Department of Psychology, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana, United States of America.
Behavioral Pharmacology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2018 Aug 22;13(8):e0202246. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0202246. eCollection 2018.
Nature exposure has been linked to a plethora of health benefits, but the mechanism for this effect is not well understood. We conducted two studies to test a new model linking the health benefits of nature exposure to reduced impulsivity in decision-making (as measured by delay discounting) via psychologically expanding space perception. In study 1 we collected a nationwide U.S. sample (n = 609) to determine whether nature exposure was predictive of health outcomes and whether impulsive decision-making mediated the effect. Results indicated that Nature Accessibility and Nature Exposure From Home significantly predicted reduced scores on the Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scales (DASS) (p < .001, p = .03, respectively) and improved general health and wellbeing (p < .001, p < .01, respectively). Nature Accessibility also predicted reduced impulsive decision-making (p < .01), and Nature Accessibility showed significant indirect effects through impulsive decision-making on both the DASS (p = .02) and general health and wellbeing (p = .04). In Study 2, a lab-based paradigm found that nature exposure expanded space perception (p < .001), and while the indirect effect of nature exposure through space perception on impulsive decision-making did not meet conventional standards of significance (p < .10), the pattern was consistent with hypotheses. This combination of ecologically-valid and experimental methods offers promising support for an impulsivity-focused model explaining the nature-health relationship.
自然体验与众多健康益处有关，但这种影响的机制尚不清楚。我们进行了两项研究，以测试一个新的模型，该模型将自然体验对健康的益处与通过心理扩大空间感知来减少决策中的冲动性（通过延迟折扣来衡量）联系起来。在研究 1 中，我们收集了一个全美样本（n = 609），以确定自然体验是否可以预测健康结果，以及冲动决策是否可以介导这种影响。结果表明，自然可达性和家庭自然暴露显著预测了抑郁、焦虑和压力量表（DASS）得分的降低（p <.001，p =.03，分别），并改善了整体健康和幸福感（p <.001，p <.01，分别）。自然可达性还预测了冲动决策的减少（p <.01），自然可达性通过冲动决策对 DASS（p =.02）和整体健康和幸福感（p =.04）都具有显著的间接影响。在研究 2 中，一个基于实验室的范式发现，自然暴露会扩大空间感知（p <.001），尽管自然暴露通过空间感知对冲动决策的间接影响没有达到显著标准（p <.10），但这种模式与假设一致。这种结合生态有效的和实验方法为解释自然与健康关系的冲动性模型提供了有希望的支持。
