Introduction
Environmental communication often employs catastrophic climate change scenarios to raise awareness. While effective in emphasizing urgency, these approaches can trigger avoidance and defensive reactions. Exploring alternative methods that foster pro-environmental behaviors without relying on fear is essential.
Purpose
This study aimed to examine whether experiencing the beauty of nature (specifically, a blue space), as well as exposure to polluted environments, can effectively promote pro-environmental behavioral (PEB) intentions. Additionally, it sought to identify the psychological mechanisms underlying these effects. Previous research suggests that restorativeness and emotions such as awe are linked to pro-environmental behavior, leading to the hypothesis that aesthetic experiences of nature may foster PEB intentions through pathways distinct from those triggered by negative or threatening environmental cues.
Methods
A field experiment was conducted at Camping Esperidi (in Tuscany), where participants were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a polluted beach or an unspoiled beach. The experience was timed at sunset to enhance aesthetic perception. Participants were approached at the beach and instructed to focus on their surroundings. Measures included restorativeness, solastalgia, aesthetic emotions, and ecological emotions.
Results
Statistical analyses reveal that the psychological mechanisms underpinning pro-environmental intentions differed sharply between conditions: while restorativeness and aesthetic emotions were the key mediators on the unspoiled beach, solastalgia played the central mediating role in the polluted beach context. Interestingly, this processual divergence emerged even though the overall level of pro-environmental intentions did not differ significantly between conditions.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that environmental communication can effectively leverage both positive and negative emotional pathways. Importantly, emphasizing nature's beauty can be as potent as highlighting ecological degradation, but through different psychological mechanisms. The field setting strengthens the ecological validity of the results, providing valuable insights for applied psychology in environmental communication.