This Environment Makes Me Feel Good! An exploratory study on the association between personality traits and perceived well-being of interior design configurations

ABSTRACT Research on environmental psychology and interior architecture has determined that physical settings influence people’s behavior and their perception of the world. Together, these two fields have identified different features of the interior spaces that could be potential influencers of people’s wellness (ambient factors, design factors, personal factors, and social/contextual factors). Knowing the effects of these features is a central issue to understand how the environment influences people and their well-being and it could help architects and interior designers in creating adequate spaces for living. This thesis project explores the effects of personality differences on the perception of wellness in different interior environments. This research was possible thanks to the application of the concept of the big five personality dimensions to the preferences expressed by people for different interior design configurations. During the experiment, which consisted of a personality questionnaire and a computer-based behavioral task, participants were put in the position of expressing their preferences and perceived wellness about some interior design settings. Results show that different levels of personality did influence the participants’ sense of well-being perceived from some specific features of the interior environments. The level of extraversion was found to relate to the well-being perceived from the color of the walls, the dimension of the room, the shape of the furniture in the room, and the type of room. Agreeableness and openness to experience were found to relate to the color of the walls and the dimension of the room, while conscientiousness correlated with the color of the walls and the type of room. These findings show that personality differences affect how people perceive wellness from specific features of the interior environment they are placed in. Keywords: personality, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness, neuroticism, interior design, environment, color, dimension, furniture, shape, living room, and office.