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Mindfulness Design and Its Mitigative Effect on Social Anxiety

Author(s)

Peng Sun

Affiliation(s)

School of Art and Design, Dalian Jiaotong University, Liaoning, China

Abstract

Social anxiety has become a prevalent psychological distress globally, severely impairing individuals’ social functioning and mental health. Existing intervention measures have limitations such as high dependence on professional guidance and poor long-term sustainability, making it urgent to explore innovative and accessible intervention approaches. This study aims to examine the mitigative effect of mindfulness design on social anxiety and clarify its underlying mechanism. A quasi-experimental design was adopted, with 86 participants with mild to moderate social anxiety randomly divided into an experimental group (receiving mindfulness-based environmental design intervention) and a control group (receiving conventional relaxation guidance). The intervention lasted for 8 weeks, with data collected at three time points: pre-intervention, post-intervention, and 4-week follow-up. The Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) was used to assess the level of social anxiety, and physiological indicators such as skin conductance response (SCR) were supplemented for objective measurement. Data were analyzed using repeated-measures ANOVA and simple effect tests. Results showed that the LSAS scores of the experimental group were significantly lower at post-intervention and follow-up than those at pre-intervention, and were significantly lower than those of the control group; the SCR level of the experimental group also showed a significant downward trend. It is concluded that mindfulness design can effectively and sustainably reduce the level of social anxiety, which provides a new perspective for the non-pharmaceutical intervention of social anxiety and enriches the application scenarios of mindfulness theory in design science.

Keywords

Mindfulness Design; Social Anxiety; Intervention Effect; Quasi-Experimental Study; Psychological Measurement

References

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