Effect of Viewing Video Representation of the Urban Environment and Forest Environment on Mood and Level of Procrastination

Abstract

A common problem among students is the problem of delaying important work activities, which is conceptualized as procrastination. Since procrastination can cause considerable costs for society, we would like to find a method to effectively alleviate the symptoms of this conditioning. It has been proven in an earlier study that staying in the forest environment increases vitality and reduces anxiety, and the negative state of these features can be associated with the intensification of procrastination symptoms. Therefore, it is likely that watching a forest video may decrease the probability or intensity of procrastination. To measure the impact of the forest environment on the level of procrastination of the subjects, a randomized experiment was carried out, in which the subjects watched in random order (on different days) one of two 15-min videos: one showing a walk in the forest area and one showing a walk in an urban environment (control). We measured the level of so-called ‘fluid procrastination’ including three aspects: ‘lack of energy to do the work’, ‘inability to get to work’ and ’pessimistic attitude to do the work’ with a set of questions the respondents completed before and after the experiment. The results showed that one aspect of fluid procrastination (‘pessimistic attitude to do the work’) can be effectively lowered by watching a video showing the forest environment. In contrast, watching a video of an urban environment increased the procrastination levels for two other aspects of procrastination (‘lack of energy to do the work’, ‘inability to get to work’). We also measured three other parameters before and after the experiment: mood state, restoration and vitality. Watching the video from forest area raised mood and restoration and watching the video from urban area, decreased mood, vitality and restoration. The study suggests that watching a video showing forest landscapes could be used as an effective remedy for problems related to procrastination among students.

Health Benefits Derived from Forest: A Review

“…The most common scale in the sample was the Profile Of Mood States (POMS), whose purpose is to evaluate individual moods associated with certain forest exposure [ 37 , 38 , 39 ]. The Positive And Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) is instead one of the oldest but not so popular scales available [ 55 ], and was used by Bielinis et al [ 37 , 51 ] and Park et al [ 36 ] for the evaluation of the therapeutic effects of forests. The evaluation of rest is conducted with a specific scale called the Restoration Outcome Scale (ROS), which is composed of six items [ 56 ].…”

A Novel Anti-Environmental Forest Experience Scale to Predict Preferred Pleasantness Associated with Forest Environments

“…However, looking at a virtual forest landscape is also associated with many benefits that can be derived by the respondents. A good example is a study in which people looking at films from forest areas experienced relaxation, but this also decreased their willingness to procrastinate [ 51 ]. In other studies, looking at a virtual forest reduced stress in adults [ 52 ], and the respondents’ relationships to the virtual forest environment were varied [ 53 ].…”

Virtual reality for the enhancement of emotion regulation

“…A growing body of studies have shown the efficacy of attentional strategies such as focusing on relaxing music (Linnemann et al, 2015) or videos of natural environments (Bielinis et al, 2020;J. Freeman et al, 2004;Wang et al, 2020) for reducing stress levels and increasing momentary well-being.…”

“…A growing body of studies have shown the efficacy of attentional strategies such as focusing on relaxing music (Linnemann et al, 2015) or videos of natural environments (Bielinis et al, 2020; J. Freeman et al, 2004; Wang et al, 2020) for reducing stress levels and increasing momentary well‐being. In this regard, VR represents a powerful tool to further foster these strategies because it can provide users with the possibility of experiencing, from a first‐person perspective, a virtual world that integrates pleasant, peaceful, and non‐arousing audio and visual stimuli.…”