People with anxiety problems can find peace from stress better in busy urban streets.
New research concludes that natural environments recharge people’s cognitive abilities.
Neurotic people find solace in the hustle and bustle of loud urban places rather than quiet of a forest or the ocean.
Dr Kevin Newman, the study’s first writer, said: “Previous literature says that natural environments tend to restore cognitive abilities better than urban environments, but we questioned whether this one-sided perspective was accurate.”
The study involved people performing exhausting mental tasks.
For example, they wrote sentences without the letters ‘A’ or ‘N’.
After the exhausting tasks, they were given tasks involving words that hinted at urban environments or more natural settings.
The subjects with more neurotic mentalities did better with suggested urban environments.
People without as many neurotic habits however, did better when natural environments were suggested.
Dr Newman said: “People tended to do better in environments that fit with their personality. Imagine someone with a neurotic personality like Woody Allen. If you put him in a forest it could be very off-putting rather than rejuvenating.”
the neurotic subjects had better overall test results when confronted with words that were frenetic but involved nature like “cliff”and “thunder”.
Non-neurotic subjects did better with calmer words related to city environments like “bookstore” or “library”.
The study was published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology (Newman & Brucks, 2016).
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