title: Urban Options for Psychological Restoration: Common Strategies in Everyday Situations.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Given the need for knowledge on the restorative potential of urban settings, we sought to estimate the effects of personal and contextual factors on preferences and restoration likelihood assessments for different urban activities-in-environments. We also sought to study the generality of these effects across different countries.
  
  
  METHODS
  We conducted a true experiment with convenience samples of university students in the Netherlands (n = 80), Sweden (n = 100), and the USA (n = 316). In each country, the experiment had a mixed design with activities-in-environments (sitting in a park, sitting in a cafe, walking in a shopping mall, walking along a busy street) manipulated within-subjects and the need for restoration (attentional fatigue, no attentional fatigue) and immediate social context (in company, alone) manipulated between-subjects. The manipulations relied on previously tested scenarios describing everyday situations that participants were instructed to remember and imagine themselves being in. For each imagined situation (activity-in-environment with antecedent fatigue condition and immediate social context), subjects provided two criterion measures: general preference and the likelihood of achieving psychological restoration.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The settings received different preference and restoration likelihood ratings as expected, affirming that a busy street, often used in comparisons with natural settings, is not representative of the restorative potential of urban settings. Being with a close friend and attentional fatigue both moderated ratings for specific settings. Findings of additional moderation by country of residence caution against broad generalizations regarding preferences for and the expected restorative effects of different urban settings.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Preferences and restoration likelihood ratings for urban activity-environment combinations are subject to multiple personal and contextual determinants, including level of attentional fatigue, being alone versus in company, and broader aspects of the urban context that vary across cities and countries. Claims regarding a lack of restorative quality in urban environments are problematic.
authors.affiliation: Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Henk
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Staats
authors.affiliation: Department of Occupational and Public Health Sciences, University of Gävle, Gävle, Sweden.
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Jahncke
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Grand Valley State University, Allendale, Michigan, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thomas R
authors.initials: TR
authors.lastname: Herzog
authors.affiliation: Institute for Housing and Urban Research, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden.
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hartig
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology; D002947:Cities; D004779:Environment Design; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D005222:Mental Fatigue / Q000523:psychology*; D008875:Middle Aged; D009426:Netherlands; D012919:Social Behavior; D012931:Social Environment; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden; D014481:United States; D016138:Walking / Q000523:psychology*; D055815:Young Adult