Mind Attribution to Nature and Proenvironmental Behavior

Nature is often portrayed in the environmental discourse as a mindful agent that has intentions, emotions, and other mental capacities. Built upon recent research on mind perception and mind attribution, the present research examines if this representation of nature bears any implications for environmental conservation. Studies 1 and 2 showed that participants who attributed a mind to nature exhibited more self-report and actual proenvironmental behavior than those who attributed fewer mental capacities to nature. This association held even when controlling for a range of well-documented predictors for proenvironmental behavior. Study 3 further revealed the psychological mechanism underlying this association. When thinking about environmental degradation, attribution of a mind to nature allowed participants to empathize with nature and act in a more proenvironmental manner. Theoretically, these findings offer a new angle to explicate recent research on the proenvironmental effects of anthropomorphic images of nature. More important, the present findings suggest a novel approach to understanding the human-nature relationship. How humans relate to nature could be similar to how they relate to other humans, the prototypical mindful agent. Therefore, researchers can theorize about the human-nature relationship with reference to existing social psychological theories on interpersonal relationships. Given the prevalence of mind attribution in the environmental discourse, the present research also provides valuable evidence for environmentalists to consider.