Studies of hospital environments show that appreciating nature and scenery facilitates stress reduction and recovery from mental fatigue of patients and healthcare workers alike. This study uses the Japanese version of the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), from the viewpoint of restorative environments based on attention restoration theory (ART), to examine the influence of art (wall displays depicting natural landscapes and animals) in hospitals. Undergraduate students (fine arts and psychology majors) participated in this experiment. Subjects evaluated hospital environments by observing pictures presented on a monitor in three conditions: 1) without art, 2) with art depicting animals as the main character, or 3) depicting landscapes. Results showed that regardless of students’ majors, hospital environments with art were rated higher than those without art; though the degree of ratings differed by major and gender. These results suggest that hospital environments with arts were perceived to be more restorative as compared to those without art.

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This study investigated the effect of feedback of others’ electricity consumption through a field experiment. It is reported that sending an energy report, which includes a comparison of electricity consumption of other and one’s own household, has an effect of about 2% reduction in electricity consumption (Haig, 2014; Allcott & Rogers, 2012). However, psychological processes associated with this change have not yet been revealed. In this study, feedback of others’ electricity consumption was sent to the participants in the “Leading Eco Life Tsurumi” project in Osaka city. The results showed that the difference between feedback group and no-feedback group on electricity consumption was marginally significant. The comparison between feedback groups indicated that whether it includes comparison of self and other households did not have impact on one’s electricity consumption. The regression analysis showed that self-reported energy-saving behavior was a significant determinant of the electricity consumption, which indicated that adopting energy-saving behavior at home can have effects on electricity consumption.

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