Urban park design + love for nature: Interventions for visitor experiences and social networking (original) (raw)

2016, Environmental Education Research

Affect or emotion for nature can prime environmentally friendly attitudes and behaviors, but for one's love of nature to grow she must physically experience and communicate about nature with others. This study aimed to identify urban park designs that could increase affect for nature in park visitors by stimulating their desire to communicate about and experience nature. Participants included 33 visitors at four urban parks in a mid-sized US city who were interviewed on location. Social network theory (SNT) served as the methodological framework for interpreting why, how, and with whom visitors' communicated their nature experiences, as well as the design elements that led to increased love for nature. Analysis of the interviews confirmed findings from similar studies, while contributing new insight to how visitors' use mobile technology to communicate about nature and build bonds with their social network. The conclusion offers ways for scholars and practitioners to improve urban park design so as to increase visitors' affect, communication about, and action for nature. Research by Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) and others have helped scholars and practitioners devise and test interventions (i.e. marketing campaigns and technologies) that bridge gaps between environmentally friendly attitudes, knowledge, and behavior. However, less attention has been given to understanding the types of interventions that can prime or make people more receptive to attitude, knowledge and behavior change interventions. Due to the large number of mediating variables in the construction of attitudes, knowledge, and behavior, it is difficult for scholars to make definitive claims as to the relationship between them (Heimlich and Ardoin 2008; Kollmuss and Agyeman 2002; Steg and Vlek 2009). Nonetheless, a group of scholars have identified a strong correlation between affect and increased receptivity to pro-environmental messages and behavioral prompts (Kals, Schumacher, and Montada 1999). In this study, affect is defined as the feeling or emotion, unique from cognition, which is elicited by interactions with the natural environment (Ulrich 1983). Many debate as to which comes first, affect or cognition, but most scholars agree that affect plays a crucial role in human behavior by influencing how we think and what we do (i.e.