Environment, Identity, and Response to Polluted Landscapes

Research indicates that beautiful nature can have positive impacts. Does polluted nature have a corresponding negative impact? This paper presents two experiments investigating the impact of viewing images of natural settings, on a college campus, that do or do not contain litter. The moderating role of environmental identity was also examined. Study 1 showed that landscapes with litter evoked more negative emotions among a sample of 332 U.S. residents on MTurk than did landscapes without litter. Surprisingly, natural landscapes did not have a more positive effect than images of buildings. In Study 2, using an MTurk sample of 310 U.S. residents, results were similar to Study 1 but were qualified by an interaction between condition and EID: those high in EID were more strongly affected by the images. These results suggest that viewing polluted landscapes can have a negative effect on emotions (hedonic wellbeing), and that these effects are stronger among those who have a stronger relationship with nature. There was no evidence for an impact on eudaimonic wellbeing as represented by a sense of meaning, efficacy, or ethicality. Given the continuing degradation of our natural environment, further research on the impacts of polluted landscapes is needed.