Built nature spaces have been increasingly integrated into our urban environments in recent years with the aim of reaping their psychological benefits. However, despite numerous works of research on the relationship between nature exposure and well-being, most studies have looked into the benefits of well-being from the lens of isolated elements of nature, such as natural scenery or animal exposure. This study aims to fill in the gaps by examining the additive and multiplicative relationships between natural scenery exposure and human–animal interaction on affective well-being (i.e., positive affect, negative affect, and stress) through a daily diary study. Over seven days, natural scenery exposure, human–animal interactions, and affective well-being of 514 young adults were assessed. Through multilevel modelling, we found that natural scenery exposure was associated with increased positive affect at the within- and between-person levels. Moreover, human–animal interaction was associated with increased positive affect at the within-person level. No evidence was found for human–animal interaction as a moderator of the relationship between natural scenery exposure and affective well-being. Our findings support the additive, but not multiplicative, relations between natural scenery exposure and human–animal interactions on their influence on affective well-being. The exploratory analysis showed the lack of multiplicative relationship which can be attributed to the distinct mechanism of the effect between natural scenery exposure and human–animal interactions on affective well-being.

Existing studies have shown that direct exposure to a real nature environment has a restorative effect on attentional resources after a mentally fatiguing task. However, it remains unclear whether virtual nature simulations can serve as a substitute for real nature experienced in the outdoors to restore executive attention. Given the mixed findings in the literature, the present study sought to examine if viewing videos with natural scenery (vs. a control with urban scenery) restores participants’ working memory capacity – measured by an operation span task – in a high-powered pre-registered within-subject experimental study. Overall, our within-subject experiment did not find any evidence to support the benefit of watching videos with natural scenery on restoration of executive attention. Moreover, the results from our Bayesian analyses further showed substantial support for the null hypothesis. Our study suggests that virtual nature simulations, even with the use of videos, may not be able to replicate the experiences of nature in the outdoors and restore attentional resources.

Dispositional gratitude has emerged in the literature to be associated with many health benefits in measures ranging from self-reported health to biomarkers of cardiovascular risk. However, little is known about the link between dispositional gratitude and lipid profiles. Drawing from the Gratitude and Self-improvement Model that grateful individuals are more likely to strive for actual self-improvement such as engaging in healthy lifestyles, we investigated the relation between dispositional gratitude and serum lipid levels. Participants consisted of 1800 adults from the National Survey of Midlife Development in the United States (MIDUS) 2: Biomarker Project (N = 1054) and MIDUS Refresher: Biomarker Project (N = 746). Serum lipid profiles were measured through fasting blood samples. After controlling for demographics, use of antihyperlipidemic mediation, and personality traits, we found that higher dispositional gratitude was associated with lower triglyceride levels. Results also revealed that healthy diets and lower BMI partially mediated the gratitude-triglyceride association. However, some variations in the analytic method may influence the associations between gratitude and triglycerides levels. Our findings provide preliminary evidence suggesting dispositional gratitude as a promising psychological factor that is associated with a healthier lipid profile.

Building on past research that has indicated cultural variations in the factor structure of the 20-item Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D-20), as well as several limitations validating the CES-D-20 within a Singapore context, this study investigated the CES-D-20's factor structure and sex-based measurement invariance in Singapore. A large young adult sample in Singapore (N = 1008) was utilised, and the original CES-D-20 was administered to all participants. The findings confirmed the four-factor model's robustness over five other alternative models (RMSEA = .05, SRMR = .04), where each of the 20 items loaded significantly onto its respective factor (all loadings≥.42, all ps < .001). All four factors were also significantly inter-correlated to a medium to very large extent (all ps < .001). Configural and weak invariance were established across sexes; however, strong invariance required modification, where the release of a single intercept constraint resulted in strong partial invariance, implying sex differences in the expression of crying. Homogeneity tests suggested no significant sex differences in latent factor means, variances, and covariances. The importance of cultural- and sex-specific considerations when utilising the CES-D-20 are discussed.

The current research examined if dispositional optimism buffers against negative consequences of daily stressor exposure. The work also provides a direct test of positive affect as a mediator, in line with the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. Study 1 utilised data from a US older-adult sample ( N = 958, M _age = 62.57, 45% male) to examine optimism’s buffering role on affective (negative affect) and cognitive (rumination) outcomes. Study 2 extended these findings with a Singapore young adult sample ( N = 995, M _age = 21.93, 27% male), incorporating behavioural outcomes (procrastination and impulsivity), introducing additional affective indicators (depressive and anxious mood), and broadening the cognitive domain to include cognitive failure in addition to rumination. Using multilevel regression and multivariate modelling, we found that optimism acted as a buffer against all indicators across both studies, except for anxious mood and procrastination. Trait positive affect mediated the associations between optimism and negative affect (in Study 1), rumination (in Study 1 but not in Study 2), and depressive mood, impulsivity and cognitive failure (in Study 2). These findings shed light on the boundary conditions of the buffering effect of dispositional optimism and the broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions.