The benefits of discrete visits in urban parks

Izhak Schnell*, Neta Harel, Daniel Mishori

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

27 Scopus citations

Abstract

It is well accepted that visits to parks improve peoples' well-being. Numerous studies highlight the positive social consequences of more intensive visits to parks, and thus its impact on well-being. Other studies emphasize the relaxing effects of parks visitors. Some studies are rooted mainly in deep ecology and Biophilia and focus on the relevance of park visits to eudemonic aspects of well-being, which may be fulfilled more by discrete visits to parks. However, their arguments are rarely empirically tested. In this study that is based on Internet and face to face samples of more than four hundred visitors to parks in Israel, we test the contribution of discrete visits to parks on well-being in general and in its eudemonic aspect, particularly, with respect to social visits. The results show that once mediated by connectedness to nature, discrete visits improve a person's well-being compared to a social visit. This result hints at the possibility that while all visitors to parks enjoy improvement in well-being, discrete visitors to parks who were socialized to feel strong sense of connectedness to nature enjoy higher levels of well-being relative to the rest of the visitors.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)179-184
Number of pages6
JournalUrban Forestry and Urban Greening
Volume41
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2019

Keywords

  • Connectedness to nature
  • Hedonic and eudemonic well-being
  • Stress reduction in parks
  • Subjective well-being
  • Visits to park

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