How Does Child Temperament Influence the Associations Between Greenspace Exposure and Emotional Well-Being in Daily...

Greenspace exposure enhances children's emotional well-being (greater happiness and fewer emotional problems), and the extent of this enhancement depends on their temperament characteristics. However, much of what we know comes from population-wide studies that compare how children differ from each other in terms of overall greenspace exposure. This study used a 14-day daily diary method to examine how children's temperament moderates the within-child associations between greenspace exposure and emotional well-being in daily life. This study included 461 children (211 boys; M_age = 10.56 years, SD = 0.85 years) along with their parents. Multilevel models revealed that the positive association between daily greenspace exposure and same-day happiness was stronger among children with higher levels of negative affectivity/lower levels of effortful control than among children with lower levels of negative affectivity/higher levels of effortful control. At the person level, children with higher levels of negative affectivity were more likely to exhibit greater happiness when exposed to greenspace for longer periods than were children with lower levels of negative affectivity. Our findings underscore the need for prevention and intervention efforts that promote greenspace exposure and take children's temperament into account to increase their emotional well-being.