What influences stress reduction in urban forests: Environment types or personality traits?

Abstract

As an extensive and convenient natural resource, urban forests have been shown to reduce stress in urban residents. Although many studies have observed positive physiological and psychological responses in urban forests, research on their mechanisms remains insufficient. The relationships between stress reduction, environments, and individuals need to be further explored with environment types and personality traits as key influencing factors. Therefore, the present study explored the effects of environment types, personality traits, and their interactions on stress reduction by viewing virtual reality (VR) images and investigated their direct and indirect paths using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results indicated that personality traits significantly influenced psychological stress reduction in urban forests, but the effects of environment types and personality traits on physiological stress reduction were not significant. Through SEM, we found that lower neuroticism and higher extraversion led to better psychological stress reduction by indirectly promoting environmental evaluation, whereas the direct and indirect paths of environment types on psychological stress reduction were the opposite. These findings provide accurate evidence of the effects of environment types and personality traits on stress reduction and further reveal the mechanisms of stress reduction in urban forests from a more comprehensive perspective.