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Korpela, K. & Staats, H. (2014). The restorative qualities of being alone with nature. In Coplan & J.C. Bowker (eds.) The Handbook of Solitude
Abstract
According to the restorative environments framework, after emotional or cognitive stress, solitude and being alone with nature can be considered a desirable state with positive effects. These positive effects include physiological recovery and relaxation, change to positive self-reported emotions, and recovery of the ability for attention-demanding cognitive performances. We describe a developmental trend from childhood to adulthood about the relationships between privacy-, emotion- and self-regulation which helps to understand restoration in solitary natural settings as a particular aspect of emotion- and self-regulation. We describe the social context of restoration including company of intimates, unknown others, and both known and unknown others. Social support and the company of friends may enable people to experience restoration in nature without concerns for safety. Moreover, company may enhance restoration through the mutual appreciation of the given natural setting but it also may degrade restoration if attention is drawn away from the environment.
The nature connectedness research suggests that (re)creating human-nature connections can address both escalating ecological issues and rising mental health concerns by fostering (ecological) self-realization. Given that the nature connectedness literature oversimplifies experience of ecological self, however, there remains a need to explore lived ecological self experience, and how this experience influences mental health and environmental behaviour. In this exploratory interpretive phenomenological analysis (IPA), I sought to flesh out the nature connectedness research by investigating ecological self experience among a small group of gifted adults (n=8) who measure relatively high in nature connectedness. Three research questions guided the study. The project’s primary research question was: How do gifted adults experience ecological self? Two secondary, theory-driven sub-questions refined the project further: 1. How does experience of ecological self influence mental health? 2. How does experience of ecological self influence environmental behaviour? Analysis of data collected via two semi-structured interviews held with each participant reveal that while ecological self experiences might often enhance mental health, nature experiences can also be intense, distressing, and/or ambivalent, and environmental concerns can precipitate anguish and anger. Findings also illustrate how experience of ecological self can be inconsistent: conceptions of the human-nature relationship varied, and experience of ecological self seemed to oscillate along with diurnal and seasonal cycles and appeared to evolve over the lifespan. Finally, results demonstrate that while ecological self experience may motivate pro-environmental behaviour, movement from experience to action is not automatic. Findings show how a variety of intra- and interpersonal factors can hinder pro-ecological engagement. Taken together, study results nuance the nature connectedness literature by illustrating the complexity of ecological self experience. While (re)creating human-nature connections can be considered one approach to addressing escalating ecological issues and rising mental health concerns, findings from this project suggest that the back-to-nature strategy is not a cure-all.
This article examines favourite places of samples of adolescents living in the island state of Tasmania, Australia. Results from four separate but related studies are presented which relate the discursive geographies of youth to their leisure pursuits.Young people’s reasons for choosing places which make them feel good, and the sorts of leisure activities which they enjoy there, are examined in relation to theories of space as a cultural construct and international studies of place attachment and place experience. The analysis combines ethnographic and quantitative methods to explore the meanings of private and public space for youth. Goffman’s concepts of frontstage and backstage regions are used to explain the relationship between adolescents’ use of inside and outside space. Findings suggest that adolescent preferences for home, own bedroom, and places in the natural environment express ways of redefining the boundaries of private space as the practical embodiment of intergenerational power relationships.
This study examines the use and value of outdoor places by teenagers in Sunshine, Australia. Original research, including surveys with 101 teens and behavior observations of valued teen places, and a comparison with a similar study conducted almost 20 years earlier is reported. Of the 239 valued places selected by the teens, the most often valued places were developed parks, places at home, and commercial areas. Teens, then and now, value places where they can hang out with their friends and places where they can be alone. Recreation areas, commercial areas, and streets are places Sunshine teens go to be with others. Their home or a friend's home are places valued because the teen can be alone. This paper also suggests opportunities and limitations of revisiting previous study locations with the intent of conducting a comparative analysis.
Subjects viewed sixty color slides of either (1) nature with water, (2) nature dominated by vegetation, or (3) urban environments without water or vegetation. The information rates of the three slide samples were equivalent. Measurements were taken of the effects of the slide presentations on alpha amplitude, heart rate, and emotional states. Results revealed several significant differences as a function of environment, which together indicate that the two categories of nature views had more positive influences on psychophysiological states than the urban scenes. Alpha was significantly higher during the vegetation as opposed to urban slides; similarly, alpha was higher on the average when subjects viewed water rather than urban content. There was also a consistent pattern for nature, especially water, to have more positive influences on emotional states. A salient finding was that water, and to a lesser extent vegetation views, held attention and interest more effectively than the urban scenes. Implications of the findings for theory development in environmental aesthetics are discussed.
This qualitative and quantitative research investigates the leisure activities of 265 young adolescents in Tasmania, Australia, in relation to their social constructs of home and neighbourhood as private and public spaces, and in the practical contexts of their day to day lives. As these young people search for meaning and identity in a fast changing world dominated by economic and technological globalisation, the symbolic materials available to them both socially and spatially are examined using innovative research methods which involve visual as well as verbal triggers. Findings show that their chosen activities, while reflecting global trends in the use of information and communication technology, focus mainly on friendship network building in the immediate locale and take place predominantly in home and neighbourhood. Favourite places for leisure pursuits also emphasise the importance and idealisation of the ‘traditional’ home and of the natural environment in the search for private places in which to withdraw and reflect. Findings also suggest that the adolescents seek private spaces for safe seclusion or group activities with close friends as part of the process of construction of self as a reflexive and symbolic project. The inherently ‘conservative’ and highly gendered responses of the sample are discussed in the context of current sociocultural theories linking space, place and identity.
This study draws upon the notion that nature is important to people and explores the role of nature in the lives of adolescents in three California communities. A photographic survey was used to elicit information from adolescents as part of a larger study to assess these communities for factors that support positive youth development. The survey focused on places, people, and activities in the participants' community. Fifty-eight youth completed the open-ended survey and produced more than 1300 photographs. The survey did not include questions directly focused on the youths' use of or feelings toward nature or natural areas, but instead examined their overall views of their community for evidence of nature in their responses. The written survey responses and photographs were coded and analyzed using a qualitative software program. Places with written references to or photographic evidence of natural qualities or features were then reviewed for patterns in the activities and the significance of the place (i.e., why the respondent said this place was important). This study confirms that the occurrence of nature is widespread in the places adolescents use, and is highly valued. Three themes emerged relating to youths' activities, recreation, restoration, and socializing. These activity themes, along with the reasons the youth gave for valuing each place, are discussed. These reasons indicate the developmental tasks occurring in conjunction with certain activities. In particular, tasks associated with social behavior and self-awareness are evident.
The relationships between fear expectancy, disgust sensitivity, desire for modem comforts, and preference for wildland and built environments and related activiffes were examined. Using a population of predominantly suburban and rural eighth-grade students (n =450), all three variables were found to be significantly related to preferences for wildland environments, recreational activifies, and vocational preferences. Those with high fear expectancy, disgust sensitivity, and desire for modem comforts were more likely to prefer manicured park settings and urban environments and to dislike wildland environments. They were also more likely to prefer indoor social recreation activities and express significantly less interest in future careers working in outdoor environments. Finally, they were less likely to prefer appropnate water bodies for conductng an aquatic entomology lab. Studying negative perceptions may complement existing environmental preference research, which has tended to focus on why people prefer certain environments.
Anger and frustration may contribute to unsafe driving and may trigger instances of aggressive driving or road rage. Research shows that stress, fatigue from the exercise of directed attention, or a combination of these factors can exacerbate anger and frustration. It also suggests that exposure to vegetation can facilitate recovery from stress and fatigue. Can highway vegetation mitigate automobile driver anger and frustration? We assigned 106 participants at random to view one of three video-tapes of highway drives, which varied in the amount of vegetation versus man-made material. The experiment obtained Speilberger State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (STAXI) measures of anger before and after video exposure and obtained a measure of frustration tolerance after the video. No significant effect on anger emerged, but the results for frustration tolerance showed higher frustration tolerance (respondents spent more time on unsolvable anagrams) after exposure to videotapes with more vegetation. Parkway design and roadside vegetation appear to have restorative effects in reducing frustration.
The experiences people have in natural environments can be very important to them, even though these experiences are sometimes hard to categorize and measure. In a series of qualitative surveys, I asked people to describe special outdoor places and explain in their own words what these places meant to them. Their responses revealed many similarities in the highly valued experiences that occurred across diverse respondents and places. By treating special places with care, managers and planners can help ensure that opportunities for such experiences will continue to be available to people.
This study extends research on psychological restoration by encompassing a broad set of restorative situations available to urban residents. Preferences are assessed for mundane restorative situations comprising leisure activity, setting, and social context, given different levels of attentional fatigue. Attentional fatigue, activity-setting, and social context were experimentally manipulated. The settings for activities were home, park, city center, and transit. Participants (N = 70) read scenarios describing an attentional state and rated their preference for the situations. Results show interactive effects of attentional state with activity-setting and with social context. The park was most preferred given attentional fatigue. Results confirm that while residents may particularly value urban nature for restoration, their urban context also provides other mundane but attractive restorative situations.
Sexual assault on U.S.A. college campuses is increasingly recognized as an urgent and pervasive national problem. To prevent assault, school administrators and individual women promote and adopt safety strategies that often compromise women's free and independent use of the campus environment. Such strategies may fail to correspond to the actual nature of sexual assault on campus. Based on open-ended interviews with college personnel and women students, this study examines sexual assault and personal crime prevention strategies at two midwestern, urban universities. School and individual strategies are characterized according to type, goals, and orientation. Findings explore the relationship of strategies to sexual assault on campus, and implications of strategies for women's use of public space. Conclusions suggest means to increase real safety while enhancing women's freedom and mobility on and near campus.
Background: We aimed to assess moderation of affective and cognitive effects of a brisk walk by urban environmental characteristics and the immediate social context. Methods: We conducted a field experiment with time (pre-walk, post-walk), type of environment (park, street), and social context (alone, with a friend) as within-subjects factors. Twenty university students reported on affective states and completed a symbol-substitution test before and after each of two 40-minute walks in each environment. The routes differed in amount of greenery, proximity to water, and presence of traffic, buildings, and other people. Results: On average, walking per se increased positive affect and reduced negative affect. Feelings of time pressure declined to a greater extent with the park walk than the street walk. Revitalisation increased during the park walks to a greater degree when alone, but it increased more during the walk along streets when with a friend. We found an inconclusive pattern of results for performance on the symbol-substitution test. Conclusions: Some psychological benefits of a brisk walk depend on the influence of the immediate social context and features of the outdoor urban environment, including natural features such as greenery and water.
Lay people as well as designers can normally recall an unusual amount of detail about favourite spaces, even spaces from early childhood, which permit reconstruction of the spaces and the assessment of their spatial qualities and relationships. These spaces often become powerful images, often emotionally charged, which lead to a feeling of spatial nostalgia of topophilia for certain types of environment and which can be important in forming aesthetic values. The author suggests that this factor is often so strong that many landscape designers, consciously or subconsciously, seek to persuade clients of the efficacy of related designs. It is suggested that is would be more appropriate for designers to seek to determine the nature of and to then recreate their clients' favourite spaces, and that this is preferable to the imposition of professional or elitist aesthetic standards. -S. Shuttleworth
A study of the environmental biographies of architecture and landscape architecture students, and descriptions of the emotions evoked by favourite childhood place leads to a criticism of suburban life. Very few students remembered suburban environments with any pleasure. Suburban children opted either for the city or the real country. The Dutch are praised for their incorporation of wild landscape into their housing projects. Careful thought is needed to incorporate opportunities for environmental experience. -J.Johnson
The relationships between fear expectancy, disgust sensitivity, desire for modern comforts, and preference for wildland and built environments and related activities were examined. Using a population of predominantly suburban and rural eighth-grade students (n=450), all three variables were found to be significantly related to preferences for wildland environments, recreational activities, and vocational preferences. Those with high fear expectancy, disgust sensitivity, and desire for modern comforts were more likely to prefer manicured park settings and urban environments and to dislike wildland environments. They were also more likely to prefer indoor social recreation activities and express significantly less interest in future careers working in outdoor environments. Finally, they were less likely to prefer appropriate water bodies for conducting an aquatic entomology lab. Studying negative perceptions may complement existing environmental preference research, which has tended to focus on why people prefer certain environments.
There is a long history of cultural assumptions regarding children’s special affinity or bond for certain places, much of it antedating modern psychology. Within psychology, the subject is more ambiguous. The term attachment evokes a long history of theory and research that has measured the degree to which young children seek to keep a primary caretaker in sight and hearing, showing distress at separation and joy at reunion not merely for the sake of the satisfaction of physical needs but for the value of her presence (Maccoby & Masters, 1970; Sears, 1972). Much of this work has been inspired by the psychoanalytic theory of object relations. A naive reader might suppose that this literature explores people’s relations with objects—with things—which must involve things in their places; but a reader schooled in psychological jargon knows that in this case “object” almost invariably means “mother.” Yet the confusion is not merely naive, as object relations theorists have usually assumed that a child’s feelings for places and things develop as an extension of its relations with its mother. As a result, it has not been clear whether place attachments should be considered merely secondary effects of social attachments, or whether they have an independent existence.
This study examines the solo hiking experience, in particular the fears that solo hikers experience, the strategies they employ to negotiate these fears, and how the leisure experience is influenced by this process. The study used an exploratory design to examine these issues. Twenty semi-structured interviews were conducted with men and women between the ages of 20 and 50. Results reveal five different types of fears solo hikers encounter including: the fear of getting hurt by another individual, the fear of accidental injury/life-threatening emergency, the fear of getting lost, the fear of wild animals and dogs, and the fear of the theft of belongings left in one's vehicle. According to study findings, five strategies were employed by solo hikers to negotiate objective threats and perceived fears including: avoiding perceived threats, modifying their participation in solo hiking, using aids or protective devices, expanding their knowledge or skills, and employing a psychological approach. Results from the study suggest that the solo hiking experience can be diminished, maintained, or optimized depending on the capacity of the participant to negotiate these threats and fears.
Qualitative research with children and adults in numerous cultures seems to suggest a predisposition to creating special places (e.g., dens, forts, playhouses) during middle childhood. Using extensive interviews and written recollections, I present the attributes of special places, their meaning for their creators, and the role the creation of special places plays in the evolution of the self. A few curricular extensions for elementary school age children are suggested.
This Special Section features a number of perspectives on the vital role played by natural environments. The three empirical papers, using different approaches and measures, representing diverse populations in different countries, and different kinds of natural settings, all provide evidence for the importance of nature to human well-being. This paper presents the Reasonable Person Model (RPM) as a framework for understanding how the environment can help bring out the best in people. Demographic and regional variations notwithstanding, people are empowered by opportunities to make a difference and be respected, they are concerned with being effective, and their efforts are guided by their mental models. Having nature nearby, even if modest in scale, can be particularly beneficial in offsetting some of the consequences of depleted attentional resources which readily undermine reasonable behavior. We focus on some important distinctions between psychological restoration (and its relationship to the effectiveness domain of RPM) and environmental preference (and its connection to RPM's model building domain). Today's all too pervasive unreasonableness is costly in terms of personal and social well-being. Understanding the vital capacity of the natural environment can make a substantial difference in bringing out the best in people.
As an environmental psychologist, her research interests are children's environments and environments for persons with special needs. She is currently doing research on the relationship between noise and preschool children's acquisition of prereading skills, environmental factors in preschool inclusive classrooms, and children's use of outdoorplay equipment. With a background in facility planning, she is also involved in architectural programming projects, of which a playground for both sighted and blind children is the most recent.
Wilderness should provide opportunities for stress reduction and restoration of mental fatigue. Visitors, surveyed as they exited wilderness trailheads, were asked for self-assessments of stress reduction and mental rejuvenation and the extent to which they experienced various restorative components of the environment—attributes deemed by attention restorative theory to be conducive to restoration. Day and overnight hikers on both very high use and moderate use trails were studied. Most respondents reported substantial stress reduction and mental rejuvenation and most experienced the environment in ways considered conducive to restoration. At the moderate to high use levels we studied, psychological restoration did not vary significantly with level of congestion, suggesting that concern about restorative experiences is not a valid rationale for limiting use on wilderness trails. Day trips reduced stress and allowed for mental rejuvenation to the same degree that overnight trips did. However, several of the restorative components of environment were experienced to a significantly greater degree as length of trip increased.
The association between negative mood and place preferences was studied in an adult sample. The respondents described their experiences of favorite and unpleasant places and their mood in a questionnaire mailed to the residents of three housing areas in the metropolitan area. In comparison with low negative mood scorers, high negative mood scorers were significantly more often alone in their favorite places or only with passers-by. Adults with high negative mood were also more likely to choose natural favorite places than other places. No association between the level of negative mood and type of unpleasant place or reasons for disliking that place was found. Speculatively, people with high levels of negative emotion in comparison with other people may not recognize any different negative environmental features but are more tuned for recognizing the physical environment as an opportunity to improve mood through occasional retreat to favorite settings.
Studies of the place uses and place preferences of young people have often disregarded the effects of negative and positive emotions. Conversely, studies of emotional disorders in young people have used a narrow definition of environment in describing the etiology and sequelae of depressive and anxious symptoms. This study explored the relations between emotions and environment in a group of 322 boys, aged 8 to 16, who attended a residential summer camp for 2 or 4 weeks. Self-reported negative emotions were associated with low overall environmental satisfaction. In addition, boys with higher levels of negative emotions were more likely to choose favorite places where they could be alone, whereas happier children chose places where they could socialize. Contrary to expectations, there was some evidence that negative emotions increased environmental exploration. Children’s negative emotions may be both a cause and a consequence of unsatisfactory interactions with novel environments and may result in compensatory behavioral withdrawal or perseverative exploration.
Subjects from Senegal, Ireland, and the United States were asked (a) to identify their favorite place and (b) to give the reason it was chosen. The purpose was to see whether people from different cultures share a preference for certain environmental forms or features, built or natural, that could indicate the existence of cultural universals. The study found far more similarity in place preferences among the different cultures than differences between them, with each country generating almost identical categories of favorite places. Overall, 38% of the subjects identified their own place, belongings, or family home, and 61% identified some part of the natural environment. As favorite places, built environments-parficularly those offering social interaction, such as sports centers and places of entertainment-were more often mentoned by those from Senegal. The reasons given for the choice of favorte place fell into place centered, person-centered, and interactive perspectives.
Three experiments were designed to test the hypothesis that exposure to restorative environments facilitates recovery from mental fatigue. To this end, participants were first mentally fatigued by performing a sustained attention test; then they viewed photographs of restorative environments, nonrestorative environments or geometrical patterns; and finally they performed the sustained attention test again. Only participants exposed to the restorative environments improved their performance on the final attention test, and this improvement occurred whether they viewed the scenes in the standardized time condition or in the self-paced time condition. Results are in agreement with Kaplan's [(1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169–182] attention restoration theory, and support the idea that restorative environments help maintain and restore the capacity to direct attention.
We tested propositions about the influences of social context and need for psychological restoration on preferences for natural and urban environments. We framed preference in terms of (1) beliefs about the likelihood of restoration during a walk in each type of environment and (2) the evaluation of restoration given differing restoration needs. Imagining themselves as alone or in the company of a friend, and as attentionally fatigued or fully refreshed, the 106 participants first evaluated recovery, reflection, and social stimulation outcomes. Next, they viewed slides simulating a walk through a forest or an urban center. They then rated the likelihood of recovery, reflection, and social stimulation outcomes from such a walk, as well as how safe it would be while walking. This procedure was repeated with the second environment. Attentional fatigue increased preference for the natural over the urban environment. Company increased preference for the urban environment but not for the natural environment. The absence of a general effect of company in the natural environment owes to two opposed effects: company enabled restoration through its effect on safety, while solitude enhanced restoration when safety was controlled for in the analysis.
Viewing selves as negotiating idiosyncratic life niches may be useful in understanding life change. When less resistant self attributes and environmental presses conflict, the self tends to reflect the environment; when more resistant self attributes (e.g., those high in heritability) and environmental presses conflict, the individual will tend to change his or her personal environment in ways that better afford the expression of those self-attributes. Life niches result from attempts to satisfy simultaneous constraints from self-aspects such as abilities, desires, and temperament, and situational presses and affordances. Parallel distributed processing (PDP) networks appear to be a promising way to represent niche construction.
Based on research carried out with over 400 children in England and Wales, this article explores the complexity of the social space of the out of school club, an increasingly important environment in the social landscape of British childhood. By exploring the ways in which children construct and contest the meanings they attach to the material and social environments they inhabit after school and during the school holidays, we aim to show how the notion of `place' is bound up with the action and behaviour of the children who inhabit these significant spaces of childhood. Moreover, by exploring out of school clubs as sites of domination and resistance, we aim to highlight some of the sociocultural struggles which are active in the constitution of the place of the club.
This article explores children's theorizing around risk and safety in relation to the public/private distinction. While there has been considerable debate within sociology over the different meanings and applications of the public/private dichotomy, little consideration has been given to the ways in which children construct their lives around this distinction. In this article it is argued that children reflexively construct their landscapes of risk and safety around concepts of private, local and public. While the private sphere of the home was described by the children in terms of safety and security, they expressed concerns about their vulnerability in public life. The children's accounts also define an intermediate sphere between private and public - the local sphere - which was identified in terms of proximity to the home and familiarity with places and people.
Fear of crime is a major urban stressor. Certain areas-hot spots of fear-evoke higher levels of fear than others. In conditions of general wariness, certain proximate cues should evoke site-specific fears. This research examined 3 proximate cues to fear: physical entrapment, and 2 aspects of concealment-hiding places and dark spots. Twenty-six college females walked a route after dark and reported their feelings into a recorder. Content analysis of the comments revealed that concealment and, to a lesser extent, entrapment evoked fear. Such knowledge can inform policy to reduce fear and stress.
Thematic analysis of free-response questionnaires explored the role of mood states and demographic factors in moderating preferences for natural environments, in children and adults. Individual differences influenced overall preferences (nature or not nature) but had few significant effects on between-mood comparisons. Current theories on the restorative properties of natural environments suggest that (i) the stressed mood state would be associated most strongly with a preference for nature and (ii) that demographic factors would not strongly influence preference for nature in the stressed mood state. Results lend only partial support to these views. When the sample was divided into sub-categories by age, gender, rural/urban home environment, proportion of nature around home environment, nature hobbies and nature holidays, the mood state relaxed produced a greater percentage of nature preference responses than stressed. Stressed was, however, ranked first or second for preference for green nature in 10 of the 13 sub-groups. The implications of the findings are discussed in the light of restorative theories.
Teacher stress and coping research and restorative environments research were converged in this study to explore how elementary school teachers in Chicago seek out everyday places in their milieu to implement restorative coping strategies. Seventy-one survey responses revealed that teachers' spontaneous place choices are related to sources of stress and that the restorative potential of a place was related to its ability to support teachers'inward or outward coping strategies. Teachers implemented effective strategies in places such as home, nature, city places, third places, and church. The ways these places were experienced differed according to teachers' perceptions of frequency and type of stress and how the place enabled the inward or outward strategy as needed. Findings suggest directions for exploring restorative design interventions in teachers' environments, especially within school environments.
A variety of theoretical positions and frameworks have been advanced to account for how places become “places”—in other words, how places become meaningful. Most existing frameworks share the idea that a place is a complex concept, given life by people attaching meaning to a physical setting in a variety of ways. This paper explores how places evolve as ever-shifting points of meaning that mark changes in people's lives in response to a variety of influences. Data collected from in-depth personal interviews in and around Jackson, Wyoming, are used to explore the conceptualization of place as a process, rather than a static entity. Three key themes or dimensions that were frequently described by interviewees are examined: (1) life stage/course, (2) searching for a feeling, and (3) commitment to a place. Not only did some respondents describe what made places important to them (the components, such as social ties, or favorite activities), they also described how these attributes worked together to create and maintain place meanings over the course of their lives. During the interviews, it was noted that these dimensions and processes were expressed explicitly as well as implicitly.
The authors report further evidence bearing on the relations among restorative experiences, self-regulation, and place attachment. University students (n = 101) described their favorite places and experiences in them, and 98 other students described unpleasant places. Natural settings were overrepresented among favorite places and underrepresented among the unpleasant places. In open-ended accounts, frequent mention of being relaxed, being away from everyday life, forgetting worries, and reflecting on personal matters indicated a link between favorite places and restorative experience. Restoration was particularly typical of natural favorite places. Structured evaluations of being away, fascination, coherence, and compatibility indicated they were experienced to a high degree in the favorite places, although fascination to a lesser degree than compatibility. The favorite and unpleasant places differed substantially in all four restorative qualities but especially in being away and compatibility. Self-referencing appears to be more characteristic of favorite place experiences than engaging or interesting environmental properties.
Notes that the concept of nature has not been at the forefront of problems chosen for psychological investigation, despite the importance of the concept of nature in human perception, attitudes, and affective responses. A differentiation is made between natural and human-made domains for a psychological analysis of human responses to the environment. Stimulus attributes forming the foundation for a distinction between natural and human-made environments are identified, based on J. J. Gibson's (1950, 1966, 1979) analysis of information contained in the visual array. Alternative views of nature as a realm of continuous change and growth, a refuge, and a symbol are considered in terms of their relevance for psychology. A research program on the structure and developmental history of the concept of nature is outlined that is based on a model of concept formation and on the Gibsonian view of perception emphasizing the specification of a set of stimulus properties. A preliminary study by the present author with 6–14 yr olds, conducted to examine Ss' modes of categorizing pictures of environmental domains, is described. Results show that all Ss tended to differentiate between natural and human-made categories, reinforcing the concept that this differentiation becomes established at an early age. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Examined person–environment relationships among 56 female and 35 male Estonian adolescents (aged 11–17 yrs). Ss described their favorite places. A clear preference for natural settings was evident, particularly among younger Ss. Older Ss were more likely to select their own room or space and less likely to mention being with family. More boys than girls mentioned comfort, quiet, and relaxation, and more described natural settings. More girls mentioned feeling safe and secure. Places that provide respite from daily pressures appear very important in meeting the psychological needs of adolescents. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A considerable body of folklore and scientific research alludes to the efficacy of the vernacular environment to influence both aesthetic experience and general well-being. To examine explicitly whether stress recovery and/or immunization varies as a function of the roadside environment, 160 college-age participants, both male and female, viewed one of four different video-taped simulated drives through outdoor environments immediately following and preceding mildly stressful events. Overall, it was anticipated that participants who viewed artifact-dominated drives, relative to participants who viewed nature-dominated drives, would show greater autonomic activity indicative of stress (e.g. elevated blood pressure and electrodermal activity), as well as show altered somatic activity indicative of greater negative affect (e.g. elevated electromyographic (EMG) activity over the brow region and decreased activity over the cheek region). In addition, it was expected that participants who viewed nature-dominated drives would experience quicker recovery from stress and greater immunization to subsequent stress than participants who viewed artifact-dominated drives. The overall pattern of results is consistent with both hypotheses and the findings are interpreted to support postulating a sympathetic-specific mechanism that underlies the effect of nature on stress recovery and immunization.
Theory and research dealing with place identity and restorative environments have for the most part proceeded independently. Assuming that emotional- and self-regulation are processes underlying the development of place identity, and that a person's favorite place is an exemplar of environments used in such regulation processes, the present study goes beyond preliminary observations about restorative aspects of favorite places to consider how individuals evaluate their favorite places using terms set out in restorative environments theory. Finnish university students (n=78) evaluated the central square of their city (Tampere) and favorite and unpleasant places of their own designation using the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), an instrument based on attention restoration theory. Consistent with notions of self-regulation, PRS subscale scores for Being Away, Fascination, Coherence, and Compatibility were all high in the favorite place evaluations, but Coherence and Compatibility were reliably higher than Being Away, which was in turn reliably higher than Fascination. Also, PRS subscale scores for the favorite places were reliably higher than those for the central square, which were in turn higher than those for the unpleasant places. Furthermore, differences were also found in self-reported emotional states associated with each place. The discussion suggests ways to develop further mutually reinforcing relations between restorative environments research and research on place identity.
The emerging field of emotion regulation studies how individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them. This review takes an evolutionary perspective and characterizes emotion in terms of response tendencies. Emotion regulation is defined and distinguished from coping, mood regulation, defense, and affect regulation. In the increasingly specialized discipline of psychology, the field of emotion regulation cuts across traditional boundaries and provides common ground. According to a process model of emotion regulation, emotion may be regulated at five points in the emotion generative process: (a) selection of the situation, (b) modification of the situation, (c) deployment of attention, (d) change of cognitions, and (e) modulation of responses. The field of emotion regulation promises new insights into age-old questions about how people manage their emotions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved)
We compared psychophysiological stress recovery and directed attention restoration in natural and urban field settings using repeated measures of ambulatory blood pressure, emotion, and attention collected from 112 randomly assigned young adults. To vary restoration needs, we had half of the subjects begin the environmental treatment directly after driving to the field site. The other half completed attentionally demanding tasks just before the treatment. After the drive or the tasks, sitting in a room with tree views promoted more rapid decline in diastolic blood pressure than sitting in a viewless room. Subsequently walking in a nature reserve initially fostered blood pressure change that indicated greater stress reduction than afforded by walking in the urban surroundings. Performance on an attentional test improved slightly from the pretest to the midpoint of the walk in the nature reserve, while it declined in the urban setting. This opened a performance gap that persisted after the walk. Positive affect increased and anger decreased in the nature reserve by the end of the walk; the opposite pattern emerged in the urban environment. The task manipulation affected emotional self-reports. We discuss implications of the results for theories about restorative environments and environmental health promotion measures.