The Role of Indoor and Outdoor Nature Exposure for Remote Workers
Project summary
In this project, we surveyed a US national sample targeting remote workers who were working from an office prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and shifted to remote work during the pandemic. This exploratory study was conducted longitudinally over four time points between December 2020 and March 2023 and aimed to gather descriptive insights into people’s self-reported lived experiences and how the built features and environmental factors in their homes were impacting their perception of time, belonging at work, stress, and pro-environmental behavior.
Driving questions
How are shifts in time perception related to shifts in nature exposure during the COVID-19 pandemic?
What is the role of indoor nature dose and dosage on employees’ group identity and solidarity while working from home?
How does stress during the COVID-19 pandemic vary across latent subgroups, or “profiles”, with similar behaviors based on their time spent in the presence of different types of nature?
How do indoor and outdoor nature exposure contribute to well-being and pro-environmental behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic?
Major findings
We found indoor nature exposure to be significantly associated with faster overall and day-to-day perceived speed of time passage, while outdoor exposure was marginally significantly associated with faster day-to-day perceived speed of time passage during the pandemic.
We found a positive relationship between higher total number of natural elements in remote workers' home offices and increased perceived solidarity and group identity with work.
We found that the number and characteristics of latent subgroups change over time as does the connection of nature exposure with stress within these subgroups. We further observed that different sources of nature exposure may be important for certain subgroups even if not for the entire population and vice-versa.
Publications
Time Perception During the Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study Examining the Role of Indoor and Outdoor Nature Exposure for Remote Workers
Altaf, B., Bloomfield, L.S.P., Karzai D.N., Sawe, N.A., Murnane, E.L., Bencharit, L.Z., Landay, J.A., Billington, S.L. (2023) Building and Environment, V 243, 110644 (Link)
A Study of the Role of Indoor Nature on Solidarity and Group Identity during Remote Work
Bianchi, E.L.S., Bloomfield, L.S.P, Bencharit, L.Z., Sawe, N.A., Murnane, E.L., Landay, J.A., Billington, S.L. (2023) Building and Environment, V 245, 110909 (Link)
Exploring the Connections Between Nature Exposure and Stress Reduction During COVID-19 Using Latent Profile Analysis
Bianchi, E., Bloomfield, L.S.P., Altaf, B., Sawe, N., Murnane, E.L., Billington, S.L. (2024) Ecopsychology (Link)
Project team
Dr. Laura Bloomfield, U. Vermont
Prof. Elizabeth Murnane, Dartmouth
Dr. Nik Sawe, Psychology
Flora Xu, PhD candidate, E-IPER
Basma Altaf, PhD candidate, CEE
Prof. Lucy Bencharit, CalPoly - SLO
Eva Bianchi, PhD candidate, CEE
Prof. Sarah Billington, CEE