If pushed for the ultimate point of economic growth I imagine many politicians and economists would arrive at improving life conditions, things such as people’s opportunities, education and income, for their ultimate wellbeing and happiness – see happiness economics and the UNs World Happiness Report. A recent paper highlights the role our relationship with nature has to play in our happiness.
Many people give human characteristics to nature. This tendency to ‘anthropomorphise’ wildlife can be very appealing and persuasive, leading to greater moral care. Or, unfortunately, it can lead to abuse, with misconceived negative qualities being transferred – magpies and crows come to mind as suffering from such attributions, but judgements based on superstition and perceived otherness are at best a loss, at worse pernicious to a realisation of our shared place in the landscape. However, let’s keep positive, if anthropomorphism can capture attention, change attitudes, behaviour and connection to nature it’s worth thinking about further. And recently a couple of research papers have done just that. Continue reading
You might be familiar with the term ‘ergonomics’ from ads for cars or in relation to office chairs, but it is a broad subject that can be applied to many aspects of our lives. Essentially it’s about designing for people to improve, amongst other things, wellbeing. This often takes place at work, but can be anywhere that people go, and involve anything that people do – or you’d like them to do.
When people interact with a system, which could be a museum, urban park or network of paths through woodland, there is a need to ensure the design complements their abilities and strengths. Ergonomists do this by applying their knowledge of people to design, so that products and places make sense. Ergonomics can also be applied in a subtlety different way, the knowledge and skills about people can be used to change behaviour through design. Continue reading
In 2011, P. Wesley Schultz wrote an essay in Conservation Biology stating that conservation can only be achieved by changing human behaviour. He also noted the difficulties of changing conservation behaviour through education owing to our bias to short-term thinking, the social norms that guide us and our disconnect from nature. A recent research paper, ‘There is an I in Nature’, considers connection to nature and conservation in a study with farmers. Continue reading
A couple of recent research papers have considered the role of nature’s beauty in nature connectedness and the associated benefits of well-being and pro-social behaviour. The first looked at how a connection to nature is related to well-being. In two studies the authors found that the positive relationship between a connection with nature and satisfaction with life was only significant for those people attuned and engaged with nature’s beauty. Or in other words, people who experience positive emotion when seeing beauty in nature have higher well-being. Continue reading
Finding Nature 