Empathizing With Nature: The Effects of Perspective Taking on Concern for Environmental Issues - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social Issues, Fall, 2000 by P. Wesley Schultz

This approach is especially applicable to environmental education activities. My results suggest that any activity that reduces an individual's perceived separation between self and nature will lead to an increase in that individual's biospheric concern. For example, a hike in the woods, a class trip to a natural park, a family camping trip (in a tent, not a recreational vehicle), an animal presentation in which students can see and touch the animal, or creating birdhouses or gardens should all lead to greater interconnectedness and inclusion. By contrast, a trip to a zoo to see animals in cages, watching animals perform skits or trained shows, hearing information about animals or nature taught abstractly in a classroom, or environmentally destructive recreational behaviors (like off-road motorcycles, jet skis, and snowmobiles) will likely lead to less perceived interconnection and more egoistic attitudes about nature.

Conclusion

In this article, I have demonstrated the existence of a clear three-factor structure for environmental concerns that I labeled egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric. These findings are consistent with Stern's value-basis theory for environmental attitudes. As an extension, I have attempted to link environmental concern to the inclusion of others in self and to the inclusion of nature in self. Further, I have proposed that these concerns are associated with empathy and that greater levels of inclusion can be produced by taking the perspective of animals being harmed by nature (biospheric) or people being harmed by nature (altruistic). I believe that this conceptualization offers a promising new avenue for basic research on environmental concern and also a useful theory for applied research on encouraging proenvironmental behavior.

(*.) Portions of this article were presented at the 1998 meeting of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, Ann Arbor, MI. I would like to acknowledge the work of Paul Rotkoweitz, Lori Tacey, and Christianna Wolf for their help in conducting these studies. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to P. Wesley Schultz, Department of Psychology, California State University, San Marcos, CA 92078 [e-mail: psch@csusm.edu].

P. WESLEY SCHULTZ is an Associate Professor of Psychology at California State University, San Marcos, where he teaches courses in psychology and statistics. His research interests are in the psychology of environmental issues and the application of psychological theory to help understand and solve social problems. Recent projects have focused on promoting recycling, cross-cultural research on environmental attitudes, environmental education, stereotypes, and prejudice. He is coauthor of Applied Social Psychology (1998, Prentice-Hall) and Social Psychology: An Applied Perspective (2000, Prentice-Hall) and numerous research publications in the areas of social psychology and environmental issues.

References

Aron, A., Aron, E. N., & Smollan, D. (1992). Inclusion of other in the self scale and the structure of interpersonal closeness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63, 596--612.