Abstract:In recent years, behavioural science has emerged as an additional tool to explore the impact of built environments on behaviour and wellbeing. Recognising the potential for further research in this field, we have sought to better understand how built environments affect what we do, as well as how they make us feel. We began this process through a review of the behavioural science literature, and have brought together evidence to develop a checklist for design with wellbeing in mind. In this paper, we present Sound, Air, Light, Image, Ergonomics and Tint as the mnemonic SALIENT, which forms a checklist. We outline an example where elements of the checklist have been applied in a real-world setting to examine subjective wellbeing (SWB). We present this example to illustrate how the SALIENT checklist could potentially be applied more extensively to measure the impact of built environments on wellbeing.

Most prior research on the relationship between relative attainment and subjective wellbeing focuses on relative income. The direction of this relationship may, however, be positive or negative. Defining the target comparison group can be challenging. This study focuses on a sample where 'relative others' are especially salient -Olympic athletesand investigates relative achievement using a different 'currency' -medals. While prior research shows that bronze are happier than silver medallists, we find no difference unless there is a relatively close race at the bottom of the podium in the competition between silver, bronze, and fourth. A nuanced distributional approach can be used to explore marginal rank effects.