Images of nature, environmental values and landscape preference: exploring their interrelationships

The present study explores the links among images of nature, environmental values, and group differences in landscape preferences. Groups of students from three different educational disciplines (agriculture, psychology, and biology) evaluated the scenic beauty of slides depicting managed and unmanaged natural landscapes with varying degrees of human influence. Multilevel analyses revealed group differences in the relationship between perceived landscape beauty and perceived human influence. Beauty ratings of biology and psychology students were negatively related to perceived human influence, while beauty ratings of students of agriculture were positively related to perceived human influence. In addition, the present study found group differences in images of nature, assessed by means of prototypicality ratings of descriptions of nature instances, and group differences in environmental values, as measured by the NEP scale (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978). Students of biology and psychology displayed more ecocentric images of nature and environmental values than students of agriculture. Participants with more ecocentric images of nature and environmental values also displayed higher preferences for unmanaged as compared to managed natural landscapes. However, mediational analyses provided no evidence that group differences in the relationship between perceived landscape beauty and perceived human influence were mediated by group differences in images of nature and environmental values. Taken together, the findings of the present study underline the key role of perceived degree of human influence in group differences in affective and cognitive responses towards nature. Images, Values, and Landscape Preference 3 Images of Nature, Environmental Values, and Landscape Preference: Exploring their Interrelationships Throughout history, wilderness and rural landscapes have been evaluated in opposed ways. Some people have regarded wilderness landscapes as 'waste land', filled with threats, while praising rural landscapes for their usefulness and orderliness (Lemaire, 1970). Conversely, others have regarded wilderness landscapes as a divine place of bliss and harmony, while criticizing rural landscapes for their lack of spiritual value (Nash, 1973). Although the relative importance of pro-rural orientations and pro-wilderness orientations may vary over time and across cultures, historians have emphasized that both orientations have always co-existed within different time periods and cultures (Tuan, 1974; Schama, 1995; Eisenberg, 1998). As the most important difference between wilderness and rural landscapes concerns their degree of human influence, these historical accounts suggest that in modern times degree of human influence may still be an important source of interpersonal differences in landscape preferences. Consistent with this interpretation, there is accumulating empirical evidence for the existence of group differences in the preferred balance between spontaneous and humaninfluenced patterns in natural landscapes (e.g., González Bernaldez & Parra, 1979; Schroeder, 1983; Dearden, 1984; Fenton, 1985; Kaplan & Herbert, 1987; Orland, 1988; Van den Berg, Vlek, & Coeterier, 1998). For example, farmers and low-income groups have been found to prefer managed natural landscapes with a high degree of human influence, while environmentalists and high-income groups have been found to prefer unmanaged natural landscapes with a low degree of human influence (Van den Berg, 1999). How can individual differences in preferences for natural landscapes be explained? Within the field of environmental psychology, individual differences in landscape preferences are generally thought to reflect the influence of people’s personal and socially shared experiences with respect to natural environments, including their value and belief systems and past experiences (cf. Ulrich, 1983; Wohlwill, 1983; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989). Obviously, experiences can only influence people’s landscape preferences when they are somehow Images, Values, and Landscape Preference 4 recorded in the brain. Psychologists refer to these mentally recorded experiences as ‘cognitions’, or symbolic representations of personal and/or socially shared experiences and values. Cognitions are thought to act as broad and abstract layers through which initial, affective responses to concrete environmental stimuli are filtered and interpreted (Wohlwill, 1983). To the extent that members of a group share the same cognitions, this filtering process may explain differences in landscape preferences between groups from different sociocultural backgrounds. Thus, in the course of their lives, people develop an intricate and rich cognitive structure that embodies their vision of what nature really is, and how it is related to humans. According to environmental philosophers (Worster, 1985; Keulartz, Swart, & Van der Windt, 2000), such visions of nature can generally be classified along a continuum that ranges from anthropocentric to ecocentric. People with an anthropocentric vision of nature tend to describe and value nature in terms of it’s usefulness to humans. These people are likely to interpret a high degree of human influence in natural landscapes in a positive manner, because a high degree of human influence generally signifies a high level of usefulness to humans. People with a more ecocentric vision of nature tend to describe and value nature in terms of it’s intrinsic value. These people are likely to interpret a high degree of human influence in natural landscapes in a more negative manner, because a high degree of human influence often implies a low intrinsic value of the landscape, particularly when human interventions are carried out without respect for plants and animals. This paper presents the results of a first exploration of the relationships between visions of nature and landscape preferences among groups of students from different educational backgrounds (agriculture, biology, psychology). Visions of nature were studied both in a descriptive sense, i.e., the vision of what nature is, and in a normative sense, i.e., the vision of why nature is important and how people should treat nature. In the remainder of this paper, these two types of visions of nature will be referred to as ‘images of nature’ and ‘environmental values’, respectively. Images, Values, and Landscape Preference 5 Images of Nature Images of nature can be defined as people’s general cognitions of what nature is (cf. Kaplan, 1983). Thus far, empirical studies of images of nature have mostly relied on preference judgments as an indirect means of measuring images of nature (e.g., Kaplan, 1985; Kaplan & Kaplan, 1989; Strumse, 1996). Underlying this general practice is the assumption that people’s affective responses toward a specific scene are guided by rapid cognitive appraisals of the scene (Kaplan & Kaplan, 1982). Although this assumption may be true, it should be pointed out that rapid, unconscious cognitive evaluations of a scene (perceptual filters) are quite different from higher-order cognitive structures that represent people’s conscious image of nature. Thus, it seems worthwhile to study images of nature and preferences in their own right, and to gain more insight into possible relationships between these two kinds of responses. A number of studies have employed similarity or prototypicality ratings to investigate images of nature independent from preference judgments (e.g., Fenton, 1985; Purcell, 1986, 1987, 1992). Using statistical techniques to uncover dimensions underlying people’s similarity or prototypicality ratings, the results of these studies have consistently identified human influence as an important underlying dimension. These findings are in agreement with descriptive classifications of images of nature which have characterized these images in terms of their position on a dimension ranging from untouched by humans to visibly influenced by humans (e.g., Nature Conservation Council, 1993). Generally, people who perceive landscapes that are visibly influenced by humans as typical examples of nature can be described as having an anthropocentric nature image, while people who perceive landscapes that seem untouched by humans as typical examples of nature can be described as having an ecocentric image. Images, Values, and Landscape Preference 6 Environmental Values Environmental values can be defined as ethical-normative cognitions concerning the value of nature and the relationship between humans and nature. Analogous to images of nature, environmental values are often classified according to their position on a dimension ranging from anthropocentric to ecocentric (e.g., Catton & Dunlap, 1980). Individuals holding anthropocentric environmental values view nature as subordinate to humans, who are seen as rulers or managers of the natural world. Individuals holding ecocentric environmental values regard nature as the most important reality, and view humans as only part of that reality. In order to assess individual differences in environmental values, Dunlap & Van Liere (1978) have developed the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale. The NEP scale was intended as a unidimensional measure of environmental values, with low scores indicating anthropocentrism, and high scores indicating ecocentrism. The scale consists of twelve items that cover three broad themes, i.e., humanity's ability to upset the balance of nature, the existence of limits to growth for human societies, and the appropriate role of humans relative to the rest of nature (for a description of items, see Van den Born, this volume). Studies employing the NEP scale have revealed relationships between ecocentric environmental values and a wide range of sociodemographic variables, including knowledge of the environment and urban versus rural place of residence (Buttel, 1987; Arcury, 1990; Arcury & Christianson, 1990). Although in recent