The Mechanism of Urban Recreational Experience Scenes in Psychological Restoration: The Mediating Effect of Place Attachment

Against the backdrop of rapid urbanization, high-density living environments and fast-paced lifestyles have seriously undermined people’s physical and mental health. Urban recreation has become a prevalent way for people to relieve daily stress and achieve psychological restoration. However, few studies have explored the influencing mechanisms of urban recreational experience scenes on psychological restoration from the scenes’ perspective. This study establishes a dimensional indicator system for urban recreational experience scenes. Based on 571 valid questionnaires, structural equation modeling (SEM) is adopted to empirically examine the influencing mechanism of the five dimensions of urban recreational experience scenes on recreationists’ psychological restoration. The results indicate that all five dimensions of urban recreational experience scenes exert a significant positive effect on place attachment. The social symbolism dimension and experiential activity dimension have salient positive impacts on psychological restoration. Place attachment greatly facilitates psychological restoration and plays a mediating role between the five dimensions of recreation experience scenes and psychological restoration. Additionally, individual attributes present a significant moderating effect in the relationships between the social dimension, experiential activity dimension and psychological restoration. This research breaks through the limitations of traditional natural recreation studies and clarifies the transmission path from urban recreational experience scenes to psychological restoration. It not only enriches and expands the existing theories of tourism experience scenes, but also provides theoretical references for optimizing urban recreational spaces and promoting the healthy and sustainable development of cities.