Always look on the bright side of life : ego-replenishing effects of daylight versus artificial light
Year: 2012
Type: article
Abstract: Vitality is an important indicator of wellbeing and feeling vital is something we often strive to achieve. Vitality not only entails feeling energetic but is also about experiencing positive affect. In other words, subjective vitality concerns the amount of positive energy you experience (Nix, Ryan, Manly & Deci, 1999). Vitality is influenced by both somatic and psychological processes and has been linked to both mental and physical health (Ryan & Deci, 2008). When people feel vital they are better able to cope with stress, or even viruses (Ryan & Deci, 2008). Moreover, it has also been suggested that people who feel vital are more able to self-regulate (Muraven, Gagne and Rosman, 2008; Ryan & Deci, 2008). The world around us is full of temptations. To resist these temptations, we need self-control. Self-control, or self-regulation, is also needed to control attention or impulses, guide behaviors, decisions, and thoughts for instance to achieve long-term goals, or to act in a socially desirable way. Ego-depletion Theory (Baumeister, et al., 1998) suggests that exerting self-control temporarily depletes a common resource, a process labeled ego-depletion, resulting in a temporary decrease in capacity to exert self-control. Earlier research has indicated some ways to overcome ego-depletion as consuming glucose, positive affect and autonomy (see: Hagger, Wood, Stiff & Chatzisarantis, 2010). These three ways to restore depleted resources are all related to vitality, either by directly increasing vitality (autonomy, see Ryan & Deci, 2000) or by increasing energy (glucose) or positive affect. Indeed, it has been found that vitality mediates ego-depletion (Muraven et al., 2008). Thus, finding ways to increase vitality might help us deal better with temptations and help us achieve long-term goals. In the present research we focused on how light - daylight in particular - can help restore self-regulation capacity. Exposure to light might also be a good candidate for ego-replenishment. First of all, exposure to bright artificial light has been found to directly increase vitality (Partonen & Lonnqvist, 2000) and increase mood (Kaida, Takahashi & Otsuka, 2007). The opposite phenomenon, a lack of exposure to daylight, can cause symptoms of Seasonal Affective Disorder (Rosenthal, et al., 1984). Therefore, we expect exposure to bright light can help overcome depleted resources. We further expect that natural light exposure will have an additional replenishing effect compared to artificial light exposure. People generally believe that exposure to daylight is beneficial for many aspects of wellbeing, such as health, mood and performance (Veitch & Gifford, 1993). People also prefer environments that are sunny and bright (Beute & de Kort, under review). In turn, preference for environments has been found related to the replenishing potential of these environments (Van den Berg, Koole & van der Wulp, 2003). In a different line of research, it has been found that humans can recover from stress and resource depletion in natural environments as opposed to the more artificial urban environments - effects often attributed to evolutionary adaptation and information processing (Kaplan, 1995 & Ulrich, Simons, Losito, Fiorito, Miles & Zelson, 1991). Furthermore, studies have shown that natural environments can increase vitality (Ryan, Weinstein, Bernstein, Brown, Mistretta & Gagne, 2009) as well as help replenish diminished self-regulatory resources (Beute & de Kort, in preparation). Thus, we expect that the naturalness of daylight will cause an
Source: TU/e Research Portal
Authors: Femke Beute, Y. Kort
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1744095429