Urban Environment and Momentary Psychological States: A Micro-Scale Study on a University Campus with Network Analysis

Urban environmental settings influence human psychological states, contributing to varying mental health outcomes. This study examines the relationships between objective environmental features and psychological states at a fine scale. Using a geo-enabled survey tool, we collected data on individuals’ perceptions of their immediate environment within their daily activity space on an urban university campus. The psychological assessment included emotional and affective states such as perceived stress, fatigue, and happiness. Objective environmental properties were derived from high-resolution imagery to analyze the association between environmental settings and psychological responses. The data were analyzed using Spearman’s correlation, moderated multiple regression, and partial correlation networks. Our findings revealed that beneficial psychological states were positively associated with the quantity of natural elements in the immediate environment such as trees, water, and grass. Conversely, negative psychological states were positively associated with barren areas, parking lots, buildings, and artificial surfaces. These relationships were not significantly moderated by gender or ethnicity in our experiment. The interconnections of psychological states show distinct patterns in three different environmental settings, which are a mostly green environment, a mixed environment with green and artificial elements, and a mostly artificial environment. A difference in such interconnections between males and females has been observed. These results highlight the complex interplay between environmental features and mental state networks.