Connectedness and well‐being in simulated nature

Abstract

People relate to nature physically, cognitively and emotionally, and this relationship fosters their well-being. There are various types of environment according to their degree of human intervention, raising the question of whether they each exert different effects on people, connectedness and well-being. In order to study the extent to which environmental connectedness and well-being are a function of viewing different types of nature, we conducted a study with 454 participants from five different countries, who viewed images on a computer screen of one of three types of environment (totally natural, quasi-natural or non-natural) and responded to a series of associated items. The results of a mediation analysis showed an indirect effect of type of environment on happiness through positive and negative affect and connectedness to nature. The corresponding ANOVAs revealed differences in the connectedness and well-being elicited by different types of environment, and in preference: totally natural and quasi-natural environments (with no differences between them) showed differences with non-natural environments. Therefore, our study results suggest that simply looking at natural environments on a computer screen arouses higher levels of well-being than viewing images of non-natural environments, and the former elicit a greater feeling of connectedness.

Motivating young adults to connect with nature for stress relief: A study in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic

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A Meta-Analysis of Emotional Evidence for the Biophilia Hypothesis and Implications for Biophilic Design

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