Dim Lighting, Dim Scruples

An interesting study sheds light on the importance of, well, lighting.

Darkness can lend itself to a false sense of anonymity, researchers have found, making people more likely than they would be otherwise to engage in unethical behaviors.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, encompassed three separate experiments, all with similar findings. Participants in dimly lit rooms or those wearing sunglasses cheated more, engaged in more self-serving behavior, and reported feeling a greater sense of concealment during the study than did those in well-lit rooms or wearing clear glasses.

How could this translate to the office?

“Imagine that a person who is alone in a closed room is deciding whether to lie to a total stranger in an e-mail. Clearly, whether the room is well lit would not affect the person’s actual level of anonymity,” the researchers note in their report. The psychological effect is similar to a grown-up game of hide-and-seek, they say. Just as many children feel that when they cover their eyes, no one can see them, a dark room may grant adults the same sense of anonymity.

While most of us aren’t whiling away our working hours in pitch-blackness, you might want to give some thought to brightening up an insufficiently lit office. If workers complain that the standard overhead fluorescents give them headaches, suggest alternative sources of lighting: Tell them they can bring small lamps from home, or supply desktop task lighting for ample illumination.

A lighter, brighter workplace might curb those darker human impulses.

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