The effect of humanising nature

Abstract

Humans may have an innate need to affiliate with nature; this need has been termed biophilia. Humanising nature may connect to biophilia. An experimental design with 167 participants tested the hypothesis that a humanised description of the functioning of trees that focused on similarities between tree and human functioning would have a greater impact than a description of purely biological functions of trees. Participants randomly assigned to the humanising nature condition had higher mean scores for positive affect and empathy related to the target aspect of nature as well as greater pro-environmental intention. A MANOVA showed that the humanising nature condition had a significantly greater overall impact than the control condition. Positive affect and empathy were significantly different between groups. A serial mediation analysis found that positive affect and empathy connected the intervention with pro-environmental intention. Humanising nature holds promise as an approach to meeting biophilia needs. The findings may be globally relevant to the interaction of humans with nature.