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The purpose of this paper is to introduce restorative servicescapes. The work demonstrates that younger‐aged consumers may remedy symptoms associated with directed attention fatigue, including adult attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), by patronizing third places, such as video arcades and coffee shops.

This paper evaluates a servicescape's restorative potential by drawing on established measures. Attention restoration theory (ART) has been explored in natural and environmental psychology, rather than marketing. The first study uses survey methodology to explore whether teenagers who patronize a video arcade sense its restorative potential. The second study uses survey methodology to explore the relationship between patronizing a restorative third place and being at risk for ADHD.

Study 1 reveals that video arcade patrons sense the arcade's restorative potential. Therefore, commercial servicescapes may possess restorative qualities. Study 2 reveals that college‐aged students, who patronize a restorative servicescape, are significantly less likely than other students to be at risk for experiencing ADHD.

Although the data reveal a relationship between restorative servicescapes and ADHD risk, a diagnosis is not obtained. Furthermore, because survey methodology is employed, the causal influence of restorative servicescapes cannot be evaluated on their customers' health. However, commercial servicescapes can mimic the restorative properties found in nature. Thus, the health potential of public places on health may be profound.

Educational institutions, governmental agencies, and parents should consider publicly supporting third places for teenagers because doing so can remedy symptoms associated with mental fatigue.

The paper brings ART into the marketing discipline.

The purpose of this paper is to help senior center managers and service researchers understand why some patrons experience health benefits, primarily fatigue relief, through senior center day services participation.

The authors conduct two separate studies at a senior center. The first study represents a grounded theory that offers an original, basic social process regarding mental restoration in senior centers. The second study draws on Attention Restoration Theory (ART) and employs survey methodology.

Senior center patrons who perceive a center's restorative stimuli experience health benefits such as relief from four types of fatigue, enhanced quality of life, and improved physical and mental well-being.

The paper shows that senior centers may be relatively inexpensive, non-medical services that can help patrons relieve fatigue symptoms, which are often treated with pharmaceutical medication and medical visits. A limitation is the small sample size, which restricts generalizability.

The results show that senior center managers may promote patron health by fostering service designs and programs that allow members to temporarily escape from everyday life and interact in an ever-changing environment that fosters a sense of belonging.

Senior center day services help patrons relieve fatigue, and its symptoms, in an affordable, non-medical, and non-pharmaceutical manner.

The paper clarifies the role of senior centers in patrons’ lives by drawing on ART. Senior centers that can offer patrons restorative environments are likely to play a significant role in patrons’ physical, social, and mental well-being.

This paper aims to introduce the concept of biomorphism (i.e. indirect experience of nature) in servicescape designs and validates its impact on consumer responses. Using the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) framework, this study explores the relationship between biomorphic servicescape designs and the servicescape preference. Further, it explains how biomorphic designs can help users to get better connected with the servicescapes by introducing the mediating role of attention restoration and place identity (emotional and cognitive), as explained by attention restoration theory.

Two empirical studies were carried out to test the hypothesised relationships: an exploratory pre-experimental design with one-shot treatment using 200 images as stimuli and 3,680 responses; and a 3 × 2 factorial design with three-dimensional images with about 654 responses for three service contexts chosen a priori: fashion retail, restaurant and hospital lobby.

This study conceptualises the role of biomorphism – elements that mimic natural forms – in servicescape designs and establishes that, akin to natural elements, the indirect experience of nature in servicescapes also has a positive influence on attention restoration, perceived place identity and servicescape preference of the consumers. This implies that the effects similar to that of a biophilic servicescape can be achieved through servicescape elements that mimic natural forms.

Extending the idea of biophilia, this research adopts the concept of biomorphism from architecture and environmental psychology domains and introduces biomorphic servicescape designs, which could be more practical at times compared to biophilic servicescapes. It establishes the influences of biomorphic servicescape designs on consumer preferences. Grounded in the S-O-R model, it further explains this relationship through mediating effects of attention restoration and place identity. Being new to marketing and management domains, this research may trigger a series of research studies on biomorphic service environment designs, with desirable implications for services marketing and services operations functions.

This study examines the impact of outdoor environments in public rental housing complexes on residents’ psychological restoration, taking into account the interconnectedness of physical and psychological factors in human health. Drawing on Kaplan and Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory and Ulrich’s Supportive Design Theory, the research investigates the factors influencing residents’ psychological restoration within these outdoor spaces.

The Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), which is based on the Attention Restoration Theory and the Zuckerman Inventory of Personal Reactions (ZIPERS) are used to assess residents’ restorative experiences. Field research was conducted to collect data on the outdoor environments, and surveys were administered to the residents. The study analyzes the data using SPSS, including both factor and correlation analyses, to explore the relationship between the restorative effect and emotional factors.

The study verified a significant influence of positive emotions in ZIPERS on PRS’ overall restorative effect, thus supporting the utilization of both PRS and ZIPERS factors together to assess comprehensively the impact of outdoor environments on residents’ psychological restoration.

By employing a multidimensional approach involving residents’ experiences and emotions, this study quantified emotional and psychological data, which were hard to quantify. These results provide a basis for developing more objective restoration environment design guidelines and programs in the future.

While the rise of chain restaurants has attracted increasing research interest, few studies have taken servicescape into consideration to examine its effects on transformative service outcomes. This study aims to assess how social service elements can provide customers with restorative qualities, though social components are considered vital in constituting a dining locale's servicescape (AKA Social Servicescape).

The study fills the void above by undertaking a survey-based quantitative research method. Using online surveys with a sample of 306 diners, the study employed structural equation modeling to explore a proposed moderated mediation model. A post-hoc interview followed to provide qualitative data to complement the findings developed from surveys.

Results first point to a positive relationship between social servicescape and attention restoration. Moreover, the authors unveil that substantive servicescape has a moderating effect on the relationship of interest, suggesting the interplay of social and built servicescape in promoting restorative experiences.

Social and built stimuli can be intertwined to offer restorative qualities for customers. Through such an intertwined network of relationships, one may derive better mental health resources from hospitality settings.

This research presents new nuances to the existing field of inquiry by linking social servicescape and restoration through an intertwined network of attentional recovery.

The purpose of this study is to explore the relationship between the biophilic stimuli present in the servicescape and restorative effects on psychological states among consumers. The research also examines moderating role of service contexts in this relationship.

This empirical study applied a laboratory-like experimental design with one-shot treatment. About 566 usable responses were collected using six photographic images – three were biophilic environments and three were non-biophilic environments – for four a priori service contexts: hospital lobby, upscale restaurants, spa and bank lobby.

The tests of hypotheses confirm restorative effects of biophilic servicescapes on consumer’s psychological states, attention and mood, which, in turn, positively influence service preference. Further, the restorative effects of natural elements are found to vary across hedonic – utilitarian and experience – credence type service contexts.

Because of higher levels of natural stressors, consumers today likely have attention fatigue and depleted mood states, which, in turn, may have adverse effects on their service consumption behaviour. In this context, building upon theories from environmental psychology, findings of this study contribute by establishing restorative potential of biophilic servicescape. The study also establishes that natural elements in biophilic servicescapes influence service preference, which is mediated by consumers’ psychological states – attention and mood. Further, it demonstrates that consumers are more responsive with regards to such restorative effects of biophilic elements in contexts where they seek emotional, experiential value compared to rational, functional value.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the positive aspects of casinos, and gambling entertainment in particular, by revealing the health potential of these commercial establishments. In doing so, this work helps explain the affinity of Chinese consumers with gambling.

The authors draw on Attention Restoration Theory to put forth a framework on the restorative potential of a casino on human health and its effects on managerial outcomes. The authors use a sample of 605 Chinese tourists in Macau and use both structural equation modeling and moderation analyses.

Tourists’ ability to sense a casino’s restorative potential is positively related to their well-being and their propensity to view Macau as a value, to spend money in Macau and to revisit Macau. Moderation analyses reveal that tourists may still perceive a casino’s restorative qualities regardless of whether they plan to engage in gambling or other activities, are winning or losing money or reside outside mainland China.

The paper links gaming studies to the transformative research paradigm and considers the possibility that some socially unacceptable services may actually be beneficial to human well-being.

The results help clarify why Chinese tourists tend to engage in casino patronage and gambling activities throughout the world.

This work discusses health benefits associated with socially unacceptable products and suggests that many “sinful services” may offer consumers transformative benefits.

The paper is one of the first to explore positive aspects of gambling and spending time in casino environments, while showing that casinos may be “healthy places” for some consumers.

There is a growing interest in applying the principles of biophilic design to hotel lobbies to enhance positive user experiences. However, there is little empirical research in this area, particularly for abstract or indirect biophilic approaches. The current study analyzed the biophilic strategy of “organized complexity” (which entails structured hierarchical patterns) in a hotel lobby in relation to attention restoration outcomes.

A virtual reality approach was used to create three lobby designs, differing only in their degree of organized complexity. A between-subjects study was conducted with 91 participants, evaluating reactions to the lobby designs in terms of perceived attention restoration, perceived environmental complexity and environmental preferences.

A strong positive relationship was found between participants' perception of environmental complexity and feelings of restoration. However, no statistically significant correlation was found between restoration and the objective measures of organized complexity. This suggests that individual preferences or baseline responses may play a crucial role in the benefits associated with this aspect of biophilic design.

The findings suggest a novel possibility – that responses to organized complexity may not be universal but may instead depend on an individual’s background and personal preferences. While the study found that perceived complexity was associated with restoration, the objective features of the environment that incited these perceptions were different for different participants. This indicates that more research is needed into potentially relevant personal factors.

Trending in modern interior design frameworks is an integration of real and simulated (i.e. photographs, murals) elements of nature into buildings, and a number of interdisciplinary studies concern the effects of nature on various aspects of human functioning. The purpose of this paper is to measure employees’ self-reported levels of affective organizational commitment (AOC), perceived productivity, well-being, attention restoration and satisfaction at work to explore how each mural is conceptualized and to make recommendations to hospital administrators and facilities managers as they make decisions concerning mural design and placement. One hospital had a biophilic mural and the other had a bold abstract mural.

The research was carried out using post-occupancy evaluation and mixed-methods survey design.

Employees in both hospitals disagreed that their organizational commitment (OC), perceived productivity or well-being at work had improved since the new murals had been installed. Responses from both hospitals were also low concerning perceptions of attention restoration. Indeed, no significant differences between hospitals were found. Correlations among scales were found within hospitals that support published studies. More correlations occurred at the hospital where employees viewed the biophilic mural (e.g. between OC and perceived productivity, and between satisfaction with the physical environment and perceived productivity). At both sites, satisfaction with the physical environment correlated with OC.

The authors expected that those working within view of the biophilic mural would report stronger ratings of AOC, perceived productivity, well-being, attention restoration and satisfaction with the workplace than employees with a view of the abstract scene. No differences between groups were found; responses to psychosocial scale items asking about whether attitudes had improved after the retrofit were low or neutral for employees in either hospital. However, more correlations between scales that support existing literature were revealed for those working near the biophilic mural. Thus, the authors recommend architectural programming before a design change to gather insight on occupants’ preferences at work.