Neighborhood environments influence emotion and physiological reactivity

Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with worse health and early mortality. Although many mechanisms may partially account for this effect, disadvantaged neighborhood environments are hypothesized to elicit stress and emotional responses that accumulate over time and influence physic...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientific reports 2019-07, Vol.9 (1), p.9498-11, Article 9498
Main Authors: Hackman, Daniel A., Robert, Stephanie A., Grübel, Jascha, Weibel, Raphael P., Anagnostou, Eirini, Hölscher, Christoph, Schinazi, Victor R.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
631/378/1457
631/378/1831
631/477/2811
692/499
Adolescent
Adult
Affluence
Blood pressure
Computer applications
Education
Emotions
Female
Humanities and Social Sciences
Humans
Male
Mental Health
multidisciplinary
Neighborhoods
Physiology
Residence Characteristics
Science
Science (multidisciplinary)
Socioeconomic Factors
Stress, Psychological - physiopathology
Stress, Psychological - psychology
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Summary:Living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with worse health and early mortality. Although many mechanisms may partially account for this effect, disadvantaged neighborhood environments are hypothesized to elicit stress and emotional responses that accumulate over time and influence physical and mental health. However, evidence for neighborhood effects on stress and emotion is limited due to methodological challenges. In order to address this question, we developed a virtual reality experimental model of neighborhood disadvantage and affluence and examined the effects of simulated neighborhoods on immediate stress and emotion. Exposure to neighborhood disadvantage resulted in greater negative emotion, less positive emotion, and more compassion, compared to exposure to affluence. However, the effect of virtual neighborhood environments on blood pressure and electrodermal reactivity depended on parental education. Participants from families with lower education exhibited greater reactivity to the disadvantaged neighborhood, while those from families with higher education exhibited greater reactivity to the affluent neighborhood. These results demonstrate that simulated neighborhood environments can elicit immediate stress reactivity and emotion, but the nature of physiological effects depends on sensitization to prior experience.
ISSN:2045-2322
2045-2322
DOI:10.1038/s41598-019-45876-8