Measures has been an uncertainty facing my project over the coming weeks, which I have aimed to be as transparent about as possible in my previous blog posts. Consequently, the journey to determining a measure that I feel accurately represents the aim I wish to achieve with my project into the WWHI brief has been a long one, which I will break down throughout this post.
Following On From Project 5
Whilst working on my project up to and including Project 5, I have been looking at measuring the success or failure of applications of nature through measures around wellbeing, social interactions; and subsequently customers attracted to the space which increases profits of the venues.
When presenting my projects in my tutorial group, it was advised by my tutor that wellbeing would be an adequate measure, if I could demonstrate the methodology I would employ to measure it. It was advised that I should perhaps step away from attempting to measure social interactions, as this is a less tangible measure. Consequently, I invested a great deal of time into investigating different forms of wellbeing and how they are measured in academic settings, which you can see summarised below.
Measuring Wellbeing
In the UK measuring wellbeing as an indicator for societies’ progress is debated nationally with the Office for Nation Statistics driving the discussion (Seaford, 2011). Consequently, demonstrating that wellbeing is being seriously considered as a measure of experience in society.
Hedonic Wellbeing:
This includes recording emotive feelings or moods, such as happiness and sadness, that are associated with differing states of wellbeing (Steptoe et al., 2015).
To record this form of wellbeing, individuals are often asked to rate their experience utilising adjectives such as anger, stress, relaxed. The adjectives are utilised don’t simply showcase opposites, the positive and negative adjectives are required to determine a point in which that individuals lies between the two associated dimensions of the positive and negative emotions (Kahneman et al., 2004).
Eudemonic Wellbeing:
This revolves around reporting a sense of purpose and meaning in life to determine states of wellbeing (Steptoe et al., 2015).
To record this diverse measure of wellbeing and resultantly there are multiple methods to measure it . One of the most used measures involves structured self report scales to measure self acceptance, which looks to encourage the acceptance of personal strengths and weaknesses (Ryff et al., 2004). Unlike Hedonic wellbeing, this measure requires reflective self report, which can cause complications in what standards the individual is comparing their current status to.
Life Evaluation:
This measure involves a people’s wholistic assessment of the quality or goodness of their life (Steptoe et al., 2015).
Applying this measure includes utilising processes such as the 11 step Cantril Ladder, where individuals place themselves on the scale from 1 being the worst life possible, to 11 being the best life possible (Cantril, 1965).
Analysis of Measuring Wellbeing:
The measures of eudemonic wellbeing and life evaluation are harder to apply in the setting of my project, as they involve wholistic assessments of a person’s life. Therefore, external factors to my applications of nature may be impacting the outcome of this measure of wellbeing. Such wholistic measures are also conducted over a long time scale, which isn’t suitable for the parameters of my MA project and would be work conducted in the future out of the MA setting. Additionally, all of these self reporting measures of psychological states can be unreliable sources of data, due to both unconscious and conscious biases that lie in individuals.
Alternative Methods of Measuring Wellbeing:
Brainwave Technology
- Brainwave technology to measure wellbeing was something suggested to me in the feedback from my dragons den presentation.
- Upon further research I have discovered that brainwave activation occurs naturally during active and resting states, but external forces can create activity waves (Desai et al., 2015). This activity is recorded via electroencephalograms to measure differences in waves (alpha, beta, the and gamma) (Desai et al., 2015).
- Therefore, there is the possibility of measuring brainwaves before and after an interaction with natural elements incorporated into spaces.
- The technology needed to measure such brainwaves would be difficult to access and bring to the setting of a hospitality space.
- However, brainwave technology could be useful if hospitality spaces were to remain closed due to pandemic restrictions, as it could be a way to quantify people’s emotions towards biophilic design elements if they were shown a digital rendering of the designs, rather than physically experiencing the design applied in the space.
Reflection:
After conducting this research into measuring wellbeing and then talking with Dr Nigel Oseland (Environmental Psychologist and Professor at UCL), I began to consider that wellbeing may not be the most advantageous measure for my project. I noted that the most suitable measure of wellbeing to apply in my project would be hedonic wellbeing, however due to the subjective psychological reporting nature of this measure I was unsure of its academic validity and rigour. In my meeting with Dr Oseland, he suggested that utilising social interaction may be more specific and beneficial measure of the success of my biophilic design. This was due to the issues I had raised, but also resultant from wellbeing being vastly studied in the field and most beneficially examined over a long period of time. From my research into measure of wellbeing I concurred that there is an overwhelming quantity of research in the field of biophilic design, linking biophilia to improved wellbeing (Browning et al., 2014).
Due to these issues raised around utilising wellbeing as a measure, I looked to move away from wellbeing in its general sense and move towards measuring social interactions. Social interactions are spontaneously evoked through the application of biophilic design (Salingaros, 2015) and they improve personal wellbeing through creating a release of oxytocin, which creates physiological anti-stress responses; thus, reducing stress and anxiety.
Measuring Social Interactions
I considered the following methods to measure social interactions in spaces which may occur resultant from applying nature into hospitality spaces.
- Group Sizes
- I considered measuring how groups increase over the durations of their visit – this was suggested to me in my stakeholder engagement with Katarina Libby, a Biophilic Design expert.
- Length of Stay
- Looking at how long customers stay and how many people they interact with whilst they’re in the space, through observational study
- Customer Satisfaction
- However, other elements can impact satisfaction and it is hard to gain base sample for before and after interaction with the biophilic elements, as it is so subjective.
- Quantity of Social Interactions
- Either the quantity of interactions between one group/party and other in the space, or possibly measuring the quantity of individual social interactions that occur in the space before and after biophilic elements are introduced into the space.
- Quality of Social Interaction
- Quality of the interaction linked to wellbeing
Reflection
After exploring many avenues of how to measure social interactions in spaces and their bearing on applications of nature, I still felt this wasn’t the exact direct I was trying to articulate within my project. Measuring social interactions is very hard to determine whether that exact application of nature is what is causing the social interactions and I erased that socially interacting with each other wasn’t what I was trying to achieve, I was trying to achieve people interacting with the application of nature. Subsequently, I explored getting people into the spaces to interact with the applications of nature in the first place. I therefore examined how people are attracted to spaces and nature, and whether the profits of the spaces could be increased by the application of nature.
Attracting Customers and Increasing Profits
Attracting customers and increasing profits is the driving factor for hospitality spaces, to make money, and so this is what will get the businesses involved in my project. Getting the businesses involved in my project is crucial in allowing biophilic design to be widely applied and consequently creating lasting change.
I considered measures such as:
- Measuring quantity of customers before and after the nature is added
- Asking customers what attracted them to the space
- ie: did they come due to the design features or was it something else such as the food offering?
- Measuring if customers interacting with certain elements of nature more than others, to suggest that element hosts greater attraction?
- Recording business profits before and after biophilic elements are added
- This would be extremely hard to pinpoint what was causing the changes in profits and many businesses would be very reluctant to hand over the details of their books.
However, when engaging with my stakeholder in the hospitality industry, I discovered that actually many hospitality business are paying increased attention towards being more sustainable and creating a natural environment for their customers (see below images of conversations with stakeholders). This revelation allowed me to set away from the thinking that the only way I would get hostility businesses involved would be if I could prove that the application of nature would increase their profits. Therefore, I was able to step back and really pin point the exact measure and catalyst for the change I am trying to see.
Reflection, Realisation and Change – Getting to my true aim and measure…
After conducting all of this work and delving deep into different measures to utilise in my project, I still felt that my question and direction of my project was missing the mark of what I was aiming to achieve overall. The reason for this I now realise is that I had so many aims floating around in my head that I didn’t even know the true aim of the project myself. Therefore, I decided to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.
Consequently, I began to try and succinctly write the aim for my project, as I mentioned, I felt that I was trying to examine too many issues at once which was really holding me back. So, what is it that I want to achieve? I began by attempting to write down my aims, which initially led to around 300 words of blurring lines and unclear sentences. However, after a lot of personal introspection, I finally rooted down to the core of what I really want, this being to get people connecting with nature and appreciating its benefits in a way that I have; especially over the lockdowns where I spent lots of time in the garden at home. Additionally, growing people’s connection with nature in such a way will allow a relationship to form between the person and the natural world, which will hopefully raise their awareness and want to protect the natural world, in small ways in their lives, to tackle climate change.
In my stepping back and re-evaluation, I also looked back over my body of work in investigating measures. I realised that when assessing social interactions, what I was actually trying to achieve was to get people to interact with nature, rather that measuring interactions between people in the spaces. Also, in regard to wellbeing, I was trying to achieve an internal improvement to wellbeing through exposure and interactions with nature. Even when looking at attracting people to the spaces to increase profits, I was really trying to bring people to interact with the nature and form a… CONNECTION, that would ultimately result in them spending time and money in the spaces boosting profits for the venues.
So there is it the link between everything that I had been completely missing and the summary what I wish to measure and develop through the work in my project is a CONNECTION WITH NATURE. The diagram below aims to visually display this.
To the left you can see my representation of the endless loop and cycle of my ideas that I was looking to measure and explore. They all fed into each other in some way and from stakeholder feedback and secondary research I viewed them all to be of near equal importance, making no clear stand out direction for my project. Hence, the feeling of an endless loop whereby all measures were fair measures but none truly encapsulating the essence of the work I wish to conduct. However, looking to the diagram on the right hand side, it can be seen that when the various measures are put together there is a clear link between them all, which combines them. This link being that they are all rooted in people forming a stronger connection to nature. Developing upon individuals’ connection to nature will consequently impact factors of improving wellbeing (Browning et al., 2014), evoking social interactions (Salingaros, 2015), attracting customers an increasing profits (Browning et al., 2012) that have been seen to be resultant from exposure and interaction to nature in existing academic works, as outlined.
Additionally, forming a connection between people and nature steps my project away from the realms of the predictable in what is already being studied in the field, into a new arena. The new arena of a connection also provides opportunity to get individuals to take agency over their relationships with the natural world and care for it, aiding the climate crisis. This aims to tackle getting those people who would be typically uninterested in the climate crisis engaged in a refreshing way.
I will go on to unpack how I look to measure and test forming a connection with nature, as well as the importance of connecting with nature in my next blog post.
Bibliography
Browning, B., W.D., Ryan, C.O., Clancy, J.O. (2014). “14 Patterns of Biophilic Design.” New York: Terrapin Bright Green, LLC.
Browning, B., Garvin, C., Fox, B., Cook, R. (2012) “The Economics of Biophilia” New York: Terrapin Bright Green, LLC
Cantril, H. (1965) “The pattern of human concerns.” Rutgers University Press; New Brunswick, NJ.
Desai, R., Tailor, A. and Bhatt, T. (2015) “Effects of yoga on brain waves and structural activation: A review.” Complementary therapies in clinical practice, 21(2), pp.112-118.
Kahneman, D., Krueger, A.B., Schkade, D.A., Schwarz, N. and Stone, A.A. (2004) “A survey method for characterizing daily life experience: The day reconstruction method.” Science, 306(5702), pp.1776-1780.
Ryff, C.D., Singer, B.H. and Dienberg Love, G. (2004) “Positive health: connecting well–being with biology.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences, 359(1449), pp.1383-1394.
Salingaros, N. A. (2015) “Biophilia & Healing Environments: Healthy Principles For Designing the Built Environment.” New York: Terrapin Bright Green LLC.
Seaford, C. (2011) “Time to legislate for the good life.” Nature, 477(7366), pp.532-533.
Steptoe, A., Deaton, A. and Stone, A.A. (2015) “Subjective wellbeing, health, and ageing.” The Lancet, 385(9968), pp.640-648.