Investigating the perceived psychological stress in relevance to urban spaces’ different perceived personalities

Abstract

One of the primary goals of smart cities is to improve the mental wellbeing of their inhabitants through the design of the surrounding environment. In this regard, urban spaces, as surrounding contexts embodying daily human activities, play a major role through their imposed personality perception. Unfortunately, one of the main adverse psychological effects of urban spaces design is the perceived psychological stress. Nonetheless, associations between urban design and human psychological health remain relatively unexplored. Accordingly, this study investigates the relationship between urban space personality and users’ stress perception, through adopting a theoretical method reviewing related theories and studies, correlating urban space’ stress-inducing attributes and stress components, and a practical method employing a study-developed questionnaire targeting the users of six urban spaces within the Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. The investigation revealed contributions of each personality attribute in stress perception, with accounting the social component as the key role factor.

Keywords

• Perceived stress
• Urban space perceived personality
• Environmental stressors, environmental psychology