Understanding and enhancing the experience of nature of visitors in “Ramat Hanadiv”

Agathe Colléony, Danielle Bashan, Liat Levontin & Assaf Shwartz

In recent years, a growing concern has been expressed worldwide regarding a process known as the ‘extinction of experience’. Modern humans are increasingly disconnected from nature, which in turn diminishes the multitude of health and well-being benefits that people can retrieve from experiences of nature, and ultimately endangers their affinity towards nature and willingness to protect it. Finding ways to improve people’s interest and connection to nature is therefore crucial for individual, societal and environmental health, but very little is known about how this could be achieved.

Executive summary

In search of a solution, three studies were conducted in Ramat Hanadiv (R.H.) and the Technion to better understand the visitors’ experience of nature and find ways to experimentally enhance this experience.

The first study characterizes the visitors’ experience of nature in R.H. and their intake of R.H. values and is based on a large-scale questionnaire survey of 596 visitors in 2018. The second study experimentally tested a method from psychology, i.e. priming, that uses non-invasive subtle stimuli to induce behavior change, as a mean to promote nature interactions with 303 participants in controlled settings (Technion campus) in 2018. The third study tested the impact of two stimuli that proved efficient in study 2, in real-life settings, i.e. in R.H., with an experimental design and large-scale questionnaire survey of 964 visitors in 2019.

These studies revealed that the extent to which visitors feel connected to the natural world is a strong determinant of their experience of nature later on.

More importantly, we found that it is possible to go above and beyond this sense of connection to nature and use stimuli to enhance nature behaviors. In turn, increasing those nature behaviors positively affect individual well-being. This shows a promising avenue to avert the extinction of experience and restore individual and societal health, and, potentially, environmental health. However, more research is still needed to identify proper stimuli to get people closer to nature in real-life settings. Results presented in this report provide insights on R.H. visitors’ experiences of nature, observed and experimentally changed, as well as their intake of R.H. values.

Key findings

The main motivations for visiting R.H are to learn and relax. Visitors whom are more connected and aware to nature presented greater motivation to visit.
Values known and understood by visitors mapped on two groups: (1) education, community and sustainability values; and (2) management and research. Understanding of the first group of values was associated with high household income and nature relatedness. For both groups, visitors living nearby R.H. presented better understanding of the values; also, understanding did not vary before and after the visit.
Nature relatedness affected the perception of R.H. as an urban park (for those of low nature relatedness) or a nature reserve (high nature relatedness) among visitors living nearby R.H.
Visitors living close by reported less nature behaviors during their visit but identified themselves as more attached to R.H. Visitors who felt more related to nature reported more interactions with biodiversity (e.g. smelling flowers, observing wildlife, taking pictures of animals) and stronger well-being.
Visitors engage with nature differently depending on whether they go to the memorial gardens, the nature park, or both. Also, they engaged less with nature during Passover than during Saturdays.
In the Technion, four stimuli (asking participants to smell flowers, touch natural elements, observe wildlife or take pictures) brought participants closer to nature and enhanced the extent to which they interacted with biodiversity on the short term (within 30min after receiving the instruction). By doing so, it also increased their well-being after completion of the experiment.
In the Technion, other stimuli (asking participants to listen to surrounding sounds, walk slowly, explore more areas or turn off their phone) did not

bring participants closer to nature and did not affect their nature behaviors. These stimuli thus did not affect well-being in turn.

In R.H., large signs at the entrance to invite visitors to smell or touch did not affect visitors’ nature behaviors and well-being. Only 65 (6.7%) survey respondents noticed and remembered the sign.
In R.H., during Passover, visitors reported higher well-being on days a butterfly activity was organized compared to other days with no activity, but the effect was less strong for visitors with high connection to nature.