Nature's inherent appeal: Evidence of nature as a "good thing" in one's day — ASN Events
  1. Schedule
  2. Afternoon Tea & Poster Session 2
  3. Nature's inherent appeal: Evidence of nature as a "good thing" in one's day

Nature's inherent appeal: Evidence of nature as a "good thing" in one's day (#828)

Carolina C Mendes 1 , Angela Southworth 1 , Holli-Anne Passmore 1
  1. Concordia University of Edmonton, Edmonton, ALBERTA, Canada

Background

The Biophilia Hypothesis (Wilson, 1984) posits that people are inherently drawn to nature and are inclined to respond with emotional intensity to the greater-than-human natural world. Findings from previous well-being research support the inherent appeal that nature has for us. Passmore and colleagues (2022) reported that, although participants assigned to a human-built condition were explicitly, and repeatedly, instructed to notice, and report on how human-built objects/scenes made them feel, 76% submitted at least one report of a natural object/scene which had evoked a strong positive emotion in them. The current study expands on this finding by examining data from a Three Good Things (3GT; Seligman et al., 2005) intervention study. Noting three good things about one’s day is the ranked as the most popular evidence-based Positive Psychology Intervention on University of California, Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center website (GGIA, 2023). Yet little research has examined the content of those “good things”.

Aims

We explored to what extent nature was featured as a “good thing” in one’s day, and what features of nature were noted.

Method

Daily entries from 194 Canadian undergraduate participants who had been randomly assigned to a 3GT condition as part of a larger two-week well-being study were first examined for mentions of nature. Conventional content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) was then used to identify themes within these responses. 

Results

Findings were in line with previous research evidencing the inherent appeal of nature. Nature as a good thing in one’s day was mentioned at least once by 67% of participants; 11 thematic categories were generated including type of nature (e.g., animals, vegetation, weather, sky, sunlight) and connecting with nature via various senses (sight, touch).

Conclusion

Clearly nature is an important aspect of what constitutes a “good thing” in people’s daily lives. Including nature in well-being interventions would add inherent value by tapping in to an evolutionarily inspired pathway to well-being.

  1. GGIA (2023). Greater Good in Action: Science-based Practices for a Meaningful Life – Three Good Things. Retrieved from http://ggia.berkeley.edu/practice/three-good-things.
  2. Hsieh, H. F. & Shannon, S. E. (2005). Three approaches to qualitative content analysis. Qualitative Health Research, 15, 1227-1288. doi: 10.1177/1049732305276687
  3. Passmore, H.-A., Yargeau, A., Blench, J. (2022). Wellbeing in winter: Testing the Noticing Nature Intervention during winter months. Frontiers in Psychology. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.840273
  4. Seligman, M. E. P., Steen, T. A., Park, N., & Peterson, C. (2005). Positive psychology progress: Empirical validation of interventions. American Psychologist, 60, 410-421.
  5. Wilson, E. O. (1984). Biophilia: The human bond with other species. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • Please select up to 3 keywords from the following list to best describe your submission content: Environment and Nature, Meaning and Purpose, Positive emotions
#IPPAWorldCongress