• Berto, R. (2019). Our wellbeing in modern built environments is rooted in our evolutionary history. Are we aware of this? Visions for Sustainability – Special Issue “Wellbeing in daily built environments”, 11, 3-8.

• Korpela, K., Korhonen, M., Nummi, T., Martos, T., & Sallay, V. (2020). Environmental self-regulation in favourite places of Finnish and Hungarian adults. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 67, 101384.

• Ratcliffe, E. (2019). Toward a better understanding of pleasant sounds and soundscapes in urban settings. Cities & Health, Special Issue “Sound and the Health City”, 1-4.

• Simkin, J., Ojala, A., & Tyrväinen, L. (2020). Restorative effects of mature and young commercial forests, pristine old-growth forest and urban recreation forest - A field experiment. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 48, 126567. 

• Van Dongen, R. P. and Timmermans, H. J. P. (2019). Preference for different urban greenscape designs: A choice experiment using virtual environments. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 44, 126435.

If you have recently published and would like this communicated in the next newsletter, please email us.

• The Environmental Psychology subsection of Frontiers in Psychology has two Special Issues currently open for submissions which are relevant to restoration: The Benefits of Nature-Based Solutions to Psychological Health, and Human Perception of Environmental Sounds.
• Call for submissions to the symposium session, “Nature, Health and Digital: Transcending Borders of Exclusion into Nature Through Innovation in Digital and Immersive Solutions” at RGS-IBG Annual International Conference. Abstracts are due by 31 January.

2 x Lecturers in Psychology at University of Sunderland

Deadline: 30 January 2020

Location: Sunderland, United Kingdom

Description: The School of Psychology, which is part of the Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing, is home to a vibrant team of academics who offer a range of programmes in the areas of Psychology, Public Health, Environmental Health and Counselling. There is a thriving research ethos within the School which used to inform our teaching and curriculum developments. As part of planned growth within the School we are now seeking to recruit two full time members to the team and while we would welcome applications from any area of psychology we are particularly interested to receive applications which demonstrate an interest in the application of psychology to the areas of either Forensic or Health Psychology. You will also contribute to programme development and conduct research leading to high quality outputs, and contributing to research informed teaching.

Congratulations to Dr. Freddie Lymeus and Dr. Tytti Pasanen, who completed their PhDs in October 2019 and January 2020 respectively.

Freddie’s PhD in Psychology was completed at the Department of Psychology, Uppsala University, Sweden. His PhD thesis “Mindfulness training supported by a restorative natural setting: Integrating individual and environmental approaches to the management of adaptive resources” comprised a theoretical integration of restorative environments theory and meditation science, and four studies on a practical application of that integration in the form of an adapted mindfulness training course set in a garden (called restoration skills training, or ReST). ReST was compared against conventional mindfulness training (CMT) taught indoors. In contrast to CMT, ReST training led to increasingly efficient attention restoration over five course weeks, and restorative experiences particularly supported participants with more pronounced attention problems in completing the course and establishing a meditation habit. CMT instead incurred increasing effort and had poorer compliance. While less demanding and more acceptable, ReST was no less effective than CMT in conferring health benefits over a six-month follow-up period. The PhD thesis is accessible online here.

Tytti’s PhD in Psychology was completed at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University, Finland. Her PhD thesis, “Everyday physical activity in natural settings and subjective well-being: Direct connections and psychological mediators” examined visits to natural environments and their association with both short-term and longer-term subjective well-being outcomes using both observational and experimental approaches. The results indicate that conducting physical activity in natural outdoor settings tends to be associated with greater self-reported restoration and emotional well-being than physical activity in indoor or built outdoor settings, although the differences were small in effect. Stress emerged as an important predictor of restoration followed by single visits to natural settings. The PhD thesis is accessible online here.

The photo in this newsletter is supplied by Robert van Dongen. He writes:

“I am currently finalizing my PhD on optimizing the design of the urban greenscape. I am an urban planner and designer, and over the years have focused on the psychological effects of design choices in the urban environment. I teach and do research at Breda University of Applied Sciences and Eindhoven University of Technology, both in the Netherlands. I am looking forward to contributing to the Restorative Environments Network, working on creating and sharing knowledge to make our cities nicer places to be! This photo shows a restorative urban environment. In my research this street was actually chosen as the most pleasant and relaxing urban street in the city of Eindhoven.”