“Good Night, Sleep Tight”: Do we have an “Evolutionary Preference” for Placing Beds in Sleeping Rooms? A Replication and Extension of Spörrle and Stich (2010)

International audienceIn the distant past, hunter-gatherers had to manage the risk of attacks from other human beings and dangerous animals not only when awake, but also when asleep—a time during which humans are particularly vulnerable. Thus, one hypothesis is that humans evolved to choose “safe spaces” to sleep. Spörrle and Stich (2010) provided evidence for this hypothesis using 2D-floor plans and by asking participants to arrange pieces of furniture in a bedroom (bed, chair, table, closet). The aim of the present research was to replicate and extend Spörrle and Stich’s (2010) findings. In two studies, participants had to position furniture in a sleeping room in the way they liked it best. Study 1 conducted with French participants was a quasi-replication of Spörrle and Stich (2010) using 2D-floor plans of a bedroom that differed in the opening direction of the door (left versus right) and the presence (versus absence) of a window. Study 2 with Slovak participants used the same design but this time with 3D-room plans. Finally, in Study 3 involving both French and Slovak participants, we examined the hypothesis that when participants are asked to imagine sleeping in a particular bedroom, a bed position that increases the risk of attack or predation (“unsafe position”) will elicit greater feelings of discomfort than a bed position that reduces such risks. Taken overall, the findings provide further evidence that the positioning of beds in modern sleeping rooms has been shaped by the ancestral requirement of being protected during the night