Last week, CORE Lab members John, Daria, and Subina presented their research at the inagural SNAC (Society for Nature and Cognition) meeting in Denver, Colorado. Let’s here what Daria and Subina had to say about their experience!
What was the title of your poster?
Daria: “The Influence of Human Exceptionalist Beliefs on Social-Ecological Systems Thinking: Implications for Environmental Cognition”
Subina: “Intuitive theories of nature and pro-environmental behavior- Cross cultural exploration from the USA and Nepal”
Can you tell me a little bit more about the research your poster was on?
Daria: In this study, I used a mix of survey responses and concept mapping techniques to visualize the ways in which human exceptionalism beliefs influence SES thinking in students’ mental models.
Subina: In this project, we were assessing three intuitive theories: human exceptionalism, creationism, and ‘Gaia belief’ and if they had an association with pro-environmental behavior. This was also a cross-cultural study that was conducted both in the USA and Nepal.
What are the results and implications from that research?
Daria:
From the concept mapping activity we found that, on average, students’ mental models involve:
- Reciprocal positive relations among plants, animals, and abiotic elements,
- Reciprocal positive relations between people and roads,
- Positive impacts of ecosystem elements (plants, animals, abiotic elements) on people, and
- Negative impacts of people and roads on ecosystems.
When we add HE into the mix, we see that each of these relationships were actually weaker, indicating that students high in HE are:
- Less likely to perceive ecosystem benefits for people,
- Less likely to perceive positive interrelations among plants, animals, and abiotic elements, and
- Less likely to perceive harmful human impact on ecosystems.
Subina:
We found that out of the three intuitive beliefs, only human exceptionalism had a significant relationship with pro- environmental behavior in the two cultural contexts. Human exceptionalism negatively predicted pro-environmental behavior in the US, but positively predicted pro-environmental behavior in Nepal. These results suggest that the same intuitive belief can have different implications in different cultures.
What was something new you learned at the conference?
Daria: There was so much interesting work to explore during the conference! I was particularly interested in attention restoration theory, which suggests that time in nature can improve cognitive functions like attention, focus, and creativity! This seems to align well with the work of the CORE Lab.
Subina: Most research there was about nature’s impact on human cognition. So, I learned that most researchers in this specialty described nature as wilderness/ untouched nature with no human habitation. I also learned about interesting methodology like the use of EEG, to see the effect of time spent in nature (defined as wilderness away from human habitation) on affect.
Any other takeaways from the experience?
Daria: I’ve been thinking a lot about a key question that we explore in the Lab: What is nature? Many of the presentations that we saw at the conference made a distinction between “natural” environments and “urban” environments for comparing the cognitive functions of their participants in each of these settings. While experiences “out in nature” (i.e., away from a built environment) is certainly a helpful distinction to make when thinking about frameworks like attention restoration theory, it does make me wonder about potential unintended consequences of presenting “urban” environments as “not nature.” This may create a deeper divide between humans (and human built structures) from the rest of the natural world, and it may also fail to account for the many ways in which we still engage with our surrounding environment on a daily basis within urban spaces.
Subina: This was the first time I presented the work I had done in the CORE lab to the outside world. People there were really interested and praised my work, which made me feel very appreciated.