Lunch Break Environments and Their Effect on Psychological Detachment and Well-Being

Abstract

With increasing attention to the importance of recovery experiences, particularly in mitigating workplace stress and promoting well-being, the present research seeks to contribute to the understanding of how environmental factors influence psychological detachment and emotional exhaustion during lunch breaks. Drawing upon theories from both environmental psychology and work and occupational psychology, we developed a questionnaire study. 117 British participants were recruited through Qualtrics, and measures of psychological detachment, emotional exhaustion, lunch break environments and preference for natural environments were collected over a period of three weeks for each participant. We expected detachment to mediate the relationship between natural lunch break environments and emotional exhaustion, and that preference for natural environments would moderate this relationship. The analysis revealed detachment as a significant predictor of emotional exhaustion. Specifically, participants who reported higher levels of detachment, reported lower levels of emotional exhaustion. Our investigation did not find any significant results to support the notion that spending lunch breaks in natural environments predicts higher levels of detachment and emotional exhaustion. Preference for natural environments was also not found to moderate the relationship between natural lunch break environments and detachment.