Year 3 Essay 5: The experience of well-being in nature: a phenomenological approach

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Grade awarded A+

Introduction

In recent years, there has been a growing climate conscious approach that feeds into the anxiety of changing natural habitats. A brief search of literature using the words ‘nature and well-being’ finds research that covers a wide variety of subjects such as geography, urban design, sociology and psychology. The aim of this literature review is to present key concepts, theories and methods that shaped the psychological research about nature and well-being. The structure will include subsections presenting ‘Classic Studies’, ‘Recent research’ and ‘Considerations for a phenomenological approach’. Although there is a wide consensus that nature is important to the quality of life, there are only a few phenomenological studies that investigate how people experience well-being through nature, by exploring the subjective experience without the purpose of producing generalisations to the entire population.

Classic Studies

One of the dominant approaches in understanding the importance of nature in the well-beings of individuals is the evolutionary perspective which states that people prefer a natural environment because of millions of years of evolution (Stevens, 2015, p. 329). Research showed that regardless of cultural background, individuals chose natural scenes over urban environments (Purcell et al., 1994, cited in Stevens, 2015, p. 331). Also, individuals showed a preference over savannah type landscape as opposed to a forest landscape (Falk and Balling, 2010, cited in Stevens, 2015, p. 337), because, according to an evolutionary perspective, early humans lived in Africa and savannah was the natural habitat. Although the findings regarding savannah type landscape preferences are reliable, the main criticism is that they are still based on assumptions. It is difficult to prove that nature preferences remain stable after hundreds or thousands of generations. Alternative explanations are possible, maybe people prefer savannah landscapes because they look sunnier or maybe exploring and enjoying a savannah type landscape seems easier.

Another influential approach was to research how natural environments can bring the levels of optimum functioning quicker than other type of built setting. Ulrich also explained people’s preferences for natural habitats through ‘psychoevolutionary theory’, that states that individuals find nature restorative because this is the environment where humans evolved (1991, cited in Stevens, 2015).For example, in an experiment, Ulrich and colleagues (1991, cited in Stevens, 2015, p. 342) required participants to view a stressful video, followed by another video that depicted a natural scene or a built environment without natural elements. Physiological indicators for stress (heart rate, blood pressure and muscle tension) were recorded. The findings showed that participants who viewed the nature video reported more positive feelings than the ones who watched the built environment. The only criticism to this study is that the experiment had low ecological validity and perhaps the nature measure was not actually a nature experience, since the participants did not actually experience nature, but ‘technological nature’.

Other theorists also tried to understand what makes natural experiences restorative. For example, in ART theory, Rachel and Steven Kaplan (1989, cited in Stevens, 2015, p. 345), identified four qualities of the environment that helps individual to have optimum level of concentration and overcome attentional fatigue. They found that people prefer elements of natural environments, such as trees, vegetation and water, over built settings (Kaplan & Kaplan, cited in Kahn et al. 2009, p.37).The four ART components are: ‘fascination’, ‘being away’, ‘extent’-how natural elements go together and ‘compatibility’- the environment provides opportunities for enjoying activities. ART theory was applied in the development of psychological scales such as the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (Hartig et. al., 1997, cited in Stevens, 2015).

Recent Research

Recent research in the well-being experience in nature also favours experiments and quantitative research. For example, starting from Kaplan & Kaplan, (cited in Kahn et al. 2009, p.37) findings that people prefer natural elements, Kahn et al. (2009) conducted an experiment to investigate how individuals perceive technological nature. In an experiment, Kahn et al. (2008) recorded physiological measures to see how participants respond to nature seen through a glass window, the same nature environment seen thorough plasma TV that depicted the natural scene in real time, and no nature watching at all. The findings were that people prefer to watch nature through a window, but technological nature (plasma TV) is still better than no nature at all. In a more recent study, Soga et al. (2016) inquired how individuals experience neighbourhood nature, and they found that people value neighbourhood natural environments, butterflies and birds. A four-page questionnaire was administered to investigate nature perspective. One of the interesting findings of the study was that nature experience correlated positively with valuing neighbourhood nature (Soga et al., 2016, p. 148), meaning that the well-being felt through nature experience may increase with more exposure to nature.

For some authors such as Passmore and Howell (2014), nature experience is fundamental in well-being. The perspective promoted is one of Eco-existential positive Psychology, where nature plays an important role in dealing with six existential anxieties linked to: identity, meaning of life, death, freedom, isolation and happiness. Passmore and Howell make a literature review in support for their theoretical assumption. For example, they refer to Ernest Berger (1973, cited in Passmore & Howell, 2014, p. 381), and his findings that the fear of death is dealt through connection with nature. The awareness that human existence is embodied in nature transcends the here and now.

The theoretical assumption promoted by Passmore and Howell (2014) that the natural world is experienced as embodied was supported by one piece of qualitative research, that combined a phenomenological approach with psychoanalytic theory (Kahn, et al. 2009). For example, one participant, Hannah, 28 years old, observed that the nature experience is ‘a complete sense of belonging. (…) Sort of like a cellular return. It kind of feels that my cells are returned to themselves, reminded of their beautiful simplicity within the context of the complexity of the whole’ (Kahn et al. 2009).

Considerations for phenomenological research

So far, the psychological literature regarding nature and well-being used as preferred methods study quantitative data- scales and experiments. There was a lack of focus on the subjective experience of nature through a phenomenological approach, trying to understand how people experience nature, gathering rich data and finding how nature is important for well-being. While the findings about the relationship with nature obtained through the use of scales and experiments are very useful, the criticism is that they are based on taken for granted assumptions about the nature experience, without actually knowing why or how people experience well-being in nature. Also, rather than being interested in generalisations, it might be worth to try to understand how people have different subjective experiences. The purpose of the phenomenological research is to understand the experience and to depict its rich detail (Langdridge, 2016).

Research Question

The research question is: How do people experience well-being through nature? Rather than starting from previous theories, the research question is about the experience itself, a ‘bottom-up’ approach starting from the data. The focus is on the lived experience of the participants.

Conclusion

So far, psychology tried to explain the connection with nature through an evolutionary perspective and by focusing on the restorative qualities of natural elements. Although worthy and widely supported by empirical studies, these approaches fail to consider people’s personal experiences. There are also methodological considerations, low ecological validity in the experiments and construct validity: arguably a picture depicting nature is not a nature experience. Also, the use of scales in measuring well-being experience in nature can be problematic for different reasons: it requires individuals to assign numbers to subjective experiences and the responses can be influenced by social desirability. The advantage of a phenomenological approach to study the well-being experience in nature is that it aims to provide a rich description of the subjective personal experience in nature, without the need to be influenced by existing theories.

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