Anger and Landscape Art

Do you feel angry and frustrated sitting in your windowless cubicle grinding away at a dead-end job? Recent research (published in the journal Environment and Behavior) indicates there may be an easy way to brighten your mood, at least if you're a man. Hang a few art posters.

Researchers at Texas A&M University conducted an experiment in a simulated office. Participants were told that the researchers were investigating performance on a variety of computer tasks. In reality, the computer tasks were designed to "provoke stress and anger." The question was whether the artwork hanging on the wall (abstract art, nature posters, abstract and nature posters, or no art) would modify people's moods. The conclusion:

We found that nature and abstract art posters have a significant influence on state anger and stress for male participants but not for female participants. Male participants experienced less state anger when there are art posters on the wall of the office setting than when no art posters are present. They also experienced less stress when there were mixed abstract and nature art posters or all nature art posters.

It's not clear why men are calmed by wall art, but not women. Maybe men are just simpler creatures.

Who We Are
Alex Boese Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes. Paul Di Filippo Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over forty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. Contact Us

Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 29, 2008
Category: Art | Science | Experiments

Comments

Of course by art you mean calender pin-up girls. Now that's art!

Posted by Madd Maxx on 09/29/08 at 12:42 PM

MM you hit the nail on the head there. Men are more visually stimulated than the better half of humanity. Now, how much did this little fact finding mission cost us?

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 09/29/08 at 01:35 PM

Hey, let's think this through. How about if pretty nature pictures were put in the Pentagon, the CIA, Lewis Black's dressing room....
I, as a chick, find it calming to see a bulls-eye, with a picture of my favorite ingoranus in dead center, hanging on my wall. Does that cost me anything?

Posted by lostinthevalleygirl on 09/29/08 at 06:27 PM

Keep it up Kenneth and one day soon you too will have become a full fledged member of this nut house! 😉

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 09/30/08 at 08:08 AM

You're welcome.

Posted by Expat47 in Athens, Greece on 09/30/08 at 10:45 AM

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