Gould Rachelle K, Moreau Katrina, Fisher Brendan, Gonzalez-Jimenez David, Vatovec Christine
Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, Gund Institute for the Environment, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America.
Department of Biomedical and Health Sciences, College of Nursing and Health Sciences, University of Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2025 May 6;20(5):e0322464. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0322464. eCollection 2025.
It is well established that exposure to nature can reduce stress - but what if that "nature" is in a degraded state? We suggest a gap in research on nature-stress connections--and attempt to fill that gap. We conducted an experiment to test whether viewing photographs of polluted water would induce stress, as compared to photographs of clean water. In two conditions, we used sets of images that we digitally altered to be equivalent in every way except for the condition of the water. In the polluted-water treatment, all images depicted Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs), also sometimes called cyanobacteria blooms; in the clean-water (control) group, water looked free from HABs. Using a before-after-control-impact design, we tested pre- and post-intervention salivary cortisol to measure response to intervention exposure (i.e., photographs of lakes with or without HABs). We also collected qualitative data related to participants' reflections on the images they observed, and quantitative data on their connectedness to nature and climate anxiety. Participants recognized the HABs and their negative effects. Yet our hypothesis-that participants who viewed HABs-infested images would have larger increases in cortisol-was not supported, even when considering participants with high and low measures of connectedness to nature and climate anxiety. We discuss possible explanations for the lack of effect found.
人们普遍认为接触自然可以减轻压力——但如果这种“自然”处于退化状态会怎样呢？我们指出了自然与压力关系研究中的一个空白，并试图填补这一空白。我们进行了一项实验，以测试观看受污染水的照片是否会比观看清洁水的照片更容易引发压力。在两种情况下，我们使用了经过数字修改的图像集，除了水的状况外，这些图像在各个方面都是等效的。在受污染水处理组中，所有图像都描绘了有害藻华（HABs），有时也称为蓝藻水华；在清洁水（对照组）组中，水看起来没有有害藻华。我们采用前后对照影响设计，测试干预前后的唾液皮质醇水平，以衡量对干预暴露（即有或没有有害藻华的湖泊照片）的反应。我们还收集了与参与者对所观察图像的看法相关的定性数据，以及关于他们与自然的联系和气候焦虑的定量数据。参与者认识到了有害藻华及其负面影响。然而，我们的假设——即观看有害藻华图像的参与者皮质醇水平会有更大幅度的升高——并未得到支持，即使考虑到与自然联系程度高和低以及气候焦虑程度不同的参与者也是如此。我们讨论了所发现的缺乏效果的可能解释。
