Mixed evidence for the effect of virtual nature exposure on effortful pro-environmental behavior

Abstract

Exposure to (virtual) nature may play a critical role in the promotion of pro-environmental behavior. Prior experimental work presenting participants with natural scenes has produced promising, but not fully conclusive results. Here, we studied the effect of virtual nature exposure on performance in a validated and fully consequential experimental model of effortful pro-environmental behavior. In Study 1, participants (N = 256) watched a video featuring either natural or urban scenes before completing the Work for Environmental Protection Task. Participants watching the nature video spent more pro-environmental effort on that task than participants watching the urban video. However, we were not able to distinguish if this difference resulted from a positive effect of nature exposure or from a negative effect of watching the urban video. To address this limitation, we designed a second study (N = 803) involving additional control conditions. Study 2 did not find the nature video to significantly promote effortful pro-environmental behavior in comparison to watching a neutral video or no video at all, nor did it replicate the nature-urban difference found in Study 1. The available evidence is compatible with the effect of virtual nature exposure on (effortful) pro-environmental behavior being either small, null, or moderated by methodological differences between the studies.