Is It the Place or the People? Disentangling the Effects of Hospitals’ Physical and Social Environments on Well-Being

Evidence points to the role of the physical environment on patient well-being, but its specific contribution is not clear. Two experimental studies were conducted. First, we investigated the inferences people make about the physical environment given information about the social environment, and vice versa. In six conditions, participants were exposed to information about an inadequate, neutral, or good hospital physical environment; or about a negative, neutral, or positive hospital social environment. Results showed that people associate the quality of hospitals’ physical and social environments, and the corresponding expected well-being. Study 2 sought to disentangle the independent effect of the physical and social dimensions. Levels of quality of the physical and social environments were crossed in a 3 × 3 between-subjects design. Results showed that both dimensions have a specific significant effect. In particular, the physical environment seems unable to improve satisfaction when its quality is high but is able to reduce satisfaction when its quality is low.