Interactions between psychological and environmental characteristics and their impacts on walking

Due to walking's benefits to physical and mental health as well as to environmental and economic sustainability, numerous studies have examined psychological and environmental characteristics on their impacts on walking. However, understanding of how the interactions between psychological and environmental characteristics influence walking remains limited. Recently, both competitive mechanism and synergetic mechanism have been proposed, and a number of empirical studies have examined the interactions between psychological and environmental characteristics, but the results were inconsistent. We reviewed 11 recent studies and discussed their difference in terms of studies population, outcomes, environmental characteristics, and psychological characteristics. We propose a framework that integrate both mechanisms and provides an explanation to the inconsistency. More important, the framework may stimulate further empirical researches and provide implications for policy intervention to promote walking.