The COVID-19 pandemic may have altered visitation patterns to parks, with potential effects on human health. Little is known about park use early in the pandemic, how park availability influenced use, and whether park visits accelerated COVID-19 spread. Using weekly cell phone location data for 620 U.S. counties, we show park visits decreased by an average 26% between March 15 and May 9, 2020. Net

This experimental study tested the effects of digital tactical messaging on 189 undergraduates’ drought risk responsiveness using a mobile serious game. In the game’s virtual household environment, treatment groups were exposed to message framings informed by risk psychological theories. Drought risk responsiveness was indicated by participants’ in-game water consumption levels. The first intervention

Social dominance orientation (SDO) has been reported to predict attitudes and behavior toward the natural environment. This research investigated whether dispositional connectedness with and temporary exposure to nature would reversely alter SDO. Two studies reported consistent results: Nature connectedness predicted lower SDO, and exposure to nature (vs. urban) decreased SDO only among nature-connected

How do people behave in the seconds after they become aware they have been caught up in a real-life transport emergency? This paper presents the first micro-behavioral, video-based analysis of the behavior of passengers during a small explosion and subsequent fire on a subway train. We analyzed the behavior of 40 passengers present in the same carriage as the explosion. We documented the first action

A growing literature suggests the possibility that brightness (vs. darkness) affects myriad human behaviors and how people think. One stream suggests that brightness increases self-awareness. We extend these findings and formally hypothesize that brightness (vs. darkness) increases self-accountability, thereby motivating people to take actions to meet their self-standards for health, of which most

As specialty crop production has become increasingly important to U.S. agriculture, public and private stakeholders have called for research and outreach efforts centered on risks posed by climate change. Drawing on a survey of specialty crop farmers, this study explores farmers’ perceptions of climate change risks. Underlying cognitive, experiential, and socio-cultural factors hypothesized to influence

This paper examines the role of local weather conditions in explaining variations in assault, in sub-tropical Brisbane, Australia. It details the extent to which local variations in weather are important in shaping the necessary preconditions for assault to take place. Results suggest that higher daily temperatures are associated with an increased propensity for assault at the neighborhood level after

This paper demonstrates for the first time that prisons with a higher proportion of natural vegetation within their perimeter have lower levels of staff sickness absence. It makes three significant contributions. First, it extends studies of workplace nature contact into the un-researched carceral context. Second, whereas previous workplace nature contact studies have largely utilized single-site surveys

The current research asks whether children’s judgments of harmful actions toward animals depend on animals’ perceived attractiveness. In Study 1, primary school children (N = 359) rated the perceived attractiveness of six animals and judged how severe it is to hurt them, as compared to moral transgressions, social-conventional transgressions, and personal choices. Hurting attractive animals was perceived

The built environment characteristics associated with walkability range from neighborhood-level urban form factors to street-level urban design factors. However, many existing walkability indices are based on neighborhood-level factors and lack consideration for street-level factors. Arguably, this omission is due to the lack of a scalable way to measure them. This paper uses computer vision to quantify

In recent years an increasing number of organizations have started to rethink their physical work environments and recognized the value of having activity-based workspaces (ABWs). This allows employees to choose freely between several work environments based on their specific task. There is growing debate amongst researchers about the effects of ABWs on employee behavior, but companies are still not

While activity-based working is gaining popularity worldwide, research shows that workers frequently experience a misfit between the task at hand and their work setting. In the current study, experience sampling data were used to examine how perceived fit in activity-based work environments is related to user behavior (i.e., the use of work settings and setting-switching). We found that workers’ perceived

This review assessed the effects of environmental labels on consumers’ demand for more sustainable food products. Six electronic databases were searched for experimental studies of ecolabels and food choices. We followed standard Cochrane methods and results were synthesized using vote counting. Fifty-six studies (N = 42,768 participants, 76 interventions) were included. Outcomes comprised selection

Ensuring that environments are designed to cater for those with decreasing orientation, perceptual and mobility skills, is an example of how environments are being changed to become more age and de...

The theory of supportive design influences healthcare facility design but is under-researched for different cultural groups. This mixed-methods study compared two Indigenous sample populations in A...

Classrooms are noisy, yet little is known about pupils’ subjective reactions to noise. We surveyed 112 children between 8.70 and 11.38 years of age and extracted five dimensions in their reactions ...

William Whyte originally hypothesized that the presence of people in a public space would attract more people. Contemporary planners now refer to “sticky streets” as places where pedestrians are co...

A substantial body of research provides evidence for the role of parents in transferring pro-environmental attitudes, values, and behaviors to their children. However, little research has focused o...

Previous research suggests that meditation, a mindfulness exercise, could result in increased connectedness to nature and pro-environmental behavior. Exposure to nature also is associated with thes...

Environmental problems could be reduced if individuals act pro-environmentally. Typically, studies have examined factors explaining pro-environmental behavior among adults, but not among children. ...

The importance of communication among healthcare providers has been long recognized, and many healthcare organizations are implementing team-based care, with emphasis on staff communication. While ...

Few studies have investigated the impact of landscapes on humans’ mental status while they are moving at high speeds, such as driving on the freeway. This study used a simulation system to measure ...

Few researches have considered fear of crime as a context-specific experience. This article promotes a place-based theoretical framework for studying crime perceptions through presenting app-based ...

Urban sociology highlights an important role that a city’s social infrastructure, or “third-places,” play in supporting healthy communities. Informed by social identity theorizing, this study explo...

Several studies have suggested that people might be less likely to engage in proenvironmental behavior subsequent to their prior engagement in proenvironmental behavior. We have conducted a preregi...

This study examines the environmentally responsible behaviors (ERBs) of undergraduates (n = 575). ERBs were measured in an online survey and the influence of situational context on behavior was exp...

A prevailing marketing tactic, called cause-related marketing (CRM), involves donating to a charity contingent on consumer purchases. Building on moral licensing theory, the current research identi...

The present study employed a longitudinal survey experiment with American adults to investigate whether cognitive and emotional appraisals of messages about climate change related health risks would mediate the relationships between participants’ individual differences (in political ideology and health) and their perceived harm to self and support for climate change policies. The study found that liberals

Organizations are increasingly adopting non-territorial organizational models with unassigned desks. However, previous research has: (1) shown mixed results regarding the impact of non-territorial ...

Extant studies have revealed enhancing effects of scent on performance. The role of scent, and emission method, in the context of performing repetitive tasks over prolonged duration in promoting al...

Research in environmental psychology has found a positive relationship between place bonds and behaviors related to care and maintenance of place. Although this relationship has been analyzed in na...

We compared the experience with nature of today’s children with data from the beginning of the 20th century to determine whether we can confirm a loss of experience and contribute to the descriptio...

Hotter weather is associated with aggressive crime. However, it is not well known if similar relationships apply to online aggression. This study uses anger counts derived from Twitter posts (tweet...

With growing concern for biodiversity loss, conservationists are faced with increased pressure to depict animals in ways that evoke empathy and lead to conservation. In recent years, conservation p...

We examine psychological mediating mechanisms to promote ocean health among the U.S. public. Ocean acidification (OA) was chosen as the focus, as experts consider it as important as climate change ...

We draw on theoretical insights from criminology in using the Walk Score index to analyze walkability’s relationship to spatial crime patterns on Los Angeles city blocks. Results from our first set...

While many cancer centers suggest treating pain with medication and nondrug treatment, few include the use of virtual reality (VR) as an alternative for stress and pain relief therapy. The purpose of this research was to determine whether a nature-inspired VR simulation reduced stress and pain levels among patients in a cancer treatment center. Using a repeated measures design, 50 patients attending

Motivation has long been implicated as an antecedent to place attachment among recreationists. Research has framed this association around expectancy theory, suggesting that the realization of pref...

Coastal flooding risks are becoming increasingly important because of the increasing vulnerability of coastal territories and the rise of ocean levels in relation to climate change. Studying the ad...

The city of Philadelphia has long been criticized for the amount of litter strewn about its streets. To more fully understand this problem, a recent city initiative, the Clean PHL program, sent out...

We review the methods and findings of experiments that have examined the effects of exposure to simulated natural landscapes on human health and cognitive performance. Keyword searches of PubMed, S...

In the operating room (OR), opaque drapes are hung between the anesthesia workstation and the operating table. Because OR teams are transient and hierarchical, social order is continuously being ne...

This study explored associations between perceived neighborhood walkability and neighborhood-based physical activity (NB-PA) and assessed possible moderation effects of the amount of time spent in ...

Increasing droughts and water shortages are intensifying the need for residential water conservation. We identify and classify 24 water conservation studies using the information–motivation–behavio...

Although the sharing economy is rapidly growing, it is still in its infancy. One of the key challenges is successfully expanding the number of users joining the sharing economy. Our research empiri...

Expedition teams operating in Polar environments are exposed to a range of environmental, psychological, and social challenges. How a person responds to these demands has implications for their physical and psychological health. In this study, we examined relations between the daily events encountered, coping strategies used, and markers of physical and psychological health in a team of six British

Diffusion of pro-environmental behaviors (PEBs) is known to be influenced by the perceived social status of those behaviors, but little is known about what gives PEBs social status. A sample of Aus...

Attention restoration theory (ART) predicts that top-down processing during everyday activities can cause attentional fatigue and that bottom-up processing that occurs when people experience nature...

This study aimed to investigate the effects of Person-Environment Fit on trajectories of cognitive function. Data came from the Health Retirement Study (1998-2010), focusing on those aged 65 and ab...

Extensive evidence has documented the moderating role of design attributes in crowding; yet, the effect of public transportation design on travel experience has been overlooked. We conducted a with...

Recent research suggests that mindfulness may foster sustainable consumption behavior through the reduction of the so-called attitude–behavior gap, or by weakening material values while increasing subjective well-being. The current controlled longitudinal study tested these propositions by employing a sustainability-adapted mindfulness-based intervention (sMBI) to two different samples (n = 60 university

Offices are evolving rapidly to facilitate organizational cost reductions and to better support contemporary working practices. We investigate relationships between the design of contemporary offices (physical proximity and breakout areas) and autonomy in predicting individual outcomes (ease of communication, job satisfaction, and well-being). We extend Social Interference Theory to include features

Shifts toward naturalistic zoo enclosures in the last decades of the 20th century prompted research findings that perceptions of animals were influenced by their environment. The current study repl...

This study investigates the relationship between weather and crime in Barranquilla, Colombia, a city in the Torrid Zone, which in contrast to more commonly studied temperate zones is hot and humid year-round. Our analysis is based on daily variations in four weather variables (temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and wind speed) and two indicators of criminal activity, namely, homicides and

Place attachment is the development of a psychological and emotional bond between an individual and their environmental setting. While positive experiences in the residential neighborhood are central to ongoing develop-ment of people–place bonds, whether negative experiences erode place attachment remains unknown. In this study, we explore the relationship between crime victimization, social ties,

An intervention, which used elements of the theory of planned behavior, was developed and tested in a randomized control trial (RCT) involving households in the city of London, Ontario, Canada. A bespoke methodology involving the direct collection and measurement of food waste within curbside garbage samples of control (n = 58) and treatment households (n = 54) was used to evaluate the effectiveness

Contact with nature is widely considered to ameliorate psychological stress, but the empirical support for a causal link is limited. We conducted a systematic review to synthesize and critically assess the evidence. Six electronic databases were searched. Twenty-six studies evaluated the difference between the effect of natural environments and that of a suitable control on the acute psychophysiological

We investigated the possible restorative effects of exposure to awe-evoking scenes (natural/built) compared with mundane scenes (natural/built). A careful selection of visual stimuli was carried out, followed by an experiment with 250 participants. We included a mentally fatigued condition and a not mentally fatigued condition (i.e., control group). Participants’ performance on an attentional task

The present study adopted a quasi-experimental mixed method approach to investigate the influence of an improved school ground on children’s academic performance. In total, 123 children from two (intervention and control) primary schools in Bangladesh participated. In the intervention school, a barren school ground was redesigned with several behavior settings (e.g., gardens and amphitheater) for teaching

Environment-friendly behaviors may be desirable in helping to solve worldwide ecological issues. This has sparked interest in the associations of such behaviors with established psychological constructs such as the Five-Factor Model personality traits. Of these, Openness has been most consistently linked with proenvironmental behavior; yet, the extent of causality in this association is unclear. Using