Compassionate Nature

Image via Wikipedia

I’ve been watching the new Ken Burns documentary on our national parks (slowly, on DVR). Basically, aside from the history, I’m scoping out my next vacation.

[BTW: F#$k Ken Burns with a steel spike if all the parks are overrun next year because of this thing.]

My wife and I have taken three pretty extensive trips out West in the last three years — and, thus, I’ve spent a ton of time in national parks recently. One of the most striking things if you spend time in our national parks is just how wonderful all of the park rangers are. I’ve never met a happier class of people — friendly, endlessly enthusiastic about what they do, and always willing to help out.

Well, maybe there’s a scientific reason why these folks are so friendly. Jonah Lehrer writes up a new study on the effect nature seems to have on us — that is, that it seems to make us more compassionate:

The study consisted of several experiments with 370 different subjects. In each experiment, people were exposed to either natural settings (pristine lakes, wooded forests, remote deserts) or man-made environments (cityscapes, skyscrapers and highways). They were then tested for a variety of “prosocial” behaviors, such as compassion and generosity. For instance, two of the experiments used a simple trust task, in which a person is given a $5 prize and told that they could share their prize with an anonymous stranger, who would then be given an additional $5. (There was no guarantee that the second person would return any of the winnings.)

The scientists found that subjects exposed to nature were significantly more likely to open their wallets. Furthermore, increased exposure to nature led to an increased willingness to share with strangers.

The question, of course, is why exactly nature would have this effect on us. The researchers talk about nature giving us access to our “authentic selves,” as opposed to the alienated selves we have access to in, say, New York City. Lehrer speculates that tranquility allows us to “lapse into a more sensitive kind of cognition, more attuned to the needs and feelings of others.”

My guess: Trees are releasing chemicals to lull us into a state of complacency and vulnerability before they get rid of us once and for all. Stay away from the national parks, rest of the public. Your very lives may depend upon it.