A dose of nature: Tree cover, stress reduction, and gender differences

By B. Jiang, Chun-Yen Chang, William C. Sullivan. 2014

534 citations recorded by the source corpus.

a b s t r a c t Although it is well established that exposure to nearby nature can help reduce stress in individuals, the shape of the dose-response curve is entirely unclear. To establish this dose-response curve, we recruited 160 individuals for a laboratory experiment. Participants engaged in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) to induce psychological stress, and were then randomly assigned to view one of ten, 6-min, 3-D videos of neighborhood streets. The density of tree cover in the videos varied from 1.7% to 62.0%. We measured their stress reactions by assessing salivary cortisol and skin conductance levels. Results show a clear disparity between women and men. For women, we found no relationship between varying densities of tree cover and stress recovery. For men, the dose-response curve was an inverted-U shape: as tree cover density increased from 1.7% to 24%, stress recovery increased. Tree density between 24% to 34% resulted in no change in stress recovery. Tree densities above 34% were associated with slower recovery times. A quadratic regression using tree cover density as the independent variable and a summary stress index as the dependent variable substantiated these results (R 2 = .22, F (2, 68) = 9.70, p < .001). The implications for our understanding of the impacts of nearby nature, and for the practice of planning and landscape architecture are discussed. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/7938ae6acacbe4a7955cf90ddcf7a8a0cc25ecc2

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In Environmental Engineering

In Global and Planetary Change

In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

Citations in the corpus

Perception and preference of trees: A psychological contribution to tree species selection in urban areas (2016, background): “…is associated with a lower smoking prevalence, fewer antidepressant prescriptions (Taylor et al., 2015), greater physiological stress recovery (Jiang et al., 2014a) and self-reported stress-recovery (Jiang et al., 2014b; Van den Berg et al., 2014), a reduced number of small for gestational…”
Trees, grass, or concrete? The effects of different types of environments on stress reduction (2020, methodology): “and it is often used in research about stress recovery (Alvarsson et al., 2010; de Kort et al., 2006; Jiang et al., 2014; Li & Sullivan, 2016).”
The Role of Methodological Choices in the Effects of Experimental Exposure to Simulated Natural Landscapes on Human Health and Cognitive Performance: A Systematic Review (2020, background): “For instance, methodological decisions that pertain to the inclusion of natural and human-made landscape features and the frequency and duration of exposure are likely to influence study findings (de Kort et al., 2006; Jiang et al., 2014, 2016).”
Nature Contact and Human Health: A Research Agenda (2017, methodology): “These measures include stress indicators such as cortisol, amylase, and skin conductance (Beil and Hanes 2013; Jiang et al. 2014; JJ Roe et al. 2013); measures of brain activity including novel EEG methods (Aspinall et al. 2015; J Roe et al. 2013; Tilley et al. 2017) and functional brain imaging…”
Impact of views to school landscapes on recovery from stress and mental fatigue (2016, methodology): “These measures are the most widely employed methods for measuring physiological stress, and are often used together in research related to exposure to nature and stress recovery (Jiang et al., 2014a; Chang, Hammitt, Chen, Machnik, & Su, 2008).”