EUROPE: Natural resources are under increasing threat from both human development and climate change, and environmental economists have struggled to understand how the public assigns value to remaining pristine wilderness areas. In a recent study, environmental scientists and psychologists teamed up to explore how people make environmental decisions. To do so, the researchers used fMRI brain scanning.
They found that the brain’s emotional circuits can powerfully influence environmental decisions. This suggests that emotional appeals may motivate environmental protection more than data-intensive arguments. The findings could provide a new approach to promoting sustainable decisions.
Nik Sawe, the lead author of the new study and a PhD candidate at Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences, along with associate professor of psychology Brian Knutson, wanted to better understand how people value the environment, and what types of thoughts or feelings promote valuation of these natural resources.
To answer this question, Sawe and Knutson scanned the brains of 20 participants as they decided whether to donate money to prevent proposed environmental threats to state and national parks.
Viewing images of iconic parks such as Yosemite activated participants’ nucleus accumbens, a part of the brain’s reward pathway that tends to respond to enjoyable experiences, such as good food, music or financial gain. But viewing images of increasingly destructive proposed land uses activated the anterior insula, which tends to anticipate negative experiences, like the loss of money or physical pain. Activity in this part of the brain predicted that subjects would donate more money to protect the parks.
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