Catalyzing college students' well-being and creativity with campus outdoor spaces: A field study in China

Abstract

This study investigates the immediate effects of campus outdoor environments on university students' well-being and creativity through a controlled field experiment conducted at Nanjing Forestry University, China. A total of 147 students were exposed to four distinct campus environments, each offering varying degrees of natural elements, and both physiological and psychological responses were measured. The findings reveal that these four specific environments offer different psychological restorative benefits. Meanwhile, creativity was assessed using the Alternate Uses Test (AUT), focusing on key dimensions such as fluency, flexibility, elaboration, and originality. While all tested environments fostered increases in fluency, flexibility, and elaboration, originality was not significantly affected. The results indicate that about 15 min exposure to natural and green spaces significantly enhances psychological restoration, with marked improvements in fluency and elaboration scores. Conversely, environments with fewer natural elements demonstrate a decline in originality score, underscoring the importance of natural surroundings in fostering short-term creative thinking. The study further explores how individual factors, such as nature relatedness and site familiarity, influence these outcomes. Our findings highlight the critical role of diverse outdoor environments in enhancing both well-being and creative capacities, providing actionable insights for campus planners and educational policymakers to prompt more outdoor and biophilic exposure that cultivate a mutually reinforcing relationship between well-being and creativity.