Suchergebnisse

Latane and Darley developed a five‐stage model to understand why people do and do not help other people in emergency situations. We extend their five‐stage model to explore why people do and do not take action against climate change. We identify the factors that make climate change difficult to notice and ambiguous as an emergency; we explore barriers to taking responsibility for action; and we discuss the issues of efficacy and costs versus benefits that make action unlikely. The resulting analysis is useful on two levels. For educators and policy makers, the model suggests the most efficacious approaches to galvanizing action among U.S. citizens. For social scientists, the model provides a valuable framework for integrating research from diverse areas of psychology and suggests fruitful avenues for future empirical research.

Three studies examine the effects of exposure to nature on positive affect and ability to reflect on a life problem. Participants spent 15 min walking in a natural setting (Studies 1, 2, & 3), an urban setting (Study 1), or watching videos of natural and urban settings (Studies 2 & 3). In all three studies, exposure to nature increased connectedness to nature, attentional capacity, positive emotions, and ability to reflect on a life problem; these effects are more dramatic for actual nature than for virtual nature. Mediational analyses indicate that the positive effects of exposure to nature are partially mediated by increases in connectedness to nature and are not mediated by increases in attentional capacity. The discussion focuses on the mechanisms that underlie the exposure to nature/well-being effects.