Neighborhood environments influence emotion and physiological reactivity

Daniel A Hackman,Eirini Anagnostou,Stephanie A Robert,Christoph Hölscher,Jascha Grübel,Raphael P Weibel,Victor R Schinazi

doi:10.1038/s41598-019-45876-8

Daniel A Hackman, Eirini Anagnostou + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-45876-8

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Abstract

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with worse health and early mortality. Although many mechanisms may partially account for this effect, disadvantaged neighborhood environments are hypothesized to elicit stress and emotional responses that accumulate over time and influence physical and mental health. However, evidence for neighborhood effects on stress and emotion is limited due to methodological challenges. In order to address this question, we developed a virtual reality experimental model of neighborhood disadvantage and affluence and examined the effects of simulated neighborhoods on immediate stress and emotion. Exposure to neighborhood disadvantage resulted in greater negative emotion, less positive emotion, and more compassion, compared to exposure to affluence. However, the effect of virtual neighborhood environments on blood pressure and electrodermal reactivity depended on parental education. Participants from families with lower education exhibited greater reactivity to the disadvantaged neighborhood, while those from families with higher education exhibited greater reactivity to the affluent neighborhood. These results demonstrate that simulated neighborhood environments can elicit immediate stress reactivity and emotion, but the nature of physiological effects depends on sensitization to prior experience.

Highlights

The neighborhoods we live in are important for our health
Participants perceived the neighborhoods to be distinct and in concert with the type of neighborhood differences observed with systematic social observations[34,39]
This study provides the first support for the hypothesis that acute exposure to different neighborhood environments elicits differences in stress and emotional reactivity

Summary

Introduction

The neighborhoods we live in are important for our health. Independent of individual or family-level characteristics, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with early mortality and worse physical and mental health[1,2,3,4,5]. Neighborhood environments may affect acute stress and emotion, and may affect chronic stress and emotional functioning due to accumulation of acute stress responses and the long-term toll of adapting to adverse neighborhood environments[6,8,10,11] Over time, this adaptation may take the form of either habituation (i.e. reduced reactivity to neighborhood conditions over time) or sensitization (i.e. increased reactivity with repeated exposures)[10,21,22], which have different implications for the processes linking neighborhood stressors and health[8,10,11,22]. Prior stressful experiences may influence the response to VR neighborhood conditions, resulting in decreased responses consistent with habituation or increased responses consistent with sensitization

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