the dim
lighting was effective and necessary to induce relaxation. To apply the findings to actual counseling room design, we have to consider some points.
First, the participants were healthy undergraduate students in our study.
Thus, it is difficult to judge whether the differences of lighting or decorations
would have the similar effects to actual clients who have difficulties, such as
serious troubles and high anxiety. Consequently, further studies and observations that focused on persons who really come to therapy or counseling
should be needed to test the effects of lighting or decorations in counseling
settings. Second, this study focused on the physical variables that would have
effect on communication between a counselor and a client. Therefore, our
findings may not always bring about the same outcomes as this study in

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Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 499

actual counseling in which the number of people and types of conversation

are varied. In actual counseling, therapists and counselors conduct various
treatments, such as group counseling and family therapy. It is implicated
that the patterns of the effects from dim lighting and decorations might
change with the types of communication; Gifford (1988), who focused on the
friends communication, revealed some different patterns of them from our
study. Thus, the application of dim lighting and decorations to various types
of communication should be examined more precisely in additional research.
Finally, this study highlighted the effects of aesthetic conditions in a counseling room, especially dim lighting and decorations. Besides these factors,
there may also be more effective physical issues to conduct counseling for
both counselors and clients. Further explorations of physical variables may
stimulate or inhibit development of relationships between counselors and
clients, clients anxiety level and so on could be conducted by replicating or
expanding existing studies of the environmental psychology in counseling
contexts.
From the practical point of view, the knowledge about environmental factors in counseling such as effects of lighting helps counselors to practice their
therapy more effectively. Like some researchers (e.g., Anthony & Watkins,
2002; Gross et al., 1998), we consider counseling settings as areas of overlap
between environmental and clinical psychology and recommend that counselors, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, and their organizations should be
more conscious of environmental factors in their counseling rooms. However, for example, Japanese universities curriculums for official licenses of
psychological counselors require no courses of environmental psychology,
but many counselors want to know how to design and arrange their workplaces to make them more effective (Miwa, Hanyu, & Iinaga, in press). In the
future, educational programs for counselors should include courses related to
studies about therapeutic environments that have been explored in environmental psychology.

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500

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1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1

2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2
2

Fairly
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3

Slightly
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4

Neutral
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5

Slightly

NOTE: These adjectives were translated from original Japanese terms (Hayashi, 1978) to English by the authors.

Active
Spiteful
Modest
Friendly
Horrible
Broad-minded
Unsociable
Responsible
Impudent
Shameless
Profound
Gloomy
Majestic
Unpleasant
Discreet
Familiar
Apathetic
Timid
Patient
Unkind

Very
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6

Fairly
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7

Very
Passive
Good-humored
Conceited
Unfriendly
Pretty
Narrow-minded
Sociable
Irresponsible
Prudent
Shy
Frivolous
Cheerful
Servile
Pleasant
Indiscreet
Unfamiliar
Enthusiastic
Firm
Impatient
Kind

Direction: For each scale below, please circle one number from 1 through 7 that best describes your impression of the interviewer. Please answer
freely based on your impression.

APPENDIX
Personal Characteristic Scale

Miwa, Hanyu / EFFECTS OF INTERIOR DESIGN 501

NOTE
1. After the experiment, we debriefed the participants as follows: We arranged the interior of
the room where the participants were interviewed and we investigated the effects of the interior
on the participantsconversation, impression of the interviewer, and the environment in the counseling settings.

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