Wednesday 22 July 14:05
- 15:35
Hall: 24 - Room 3 SPT
Chair and Presenter:
Hartig Terry
Discussant:
Carrus Giuseppe
Division: Division 4: Environmental Psychology
We live in troubled times, with severe problems of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss
compounded by geopolitical tensions. In this dismal context, botanical gardens offer solace in the
present and hope for the future. As peaceful places, they afford enjoyment of nature's beauty, support
psychological restoration, and open for learning about biodiversity and threats to the environment. As
purposeful places, they serve the conservation of plant resources and support ecological restoration
efforts in distant habitats, thereby demonstrating trust in possibilities for a better future. Botanical
gardens thus offer distinctive possibilities for research at the intersection of nature experience,
environmental education, ecological behavior and biological conservation. This symposium aims to
raise the visibility of such possibilities; it will show how applied psychology can serve the conservation
and public outreach missions of botanical gardens. The chair, Terry Hartig, will introduce the symposium and present a conceptual model that relates
experiences available in a botanical garden to intermediate and distal outcomes such as psychological
restoration, place attachment, ecological behavior, and mental health. The following four presenters will
describe empirical research involving botanical gardens. All of these presentations refer to components
of the conceptual model presented in the symposium introduction. First, Freddie Lymeus will describe
the use of the botanical gardens at Uppsala University as a setting for research on several topics, some
in the behavioral medicine tradition of Linnaeus. Second, Niels van Doesum, will describe studies of the
psychologically restorative influence of physical design features in the Hortus botanicus at Leiden
University,withafocusongreenhousefeatures.Third,AshbySachsandBethanyHarrieswilldescribethecooperationbetweentheRoyalHorticulturalSociety'sWisleyGardenandtheUniversityofSurreyinresearchontheinfluenceofspecificplantandgardendesignfeaturesonemotionalresponsesandrestorativeexperiencesofvisitors.Thefourthpresenter,XinxinWang,willdescribestudiesofnaturebasedtherapeuticinterventionsforstressandanxietyconductedatNanjingAgriculturalUniversity,withaviewtoimplementationinbotanicalgardens.Finally,GiuseppeCarrusfromRomaTreUniversitywilldiscussthepresentationsdrawinguponhisexperiencewithpsychologicalresearchinanItalianbotanicalgarden.
