There are already studies on the implication of night light in our mood. Now, the universities of Toronto Scarborough (Canada) and Northwestern (Illinois, USA), have carried out a total of six studies with the same final conclusion: the light in a room influences our decision making .
The scene in a TV series or movie in which we see a detective intensely questioning an alleged criminal under a blinding light is quite universal. Does the type of light influence the answers given by the alleged offender? Thanks to the balance of this study, we can firmly affirm that it is. To arrive at this resolution, the researchers conducted six experiments at a time. In each group the lighting in the room was different . Participants had to talk about how they felt when they saw certain words, about the aggressiveness of a fictional character, or how attractive someone was, among other things.
Previous studies have shown that people are more optimistic and more helpful at work on sunny days than on rainy and cloudy days; and that even if the period of bad weather lasted for a long time, it could cause negative and even depressive feelings. However, as a counterpoint to these claims, the results of this latest study show that emotions are most intensely experienced under bright lights .
The group of participants in the room with the brightest lighting felt the fictional character much more aggressive than the other groups, the exposed women and men were much more attractive, and the perception of positive and negative words was more radical and intense too. This shows that the intensity of light influences our decision making.
The reason that most of the resolutions we make regularly do so during the day and with light, is because the light intensifies our initial emotional reaction to various stimuli, whether they are things or people. Hence, the more light there is and the more intense it is, the more emotional we are going to be in the decision we are going to make .
The research was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology .
