Mental stress is increasingly recognized as an environmental contributor to disease
burden in many parts of the world. One way people try to reduce mental stress is through
features of the built environment. Architects often give us “nature” in the form of
water or trees to create restorative settings, while others favor complex and challenging
sculpture or structures. In this month’s issue, Oladele A. Ogunseitan of the University
of California, Irvine, asks us to consider the study of topophilia as a source for
criteria to help us judge which elements of an environment truly have a restorative
effect [EHP 113:143–148].
The term topophilia was coined by the geographer Yi-Fu Tuan of the University of Wisconsin
and is defined as the affective bond with one’s environment—a person’s mental, emotional,
and cognitive ties to a place. Topophilia is studied here as a latent construct, an
abstract psychological concept similar to “attitude” or “intelligence” whose variability
can only be observed indirectly through its effect on measurable responses.
Ogunseitan surveyed 379 people on the Irvine campus, asking them to rate the importance
of features such as color, flowers, and complexity to an environment they consider
restorative. He then compared these values with data from a World Health Organization
quality of life (QOL) survey administered along with the topophilia questions.
The environmental features surveyed mapped closely onto four domains of topophilia:
ecodiversity (the presence of flowers, water, and other elements of nature), synesthetic
tendency (a commingling of colors, smells, and other sensory stimuli), environmental
familiarity (which includes spaciousness and privacy), and cognitive challenge (which
includes structural complexity and texture). Structural equation modeling showed a
positive correlation between topophilia and various aspects of QOL. That is, people
who had the highest topophilia ratings (who, for example, most highly valued flowers
or color as important for achieving a restorative effect) tended to have the highest
QOL scores. Ecodiversity had the highest correlation with overall QOL. Within this
category, the presence of flowers and proximity to lakes or the ocean were most significantly
correlated with QOL.
Ogunseitan notes that “complexity” and other features associated with the cognitive
domain—and much loved by some architects—were not linked with higher QOL. He also
was surprised that none of the synesthetic tendency qualities such as smells or sounds
were associated with improved QOL, given the postulated health benefits—and obvious
commercial appeal—of aromatherapy and recorded “nature” sounds.
The results would appear to buttress previous research indicating that people prefer
“natural” environments to those that emphasize complex designs or artificial sensory
stimulation, but Ogunseitan stresses that this study represents only an initial foray
into understanding the complex relationship between quality of life and restorative
environments. The current study design assumes that when people rate aspects of their
environment highly, there really is a chance that those features are restorative to
mental health beyond their aesthetic appeal. Although the results of such correlational
research do not imply causation, Ogunseitan notes, they can offer insights to guide
future research.