A Swedish amusement park is partnering with academic institutions to study the psychological impact of theme park visits.
The upcoming project at Liseberg in Gothenburg will use the destination’s daily operations to measure how shared physical experiences and adrenaline affect human behaviour.
Scheduled for the summer of 2026, the initiative will establish an operational research track named The Liseberg Happiness Lab directly on the park grounds. The programme operates as a formal collaboration between the venue and the Center for Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness at the Stockholm School of Economics. The core team will also work alongside affiliated researchers from the Karolinska Institutet and the London School of Economics.
Operating as the largest amusement park in the Nordic region, Liseberg typically welcomes around three million guests each year to its mix of attractions, restaurants and accommodation. Park management view this consistent footfall as a practical way to facilitate academic studies on social relationships outside of isolated laboratory environments.
Andreas Andersen, chief executive officer of Liseberg, outlined the operator’s motivation for launching the project.
“For more than 100 years, Liseberg has been a place where people come together to share powerful experiences, through laughter, anticipation and that thrill in your stomach,” he said. “It is incredibly exciting that we can now enable research to gain a deeper understanding of what these moments actually mean for us as human beings, both here in the park and beyond its gates.”
Tracking eustress and physiological responses
The methodology will focus heavily on eustress, which is categorised as a positive form of stress generated by meaningful and manageable challenges that can enhance motivation and performance. The academic team intends to investigate whether shared adrenaline rushes can strengthen interpersonal bonds, and how these intense positive experiences influence wellbeing immediately after a ride and in the long term.
To accurately track these metrics, researchers will monitor guests before, during and after their visits. The data collection process will utilise physical monitoring equipment to record real-time physiological responses, paired with traditional visitor surveys.
Micael Dahlen, a professor at the Center for Wellbeing, Welfare and Happiness, noted the current knowledge gap in behavioural science.
“Through many research projects at CWWH, we have learned that when people feel good, they do good, and that this has positive effects on individuals, organisations and society,” Dahlen stated. “We know a great deal about the negative effects of stress, but far less about what intense joy actually does to us as human beings. Liseberg offers a unique opportunity to study this in a real-world setting.”
Public participation and data publication
To execute the study, the park is actively recruiting more than one thousand volunteers, described as citizen researchers, to participate during the 2026 operating season. Guests can register for specific study tracks through the official Liseberg website. Following the data collection phase, the findings will be compiled for publication in academic journals and broader consumer reports.
