Developing a Citizen Social Science approach to understand urban stress and promote wellbeing in urban communities

Abstract

This paper sets out the future potential and challenges for developing an interdisciplinary, mixed-method Citizen Social Science approach to researching urban emotions. It focuses on urban stress, which is increasingly noted as a global mental health challenge facing both urbanised and rapidly urbanising societies. The paper reviews the existing use of mobile psychophysiological or biosensing within urban environments-as means of 'capturing' the urban geographies of emotions. Methodological reflections are included on primary research using biosensing in a study of workplace and commuter stress for university employees in Birmingham (UK) and Salzburg (Austria) for illustrative purposes. In comparing perspectives on the conceptualisation and measurement of urban stress from psychology, neuroscience and urban planning, the difficulties of defining scientific constructs within Citizen Science are discussed to set out the groundwork for fostering interdisciplinary dialogue. The novel methods, geo-located sensor technologies and data-driven approaches to researching urban stress now available to researchers pose a number of ethical, political and conceptual challenges around defining and measuring emotions, stress, human behaviour and urban space. They also raise issues of rigour, participation and social scientific interpretation. Introducing methods informed by more critical Citizen Social Science perspectives can temper overly individualised forms of data collection to establish more effective ways of addressing urban stress and promoting wellbeing in urban communities.

The Quantified Self-in-Place: Opportunities and Challenges for Place-Based N-of-1 Datasets

“…Thinking of place-based N-of-1 research in a communityengaged or participatory research frameworks also has epistemological and ontological benefits. Citizen science approaches, which might include the quantified self-movement, can help integrate participants' environmental perceptions into otherwise "objective" data collection methodologies (Pykett et al, 2020). While more controlled research settings use standardized ecological momentary assessments (EMA), citizen science approaches may instead follow more participantdriven protocols, though they might still employ standardized tools (e.g., photo-taking, neighborhood audits).…”

“…These engagement-focused approaches respond to calls for self-tracking researchers to leverage both quantitative and qualitative methods (Gilmore, 2016), such as the "citizen social science" described by Pykett and colleagues, whereby individuallevel data are measured via wearables and also elicited through surveys and interviews (Pykett et al, 2020). Communities of selftrackers might also share insights to help one another optimize a behavioral intervention, or collectively assess the impact of an environmental change.…”

“…Environment may complicate this relationship; as in the step count example, local terrain or topography could be markedly different than the validated standard (Huang et al, 2016). Other constructs are the result of more complex physiological measurements (e.g., accelerometer data to gauge movement and intensity), and still others aim to represent psychological or social constructs (e.g., excitement, fear, stress) (Pykett et al, 2020). While these measures may have a biological basis derived from laboratory settings, important questions emerge about the validity of these measures when used in the field, especially measures that indicate response to external stimuli (Chrisinger and King, 2018;Pykett et al, 2020).…”

“…Other constructs are the result of more complex physiological measurements (e.g., accelerometer data to gauge movement and intensity), and still others aim to represent psychological or social constructs (e.g., excitement, fear, stress) (Pykett et al, 2020). While these measures may have a biological basis derived from laboratory settings, important questions emerge about the validity of these measures when used in the field, especially measures that indicate response to external stimuli (Chrisinger and King, 2018;Pykett et al, 2020). These questions become even more complex when comparisons between individual datasets are desired, but data have been collected with different kinds of applications or devices, and/or individuals' motivations for contributing their data are unclear.…”

“…Additionally, researchers must be aware of the contested nature of place terminologies themselves, including UGCoP and other challenges (Kwan, 2012a). Still, recent projects recognizing the "personal and subjective" nature of spatial perception (e.g., two neighbors may define their neighborhood quite differently) provide examples for how these uncertainties might be conceptualized and addressed (Pykett et al, 2020;Meier and Glinka). Furthermore, the moderating influences of environmental perceptions are also important to consider and could be measured with complementary methods, such as EMA (Yi et al, 2019).…”