Introduction
People’s relationship with the natural world is the phenomenal concept to analyse that also can be applied in an urban environment where the majority of the society inhabits nowadays. It is essential to remain focused on the natural since humans, together with other lives on Earth, were evolving within a natural environment. Hence, there are reasons to believe that people are adapted to live in such an environment on a priority basis. Such a concept implies the variety of behaviours and responses that are the outcomes of evolutionary processes and adjusted the human body to engage with natural habitat. With that said, one should understand that some responses to places are part of the way the body reacts to specific stimuli. Therefore, it is crucial to appreciate the relationship between natural environments and human wellbeing by examining the main psychological theories and concepts.
Experience 1: Attention Restoration Theory
The lead character of the first experience is a workaholic whose life primarily revolves around his work and company. As a result, the person sacrifices the fundamental values in life, such as health, relationships, and commitments. Considering many responsibilities, deadlines, and demands from the boss, the character’s mental state ultimately became depressed, emotional, anxious, claustrophobic, and stressed to the extent that he did not want to wake up in the morning. One of the main theories that can be analysed through this experience is ART (Attention Restoration Theory) developed by two environmental psychologists, Rachel and Steven Kaplan. According to Stevens (2015), these include the fascination of sensory qualities that have an innate appeal, as well as to remain away from the demands of ordinary life. The third quality is an extent as a sense of vastness or connection between the experience of a place and one’s awareness of the outside world. Ultimately, the fourth quality is the compatibility between a person’s will to do something and what one can do in that place.
The psychologists aimed at defining a process whereby people recover from attentional fatigue by being in an environment, which includes four essential qualities. The ART theory implies that “people recover from attentional fatigue through being in an environment which involves the four qualities of fascination, being away, extent, and compatibility (Stevens, 2015, p. 345). More specifically, the second quality of the ART theory suggests that when the individual is stressed, one seeks to escape from the place that stimulates such a body’s reaction.
For this reason, the character felt content as he was spending some time by the window in his office while working on a 24-hour basis. However, his view was limited by the overloaded urban landscape. As he felt a beam of light on the skin, he reached a sense of vastness or connection between the experience of a place and his knowledge of the broader world. The concept of the fourth quality includes the subjective element since a place can be perceived as restorative only if one feels able to perform the target activity there. The character was entirely devoted to his work while being in the office, however, his soul sought for some rest within a natural environment.
Experience 2: Ulrich’s Psychoevolutionary Theory
The second experience narrates about the person who genuinely enjoyed the time spent in the Kyoto Gardens located in Holland Park. The nature abundance discovered in its most natural environment, such as the sun shining and the warmth of its light, the stream of water, and the flora diversity, altogether they provoked the dramatic improvement in the state of mind. The character was able to go deeper into oneself in terms of thinking and reflecting upon the changed perspective and meaning of life. A person’s emotional reaction to the outer world resonated with the natural habitat it is historically adapted to. As described by Stevens (2015), there is a general idea that “the preference for natural scenes is something that humans are born with” (p. 331). Humans evolved in the entirely natural surroundings and, hence, most of their responses progressed as an adjustment to such environments.
Such a response to the natural environment corresponds to Ulrich’s psychoevolutionary theory, whereby people consider a place as psychologically restorative once it is akin to the kind of landscape in which the human species evolved. The protagonist of the second experience mentioned that he felt a sense of ease, satisfied, free from concerns, gratitude, and a sense of belonging and wholeness. Furthermore, as noted by the psychologist himself, a primary response to the environment that humans experience is the emotional one. As such, urban landscapes usually cause negative emotions, when natural landscapes lead to the positive emotions that can be traced in this case.
Nowadays, the psychologists state that it is a fast and automatic response, which forms within the first few seconds of experiencing an environment. Ulrich’s theory implies that this habitat also can have a significant influence on all of the individual’s subsequent thoughts and feelings occurring in that environment. With that said, it is crucial to address the role of place when trying to understand human behaviour, as it might have a powerful effect on many aspects of everyday life. Roger Ulrich made a valuable contribution with his studies based upon high interest in environmental aesthetics that led him to grow into a healthcare design planner.
Conclusion
The relationships between humans and the natural environment is indeed a complex issue to study. It is essential to examine a wide range of basic psychological concepts and develop the ability to illustrate them with regard to how they apply to everyday life. By analysing the reflective experiences in terms of the main psychological theories and concepts they imply, one might better understand the human response to the natural environment. Considering the idea that human bodies have unlearned responses to various physical environments, they keep developing mainly as adaptations to those environments. Two reflective experiences were assessed within two psychological theories, such as Attention Restoration Theory and Ulrich’s Psychoevolutionary Theory.
They represent two opposing characters in contrasting environments. One of them is inseparable with the company’s life and a great number of work responsibilities, while another person is fully devoted to the solitude with the natural habitat in the local park. The ART is based upon the idea of two different types of attention that humans experience, where one is directed attention, and another is involuntary. This theory provides the framework to state that it is easy to overuse directed attention within the modern lifestyle, which makes the attentional system fatigued. Ulrich’s approach, in turn, reviews the idea of the restorative environment, as well as the fundamental need to be in natural settings, even for a while. Thus, the analysis promotes better reflection on the relationships that people have with the natural environments and implementation of this knowledge in real contexts to advance one’s physical and mental wellbeing.
Reference List
Stevens, P. (2015). Relationships with the natural world. In: J. Turner, C. Hewson, K. Mahendran, and P. Stevens, ed., Living Psychology: From the Everyday to the Extraordinary. The Open University, pp. 327–367.