Environment, Identity, and Response to Polluted Landscapes

Abstract

Research indicates that beautiful nature can have positive impacts. Does polluted nature have a corresponding negative impact? This paper presents two experiments investigating the impact of viewing images of natural settings, on a college campus, that do or do not contain litter. The moderating role of environmental identity was also examined. Study 1 showed that landscapes with litter evoked more negative emotions among a sample of 332 U.S. residents on MTurk than did landscapes without litter. Surprisingly, natural landscapes did not have a more positive effect than images of buildings. In Study 2, using an MTurk sample of 310 U.S. residents, results were similar to Study 1 but were qualified by an interaction between condition and EID: those high in EID were more strongly affected by the images. These results suggest that viewing polluted landscapes can have a negative effect on emotions (hedonic wellbeing), and that these effects are stronger among those who have a stronger relationship with nature. There was no evidence for an impact on eudaimonic wellbeing as represented by a sense of meaning, efficacy, or ethicality. Given the continuing degradation of our natural environment, further research on the impacts of polluted landscapes is needed.

Level of attention mediates the association between connectedness to nature and aesthetic evaluations of photographs of nature

“…We found that viewers with higher levels of connectedness to nature found the images more pleasant, more beautiful, and they evoked enhanced aesthetic emotions. This finding adds to a growing body of work showing that the trait of connectedness to nature influences perceptual and emotional responses to natural scenes ( Berto et al, 2018 ; Clayton, 2021 ; Davis & Gatersleben, 2013 ; McMahan et al, 2018 ; Tang, Sullivan & Chang, 2015 ), but extends our understanding of this association by investigating several specifically aesthetic responses, namely pleasure, beauty and aesthetic emotion. The positive association between connectedness to nature and participants’ aesthetic responses to the images of nature is consistent with theories of aesthetic experience which emphasise the importance of the psychological resonance between the viewer and the content of the image (see e.g ., Berleant, 1992 ).…”

“…Interestingly, increased attention to natural scenes in individuals high in connectedness to nature may also explain the enhanced negative responses to viewing scenes of degraded landscapes by these types of individuals as reported in the study by Clayton (2021) . It would be worthwhile in future studies to investigate the amount of attention paid to nature scenes and its influence on the evaluation of the scene using more implicit indices of attention, such as eye-tracking metrics which could address additional questions about the nature of the enhanced attention to the scenes, for example whether enhanced attention is reflected only in increased viewing times, or if it is also associated with increased spatial exploration of the scene.…”

“…There is an emerging literature showing that individual differences in connectedness to nature may influence a number of different perceptual and emotional responses evoked by viewing natural environments ( Berto et al, 2018 ; Clayton, 2021 ; Davis & Gatersleben, 2013 ; McMahan et al, 2018 ; Tang, Sullivan & Chang, 2015 ). For example, Berto et al (2018) showed that participants with higher levels of connectedness to nature reported higher levels of perceived restorative effects, and higher levels of preference, for natural landscapes.…”

“…They also found that those high in connectedness to nature had less negative or fearful experiences in more extreme/scary natural environments, i.e ., it may have provided a buffering effect against negative emotional responses. Evidence also supports the notion that people high in connectedness to nature may experience enhanced perceptual qualities (such as legibility, mystery, and restorative potential) of images of natural landscapes ( Tang, Sullivan & Chang, 2015 ), and that individuals who are more connected to nature (measured using the Environment Identity Scale) may be more emotionally affected by images of degraded ( i.e ., polluted) landscapes ( Clayton, 2021 ). Despite the large variety of types of landscapes shown, taken together these studies provide evidence that connectedness to nature is a potentially robust predictor of a variety of perceptual and emotional responses evoked by viewing natural environments.…”

Disturbance Severity and Human–Nature Relationships: A New Approach to Analyze People’s Well-Being along a Bark Beetle Infestation Gradient

“…Furthermore, it also affects the perception of natural environments. Clayton (2021) [49], for example, showed that different relationships with nature can also affect the emotional well-being in certain landscapes. Being in nature can increase your commitment to the landscape and can lead to a less superficial evaluation of the respective landscape [50].…”