Reply to Fattorini et al.: Children’s selected avoidance of wild greenspace is driven by more than cultural factors

Hand, Kathryn L.; Freeman, Claire; Seddon, Philip J.; Recio, Mariano R.; Heezik, Yolanda van

doi:10.1073/pnas.1712175114

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…If biophilia is not stimulated in children, they tend to prefer domestic Nature (private gardens and courtyards), even when they have the freedom to access areas with high biodiversity (Hand et al, 2017a). This does not mean that today's children are less biophilic, "but rather that their ability to act in this way has been curtailed" (Hand et al, 2017b). This appeared as evident in the experimental observations which led to the definition of the Standard of Étroubles (for more details, see Berto et al, 2015), where it emerged that, in a group of primary school children during a day spent in a wooded environment, the perception of restorativeness (presumably mediated by the fascination exerted by Nature) was increased, while the feeling of affiliation remained unchanged.…”

Section: Building Environments That Stimulate Biophilia Nurturing Children's Affiliation With Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

Biophilia as Evolutionary Adaptation: An Onto- and Phylogenetic Framework for Biophilic Design

Barbiero

Berto

2021

Front. Psychol.

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Biophilia is a human personality trait described initially by Erich Fromm and later by E.O. Wilson, both of whom agree that biophilia has a biological basis and that it is fundamental to develop harmonious relationships between humans and the biosphere. This review aims at establishing a definition of biophilia as an evolutionary process. To this end, the most significant studies of evolutionary psychology were considered, to outline the fundamental characteristics of a hypothetical biophilic temperament/personality and to reconstruct a plausible history of biophilia as an evolutionary process. This process considers different typologies of Nature (wilderness, rural, and urban) and human cultures (Paleolithic, Neolithic, and Burg) and leads us to consider environmental preference and psycho-physiological recovery in relation to the threshold of time spent in contact with Nature. Unfortunately, modern people, especially children, lack direct and frequent contact with Nature and this can have negative consequences on their physical and mental health. Biophilic design, considering the evolutionary roots of this architectural approach, is an effective way of planning/designing interior and urban environments to stimulate the innate biophilia of the individual.

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Section: Building Environments That Stimulate Biophilia Nurturing Children's Affiliation With Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

Biophilia as Evolutionary Adaptation: An Onto- and Phylogenetic Framework for Biophilic Design

Barbiero

Berto

2021

Front. Psychol.

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“…It produces emotional reactions of negative valence in reaction to certain natural stimuli (such as a dangerous animal or a natural catastrophe) with the aim of promoting protective, rejection or withdrawal behaviors to avoid harm (Koole and Van den Berg, 2005). In this line, Hand et al (2017) point out that children do not behave as predicted by the biophilic hypothesis, because, in some cases, they avoid biodiverse spaces due to their producing negative emotions.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biophilia and Biophobia as Emotional Attribution to Nature in Children of 5 Years Old

et al. 2020

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Introduction: Connectedness to nature is a concept that reflects the emotional relationship between the self and the natural environment, based on the theory of biophilia, the innate predisposition to the natural environment. However, the biophobic component has largely been ignored, despite, given its adaptive functional role, being an essential part of the construct. If there is a phylogenetic component underlying nature connectedness, biophilic, and/or biophobic, there should be evidence of this record from early childhood. The main aim of this study is therefore to describe the emotional attributions identified in 5 years old. Methodology: Two studies were conducted. In the first, 94 children expressed their concept of nature and made basic emotional attributions to a set of 30 images of natural, using a software designed for the study. In the second, 39 children repeated the procedure and provided explanations for their responses. Results: The main results show that, in general, children use both positive and negative emotions, which may be related to a three-dimensional model of emotional attributions to nature. The most widely attributed emotion is happiness. However, fear is the second most common attribution. The role of happiness could be explained by a feeling of security and familiarity, while the importance of fear in nature could show an adaptive response of the fear of wild nature in children. This interpretation could be confirmed when analyzing specifically the emotional attributions, classifying the images according to biological and ecosystemic criteria. Thus, for example, more emotional attributions are explained by the "pleasantness" attributed to primary producers and landscapes (e.g., flora), versus attributions of "harm" to the images of secondary and tertiary consumers (e.g., hunters). Conclusion: These results provide evidence in favor of a didactic procedure to study emotional attributions to images of nature in preschool children. They suggest the incorporation of biophobia as an important adaptive factor in connectedness to nature and a tripartite emotional hypothesis based on the valences of the attributed emotions.

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Reply to Fattorini et al.: Children’s selected avoidance of wild greenspace is driven by more than cultural factors

Cited by 2 publications

References 10 publications

Biophilia as Evolutionary Adaptation: An Onto- and Phylogenetic Framework for Biophilic Design

Biophilia as Evolutionary Adaptation: An Onto- and Phylogenetic Framework for Biophilic Design

Biophilia and Biophobia as Emotional Attribution to Nature in Children of 5 Years Old

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