Do natural landscapes reduce future discounting in humans?
Open accessAbstract
An important barrier to enduring behavioural change is the human tendency to discount the future. Drawing on evolutionary theories of life history and biophilia, this study investigates whether exposure to natural versus urban landscapes affects people's temporal discount rates. The results of three studies, two laboratory experiments and a field study reveal that individual discount rates are systematically lower after people have been exposed to scenes of natural environments as opposed to urban environments. Further, this effect is owing to people placing more value on the future after nature exposure. The finding that nature exposure reduces future discounting—as opposed to exposure to urban environments—conveys important implications for a range of personal and collective outcomes including healthy lifestyles, sustainable resource use and population growth.
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Brief exposure to nature cues produces medium to large reductions in delay discounting.
“Several studies have now demonstrated that brief exposure to nature cues (e.g., images depicting nature scenes such as forests, mountains, and streams; or spending time in nature itself) produces medium to large reductions in delay discounting”
From Changing Delay Discounting and Impulsive Choice: Implications for Addictions, Prevention, and Human Health (2019) · cites this paper as van der Wal et al., 2013
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- Authors
- van der Wal, A. J., Schade, H. M., Krabbendam, L., & van Vugt, M.
- Affiliations
- Department of Social and Organizational Psychology, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (NL)
- Department of Educational Neuroscience, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
- ORCID
- Schade, Hannah M.
- Venue
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2013-12-22
- Volume
- 280
- Issue
- 1773
- Pages
- 20132295
- ISSN
- 0080-4649 (ISSN-L)
- 0962-8452
- 1471-2954
- PMC
- PMC3826228
- OpenAlex
- W2123931802
- Cited by
- 124
- References
- 31
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 13 · 2023: 16 · 2022: 4 · 2021: 13 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 5 · 2016: 10 · 2015: 9 · 2014: 5
- FWCI
- 5.78
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Decision Sciences › General Decision Sciences › Decision-Making and Behavioral Economics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Urban Green Space and Health
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Keywords
- future discounting, delay discounting, nature exposure, urban environment, natural landscapes, biophilia, life history theory, environmental valuation, sustainable resource use, healthy lifestyle, population growth
- MeSH terms
- Environment, Female, Forecasting, Humans, Male, Photic Stimulation, Psychology, Regression Analysis, Linear Models
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