The Influence of Viewing Photos of Different Types of Rural Landscapes on Stress in Beijing

Xiaobo Wang, Hanlun Zhu, Zhendong Shang and Yencheng Chiang
Additional contact information
Xiaobo Wang: College of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology, Beijing 100144, China
Hanlun Zhu: Orient Landscape, Beijing 100015, China
Zhendong Shang: College of Architecture and Art, North China University of Technology, Beijing 100144, China
Yencheng Chiang: Department of Landscape Architecture, National Chiayi University, Chiayi City 60004, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 9, 1-19

Abstract: The environment can affect people’s health by relieving stress, and rural landscape as a special environment might influence human’s stress relief. This study takes different types of rural landscapes as the research object to explore their impact on stress levels, which are shown by photos. As an independent variable, the rural landscape is divided into three levels: Type 1 (natural landscape), type 2 (productive landscape), and type 3 (artificial landscape). Seventy-three subjects were randomly assigned to each type of rural landscape. Salivary cortisol, blood pressure, heart rate, and a subjective rating state scale (brief profile of mood states, BPOMS) were used as indicators of stress. At the same time, the influence of preference and familiarity on the stress relieving effect was also discussed. A paired t -test and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used as the main statistical methods. In the results of t -test for pre-posttest, significant difference was observed in high blood pressure, heart rate, and total mood disturbance (TMD) of type 1 and type 2, and the high and low blood pressure of type 3; ANOVA analysis revealed that for the difference of pre-posttest, significant difference was observed in the TMD value among the three types; except for type 3, blood pressure, heart rate, and BPOMS values were significantly affected by preference and familiarity. The conclusions include the following: The three types of rural landscapes have a positive effect on relieving stress; the productive landscape has the best effect on relieving stress; and users’ landscape preferences and familiarity with the environment can affect the effect of stress relief in rural landscapes.

Keywords: rural landscape; stress; natural landscape; productive landscape; artificial landscape; preference; familiarity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2537/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/9/2537/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:9:p:2537-:d:227665

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().