Abstract

This study is to examine whether restorative environment might buffer or moderate the negative effect of stress(life events and hassles) on psychological well-being(mood, depression, anxiety, physical symptom). During a week, cellular phone text messages were sent to South Korean undergraduates(n = 186) five times a day. On receiving the messages, participants rated the restorativeness of their surroundings "here and now" on the Perceived Restorativeness Scale. After a week, participants rated their stress and psychological well-being with reference to the past week on several questionnaires. A series of hierarchical multiple regressions showed that (1) high levels of stress were related to low psychological well-being; (2) high levels of restorative environment were related to high mood; (3) restorative environment buffered the negative effect(or intensified the positive effect) of life events on mood, and therefore elevated mood; and (4) restorative environment buffered the negative effect of life events and hassles on anxiety, and therefore mitigated anxiety. This study shows there is a close relationship between restorative environment and mood elevation. This study also shows the possibility that restorative environment can buffer the negative effect of not only hassles but also life events. However, most of the moderator effects(interaction effects) found in this study were marginally significant, so they should be interpreted with caution. Finally, the limitations and implications of this study are discussed.