Attenuating subjective crowding through beauty: an online study on the interaction between environment aesthetics, typology and crowdedness

Past research suggests a positive impact of green (compared to built) spaces on multiple facets of cognition and emotion. However, how crowding (high density of other people) affects this relationship, and whether it is modulated by the aesthetic appeal of the environment, remains unclear. We compiled a library of 480 video-clips of first-person walking through diverse urban and green environments with varying degrees of crowding, across 30 cities in 20 countries. These were rated by 377 participants on
emotional reactions, willingness to visit and other environmental appraisals.
Our results underline the interaction between environmental aesthetics and crowding in people’s appraisal of various environments. Specifically, aesthetically pleasing (i.e. more beautiful) environments evoke more positive emotions and higher willingness to visit, regardless of their level of crowding.
Less aesthetically pleasing environments presented an inverse-u relationship with crowdedness, where valence and willingness to visit ratings peaked under moderate levels of crowding.
As many cities worldwide grapple with higher population densities and increased pedestrian flows, these results highlight the importance of aesthetics and design to foster psychological well-being. The validated library of videos is made available open-access on zenodo.