Another recent study found that people who are more naturally prone to experiencing awe felt more humility and were rated as more humble by their friends. Kohn, E. How Forests Think: Toward and Anthropology Beyond the Human (Univ. California Press, Berkeley, 2013). Good biophilic design is usually drawn based on the user’s influential perspectives which can be impacted by health conditions, sociocultural norms, past experiences, and frequency and duration of experience are some of the most common examples [ 10]. Millennium Ecosystem Assessment Ecosystems and Human Well-Being: Our Human Planet: Summary for Decision Makers (Earthscan, 2005).

Brown, D. K., Barton, J. L., Gladwell, V. F. (2013). Viewing nature scenes positively affects recovery of autonomic function following acute-mentalstress. Environ Sci Technol, 47:5562–9 Beatley T (2017a) Handbook of biophilic city planning and design. Handbook of biophilic city planning and design, pp 1–289. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-621-9 Kellert, S. R. C., Elizabeth F. (2015). The Practice of Biophilic Design. Retrieved from www.biophilicdesign.comTuan, Y.-F. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience (Univ. Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, 2001). Writing for such diverse audiences is a challenge. On the one hand, the topic of the book is widely appealing, and our readers will have great intuitive familiarity with the contents. On the other hand, our intention is to present results of a large number of empirical studies and considerable theoretical material. We have tried to accommodate to these issues and to the differing expectations about supporting information that diverse professional groups hold. Both the chapter notes and the summaries in the Appendixes are intended to provide some of the information that is essential to some more professionally oriented readers but may be distracting to others. There are also references that provide fuller documentation. At the same time, though our intention was to write a readable and interesting volume, we have not attempted a popularized treatment. Our effort is to integrate a substantial quantity of both empirical and theoretical material into a framework and perspective on the role nature plays. How does it work? What lies behind the power of environments that not only attract and are appreciated by people but are apparently able to restore hassled individuals to healthy and effective functioning? Basso, K. H. Wisdom Sits in Places: Landscape and Language Among the Western Apache (Univ. New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, 1996).

Growing your own food means understanding seasonality and having the experience of gardening, both of which are strong nature experiences. A study by Church et al. [ 178] showed that those who grow their own food are happier than those who do not, accounting for a large number of possible socio-economic confounding variables, but not demonstrating a causal effect. Food growing has been linked with a variety of benefits, including self-fulfillment, identity affirmation, self-help, and mutual support [ 179], and growing your own food contributes to food safety and tastier, better quality food [ 180, 181, 182]. In fact, wanting better tasting food was the top reason respondents to a study cited for growing their own food [ 178]. It can also be a very satisfying practice [ 183], promotes skill development [ 181, 184], and connects one to nature [ 185]. A final benefit of growing food, and the second most popular reason in the above-mentioned study, was economic savings [ 178]. Community markets with locally grown food have even been used to promote racial equality, as in the case of “Mo’ Better Foods” in the US [ 186], indicating that the benefits derived from food and taste can be far reaching, from the individual to the community scale. The expansion of food-growing from a male-dominated practice to a more equal and female-including practice has been studied [ 187], so it has implications for racial and gender relationships, and the local food movement (growing food locally) has been considered as a social movement [ 188]. Indeed, food ties us together and its use to bring people together socially is well documented [ 189, 190, 191, 192, 193]. Growing food or otherwise interacting in nature can bring us together socially and provide benefits, such as care farms [ 194] and nature-assisted therapy programs [ 195]. All of this suggests that community cohesion is one of the possible benefits of natural food.

Research and Practice

From the present perspective it is difficult to believe that at the time we began this research program there were virtually no studies on the subject of this book. A great deal has happened since then, and the literature on the importance of nature is growing. In retrospect, we find ourselves surprised by the quantity of research we and our students have done in these two decades. The present volume focuses on this more or less coherent research program. Though we refer to the work of others as it seems pertinent, we have placed a higher priority on coherence and integration th I think the volume creates a baseline for anyone interested in the green experience. It provides the scientific basis for inquiry as well as an invitation to think more deeply about this ancient and perhaps too easily accepted role of vegetation as being “good” for people. Everyone who is interested in this relationship will find here an approach that is insightful and widely applicable. They will also find a perspective that they can use as they seek to understand their own nature experiences or to enhance the experiences of others. I am grateful to Rachel and Stephen Kaplan for the exciting and useful synthesis they have achieved in this important volume. Larigauderie, A. & Mooney, H. A. The intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services: moving a step closer to an IPCC-like mechanism for biodiversity. Curr. Opin. Env. Sustain. 2, 9–14 (2010). urn:oclc:record:1045253695 Foldoutcount 0 Identifier experienceofnatu00kapl Identifier-ark ark:/13960/t7tm9w97z Invoice 47 Isbn 0521341396 Lccn 88031575 Ocr_converted abbyy-to-hocr 1.1.37 Ocr_module_version 0.0.21 Openlibrary_edition Tachimoto, N. in Global Humanics of the Environment (ed. Tachimoto, N.) RIHN Working Paper No. 1; 5–10 (RIHN, Kyoto, 2008).