Exposure to nature might help to reduce a psychological characteristic underlying authoritarianism
rael-science
Exposure to nature might help to reduce a psychological characteristic underlying authoritarianism
People
who feel more connected to nature also tend to hold more egalitarian
views, according to new research published in the journal Environment and Behavior.
The study provides some preliminary evidence that exposure to nature
can reduce social dominance orientation, a measure of person’s
acceptance of hierarchy and inequality among groups.
“Urban
greening is often taken as a measure to fight climate change. We can
see tons of reports quantifying the cost of climate change, and economic
benefits of planting trees,” said study author Henry Kin Shing Ng of
the University of Hong Kong. “To me, the psychological benefits of
exposure to nature are just as important. The natural environment can be
an effective, and relatively cheap, measure to enhance social and
psychological well-being in people.”
The
researchers were interested in how a person’s relationship with the
natural environment was associated with their social dominance
orientation, a personality characteristic that is closely associated
with authoritarianism.
“While
dispositional connectedness to nature is evidently related to
environmentalism, less is known about its relationship with people’s
intergroup behavior and attitudes. If a person can empathize with
nature, such as an endangered species, it should not be surprising that
they also show kindness to fellow human beings, such as marginalized
groups in society,” the authors of the study explained.
The
researchers conducted two studies, using 157 participants recruited via
Amazon Mechanical Turk and 300 participants recruited via Prolific,
which found that those who scored higher on a measure of connectedness
to nature tended to score lower on a measure of social dominance
orientation. In other words, participants who agreed with statements
such as “I often feel a sense of oneness with the natural world around
me” tended to disagree with statements such as “Some groups of people
are simply inferior to other groups.”
“When you feel connected with nature, you’ll also feel connected with others and be nicer to them,” Ng told PsyPost.
The
participants were also randomly assigned to view one of five
environmental scenes, which varied in their level of resources and
security. They were asked to write at least two sentences describing how
they would act and feel if they were stuck alone in the environment for
three days.
The
researchers found that those who viewed a scene of nature, as opposed
to an urban landscape, tended to have reduced social dominance
orientation, suggesting that nature exposure decreases social dominance
orientation. However, this was only true among those who were already
highly connected to nature.
“Seeing
nature sceneries can boost such connections. It’s good to be outside,
particularly during the pandemic when people stay at home a lot,” Ng
said.
The findings are in line with previous research,
which has found that people with a greater social dominance orientation
tend to engage less in pro-environmental behavior. But the new study
also includes some caveats.
“Not
all natural environments cast the same social beneficial effect to all
people,” Ng said. “What needs to be addressed in the future is to
pinpoint the specific features in nature that can trigger such an
effect. It is challenging because when it comes to nature, there are
just too many features to study. Machine learning on big data may help
identifying such features in the future.”
The study, “Nature
Connectedness and Nature Exposure Interactively Influence Social
Dominance Orientation and Policy Support for Marginalized Groups during
the COVID-19 Pandemic“, was authored by Henry Kin Shing Ng and Angel Nga Man Leung.
