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Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios
Citation
Blythe, J and Baird, J and Bennett, N and Dale, G and Nash, KL and Pickering, G and Wabnitz, CCC, Fostering ocean empathy through future scenarios, People and Nature, 3, (6) pp. 1284-1296. ISSN 2575-8314 (2021) [Refereed Article]
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Copyright Statement
© 2021 The Authors. People and Nature published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Ecological Society. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
- Empathy for nature is considered a prerequisite for sustainable interactions with the biosphere. Yet to date, empirical research on how to stimulate empathy remains scarce.
- Here, we investigate whether future scenarios can promote greater empathy for the oceans. Using a pre-post empathy questionnaire, participants (N = 269) were presented with an optimistic or a pessimistic future scenario for the high seas in a virtual reality (VR) or written format.
- Results showed that post-test empathy levels were significantly higher than pre-test levels, indicating that future scenarios fostered ocean empathy. We also find that the pessimistic scenario resulted in greater empathy levels compared to the optimistic scenario. Finally, we found no significant difference between the VR and written conditions and found that empathy scores significantly decreased 3 months after the initial intervention.
- As one of the first studies to empirically demonstrate the influence of a purposeful intervention to build ocean empathy, this article makes critical contributions to advancing research on future scenarios and offers a novel approach for supporting ocean sustainability.
Item Details
| Item Type: | Refereed Article |
|---|---|
| Keywords: | empathy, ocean futures, scenarios, virtual reality, transformations, sustainability |
| Research Division: | Agricultural, Veterinary and Food Sciences |
| Research Group: | Fisheries sciences |
| Research Field: | Fisheries sciences not elsewhere classified |
| Objective Division: | Animal Production and Animal Primary Products |
| Objective Group: | Fisheries - wild caught |
| Objective Field: | Fisheries - wild caught not elsewhere classified |
| UTAS Author: | Nash, KL (Dr Kirsty Nash) |
| ID Code: | 148110 |
| Year Published: | 2021 |
| Web of Science® Times Cited: | 5 |
| Deposited By: | Ecology and Biodiversity |
| Deposited On: | 2021-12-03 |
| Last Modified: | 2022-01-18 |
| Downloads: | 7 View Download Statistics |
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