Iain Hamlin’s research while affiliated with University of Derby and other places

Biodiversity conservation is fundamentally linked to human values, attitudes, and behaviours. Nature connectedness, the strength of a person's relationship with nature, is an important determinant of pro-nature actions, and therefore vital for counteracting biodiversity loss. Citizen science may improve nature connectedness, though such outcomes are underexplored in comparison to scientific and educational results. Addressing this gap, we studied the experiences of participants in the Big Butterfly Count, a UK mass-participation citizen science activity that aims to raise awareness and gather data on the abundance of widespread butterfly and moth species. Participants completed surveys before and after the three-week Big Butterfly Count period (n = 382), and at six-to seven-week follow up (n = 345). Improvements in nature connectedness, decreased anxiety, and increased tendency to notice nature and butterflies, were found immediately after the count period, with improved wellbeing and nature noticing at follow-up. Stronger emotional responses during the butterfly count were associated with greater increases in nature connectedness and nature noticing. Qualitative data revealed mixed emotions, from sadness and concern about biodiversity loss, to feelings of hope and optimism through taking actions to help butterflies. These findings suggest that citizen science participation prompts people to notice and enjoy nature in ways that enhance their wellbeing and connection with nature, supporting the mutual health of people and the rest of the natural world. The study highlights the potential for nature-based citizen science to benefit conservation beyond the focal species or habitat, by changing how people think, feel and act towards nature more broadly.

The current biodiversity crisis, extinction of experience of nature and rising concern about people's well‐being and mental health require us to understand the benefits of activities supporting people's engagement with nature. We ran a 1‐week randomised controlled experiment to test the impact of nature‐focussed activities on people's connectedness to nature and well‐being. This project, called ‘Nature Up Close and Personal: A Wellbeing Experiment’ recruited 500 people who completed the pre‐ and post‐participation surveys which included seven psychometric outcome measures. People were randomly assigned to one of six groups. Those in non‐control groups were asked to take part in one 10‐min activity five times over 8 days; this could be done in any place with nature near to them. The activities were as follows: two different citizen science activities, a nature‐noticing activity (asking people to note three good things in nature: 3GTiN) or a combination of citizen science and 3GTiN. Citizen science, 3GTiN and the combination of the two had significant positive effects on nature connectedness, happiness, sense of worthwhile life and satisfaction with life. 3GTiN (alone and in combination with citizen science) had significant positive effects on pro‐nature conservation behaviours. All activities engaged the pathways to nature connectedness. Compared to 3GTiN, people doing citizen science scored lower at engaging with nature through their senses, and feeling calm or joyful, but higher for feeling that they made a difference. The combined activity engaged the pathways to nature connectedness at least as strongly as the highest scoring of citizen science or 3GTiN individually. This shows the potential to intentionally design citizen science to enhance the pathways to nature connectedness. Nature‐based citizen science is more than just a way to gather environmental data: it benefits well‐being and nature connectedness of participants, and (when in combination with noticing nature activities) pro‐nature conservation behaviours. It adds to the range of activities already proven to enhanced human–nature interactions and nature connectedness. Public policy needs to develop a ‘one health’ approach to people's engagement with nature, supporting communities to both notice and monitor everyday biodiversity, recognising that human and nature's well‐being is interdependent. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

The feeding of garden birds is a popular and accessible means of connecting with wildlife in urban environments in the United Kingdom. Past research has found that the main motivations for feeding birds are psychological benefits, concern for bird welfare, and connecting to nature. This study explores whether a brief birdwatching activity impacts on wellbeing, anxiety, and nature connection. One hundred and fifty-six participants took part in a birdwatching activity, identifying the species that entered their garden during a thirty-minute period. Participants were randomly allocated to the ‘joy’ group, who rated their feeling of joy on seeing each species, or the ‘count’ group, who counted the number of birds of each species. Measures of wellbeing, state anxiety and nature connection were completed before and after the observation period. Both groups had improved wellbeing, anxiety, and nature connection, though decreases in anxiety were greatest for those in the joy group. These results suggest that activating a sense of joy heightens the psychological benefits of watching garden birds. These benefits and the strengthening of nature connections highlight the reciprocal relationship between humans and birds and the importance of actions towards healthy, sustainable urban ecosystems.

Climate change and biodiversity loss show that the human–nature relationship is failing. That relationship can be measured through the construct of nature connectedness which is a key factor in pro-environmental behaviours and mental well-being. Country-level indicators of extinction of nature experience, consumption and commerce, use and control of nature and negativistic factors were selected. An exploratory analysis of the relationship between these metrics and nature connectedness across adult samples from 14 European countries was conducted ( n = 14,745 respondents). The analysis provides insight into how affluence, technology and consumption are associated with the human–nature relationship. These findings motivate a comparison of how nature connectedness and composite indicators of prosperity, progress, development, and sustainability relate to indicators of human and nature’s well-being. In comparison to composite indexes, it is proposed that nature connectedness is a critical indicator of human and nature’s well-being needed to inform the transition to a sustainable future.

A strong connection with nature promotes behaviors that help conserve the natural world. However, it is likely that this relationship is reciprocal, with proconservation behaviors positively impacting nature connectedness by increasing sensory contact with nature. Proconservation behaviors vary in terms of how much visible biodiversity, and therefore contact with nature, they produce. It is likely that conservation behaviors that support higher visible biodiversity will result in more sensory contact with nature and, therefore, greater levels of nature connectedness. This research explores the relationship between garden-focused pronature conservation behavior, noticing nature and nature connectedness using data from Natural England's People and Nature Survey in the United Kingdom (n = 4206), a large national survey that includes items to measure noticing nature, nature connectedness, and pronature conservation behaviors. Results are consistent with the hypothesis that undertaking garden-based pronature conservation behaviors that enhance visible biodiversity leads to an increase in noticing nature, which, in turn, leads to an increase in nature connectedness. These results point to a relatively simple way to boost nature connectedness: boost and engage people with visible biodiversity.

While research has examined factors that account for pro‐environmental behaviours relating to climate warming through carbon and resource use, very few studies have investigated factors that account for behaviour that directly supports conservation of habitats and biodiversity. In particular, there remain questions as to whether nature connectedness relates to an individual’s aesthetic or spiritual relationship with the objective world, or their philosophy of consciousness and selfhood. Consequently, the purposes of this study were to examine (i) the relationship between nature connectedness, engagement with nature’s beauty, nonattachment and implicit theory of mind, and (ii) how each of these variables predict pro-nature conservation behaviour. A cross-sectional cohort study utilising a correlational design recruited 203 male and female English-speaking adults. Participants completed a battery of online psychometric tests that assessed each of the aforementioned variables. The data were examined using bivariate correlations and multiple regression analysis. Significant correlations were found between all pairs of variables. Furthermore, nonattachment and nature connectedness were found to be significant predictors of pro-nature conservation behaviour, while engagement with nature’s beauty was of borderline significance and implicit theory of mind was non-significant. Findings provide insight into the mechanisms underlying specific psychological and philosophical outlooks that may facilitate or impair a person’s inclination to actively participate in pro-nature conservation behaviours. In particular, findings suggest that practices or interventions which foster nonattachment in addition to nature connectedness may have a role in the development of effective programmes to aid nature’s recovery.

Groups often make better judgments than individuals, and recent research suggests that this phenomenon extends to the deception detection domain. The present research investigated whether the influence of groups enhances the accuracy of judgments, and whether group size influences deception detection accuracy. 250 participants evaluated written statements with a pre‐established detection accuracy rate of 60% in terms of veracity before viewing either the judgments and rationales of several other group members or a short summary of the written statement and revising or restating their own judgments accordingly. Participants’ second responses were significantly more accurate than their first, suggesting a small positive effect of structured groups on deception detection accuracy. Group size did not have a significant effect on detection accuracy. The present work extends our understanding of the utility of group deception detection, suggesting that asynchronous, structured groups outperform individuals at detecting deception. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

In this paper, we investigate the effect of Delphi group size and opinion diversity on group members’ information load as well as on their overall experience of the Delphi process - in terms of task involvement (enjoyment and interest) and in terms of group sway (the influence and helpfulness of others’ rationales). For Delphi applications involving the exchange of rationales between participants, we found no evidence that group sizes of up to 19 participants cause information overload or de-motivation and disengagement of participants.