Women Engaging the Natural World: Motivation for Sensory Pleasure May Account for Gender Differences

Abstract

Previous literature has investigated gender differences associated with environmental values and attitudes, often finding that women report attitudes and values that are more pro-environmental and activities that are more engaging with nature. These findings have spawned research into factors that might explain such gender differences. We explore the role of a new construct, the motivation for sensory pleasure (MSP), and how it furthers the understanding of gender disparities among environmental value orientations (ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, apathy) and reported nature-related behaviors. MSP is considered an individual disposition characteristic that measures the human need to seek out and enjoy nature-related experiences through the senses (vision, hearing, olfaction, touch). A comparison of college student samples (200 women, 190 men) found that women scored higher on ecocentrism and MSP and lower on environmental apathy. Higher MSP scores related to taking more nature hikes and fewer months between visits to park-like natural settings. Our findings are consistent with propositions that women are more motivated to engage nature overall and that they create more frequent opportunities to experience nature and imply that MSP could be a valuable tool in predicting which individuals might respond most positively to therapeutic interactions with natural settings.

In a time of unprecedented human disruption of Earth's ecology, many scientists are seeking answers to how cultural value orientations might influence attitudes and behaviors associated with the natural environment. Given that human behavior is directly or indirectly associated with much environmental degradation, understanding more about cultural (or gender based) relationships to “Mother Earth” is extremely important. There has been much discussion about trying to adjust the pioneer—some would say more masculine—paradigm of resource exploitation with which Western culture has often related to the natural environment to focus on a more feminine or ecocentric perspective (Merchant, 1990; Ruether, 1992). For example, the ecofeminist perspective argues that women reside “closer” to the earth and hence have a higher concern for the health of the surrounding ecosystem. Such a perspective is consistent with the ancient folklore of many cultures and has parallels with some contemporary proposals such as the Gaia hypothesis (Gaia was the ancient Greek mother of gods) (Lovelock, 1988) that Earth self-regulates ecological processes.

The ecofeminist perspective could also be representative of how genders think about and interact with their natural environment. In fact, psychologists have suggested that how a woman experiences her environment influences her desired needs in that space. Further, a woman's underlying relationship with the environment is one of connection—unlike separation for men—and they are inherently more conscious of their surroundings (Franck, 2002). Research examining both individual (e.g., values) and social (e.g., culture) factors has often found, consistent with an ecofeminist perspective, that women as a group have attitudes and values that are more pro-environmental than those of men (e.g., Zelezny et al., 2000). Therefore, further dissecting the ecofeminist perspective, by clarifying unique factors attributed to women's environmental engagement as well as the implications of those factors, could strengthen the understanding of environmental values, attitudes, and behaviors.

Various theoretical frameworks have been extended to help explain pro-environmental behavior. Many of these frameworks include demographic, internal, and external factors predictive of environmental concern and certain environmental behaviors (Burgess et al., 1998; Hines et al., 1986; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002; McKenzie-Mohr & Smith, 1999; Schultz, 2001; Stern et al., 1993). For example, Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) present the most common frameworks such as altruism and prosocial models, but also introduce the idea that there are external (i.e., economic and social) and internal (i.e., motivation, values, and attitudes) factors that influence pro-environmental behavior. Their framework begins to bridge the gap between thought and behavior. In general, environmental concern is often conceptualized as a specific attitude or level of importance attributed to a problem regarding the environment. Research often focuses on one environmental problem or issue at a time (e.g., CO₂ emissions, riding a bike to work). Dunlap and Jones (2002) extend the definition of environmental concern as an attitude by also defining it as a supportive behavior. This is interesting because it contradicts research that suggests environmental attitudes do not necessarily translate into environmental behaviors (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Therefore, all of these frameworks are trying to understand pro-environmental behavior better through the evaluation of both internal and external predictive factors.

However, explanations of the relationship between gender and how one experiences or engages the environment (an internal factor) have not been as clearly developed as other explanatory mechanisms. This study utilizes a newly identified internal factor, motivation for sensory pleasure (MSP) in nature-related environments, to possibly explain the level of intimacy or “closeness” women hold with the natural world as argued by the ecofeminism perspective. A connection between MSP and women's affinity toward nature would support the ecofeminism perspective as well as possibly provide an explanatory mechanism for attitudinal and affinity differences.

Environmental values, concern, and gender

Although environmental concern is not necessarily synonymous with environmental value orientations, research does show that they are strongly related and often interchanged (Dunlap & Van Liere, 1978; Manfredo et al., 2004). Specifically, value orientations are more directly predictive of attitudes (e.g., environmental concern) than general values alone (Vaske, 2008). This article will extend the focus on environmental concern by looking at value orientations that might be driving the attitude.

Thompson and Barton (1994) suggest that although positive attitudes toward the natural environment exist, there might be different motives or values driving environmental concern. Specifically, the need to conserve a resource might be motivated by two different value structures—ecocentrism and anthropocentrism—but with the same outcome (environmental concern). Ecocentrism is a value orientation based on the fundamental belief that nature has inherent value. Anthropocentrism, on the other hand, is more utilitarian and is based on the belief that nature holds value as a resource for human satisfaction. Contrary to these first two perspectives, a third value called “environmental apathy” represents a general lack of concern for various environmental issues. In this case, environmental concern is absent regardless of others' intrinsic or anthropocentric values toward nature.

Indeed, understanding potential gender variation in value orientations toward the environment has proven to be a useful endeavor in predicting environmental concern and potential pro-environmental behaviors (Schultz, 2001; Stern & Dietz, 1994).

For example, women's elevated level of environmental concern has sometimes been attributed to traditional gender socialization. Cultural norms influence gender expectations such that women typically hold roles of caregivers and nurturers (Blocker & Eckberg, 1989; Mohai, 1992; Zelezny et al., 2000), report higher levels of altruism (e.g., Dietz et al., 2002), and are more likely to be cooperative and compassionate (e.g., Beutel & Marini, 1995). Therefore, it is argued that these characteristics lead women to be more inclined to care for the environment.

Although much research supports significant gender differences in attitudes and values relating to the environment, there seems to be a lack of quantitative exploration of factors that are not based in cultural norming but might be affecting why women experience or value their environment differently. Building on this robust tradition of gender differences, the present study presents data suggesting that the degree to which people are motivated by and seek out sensory pleasure in the natural environment can account for pro-environmental gender differences in that women are more motivated to seek out the experiences that nature provides, that is, are more likely to engage the natural environment. This in turn likely translates into greater concern for natural space.

Environmental engagement

Identifying potential determinants of behavior for how one engages the natural environment could guide efforts to target motivations of pro-environmental behavior. In addition to internal factors such as values, Chawla (1998) investigated the role of environmental sensitivities arguing that people have “a predisposition to take an interest in learning about the environment, feeling concern for it, and acting to conserve it, on the basis of formative experiences” (p. 19). Involvement, or increased sensitivity, in a landscape might depend on things such as childhood experiences in nature, experiences of pro-environmental education, and pro-environmental values held by the family. Chawla (2007) also pinpoints the relationship between one's environmental commitments related to outdoor childhood experiences. The effect of various formats of nature exposure during childhood on environmental activists and/or educators has been documented across the globe by many researchers (Chawla 1998, 2007; Peterson & Hungerford, 1981; Sward, 1999). Chawla's findings in particular suggest a strong nurture and environmental component to how one's relation to the natural world develops. This more developmental perspective begins to address the possibility of individual differences in environmental engagement, connection to the natural environment, and how that is related to the level of environmental concern.

More recently, Kollmuss and Agyeman (2002) built on the concept of environmental sensitivities, introducing the concept of emotional involvement with a landscape as an internal factor that influences behavioral outcomes. Emotional involvement is conceptualized as “the ability to have emotional reactions when confronted with environmental degradation” (p. 254). Although this construct identifies investment, not engagement, it does begin to address potential individual and perhaps more nature-based variation in how people relate to the natural world around them. Of particular interest to this study is the fact that women have been found to react to environmental problems with more emotion (Grob, 1991; Lehmann, 1999, as cited in Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002). This raises the question of why? Why do women react differently to the natural world around them, and why are they motivated to care more?

Motivation for sensory pleasure

Eisenberger et al. (2010), in an effort to begin explaining individual variability in the observed benefits derived from sensory-rich environments, have identified a dispositional characteristic defined as the desire to “enjoy and pursue pleasant sensory experiences in nature and nature-related experiences.” This underlying disposition has been coined the “motivation for sensory pleasure,” or MSP. This hedonic, internal factor stands separate from emotional involvement in the sense that MSP envelops the desire for sensory experience. Thus, MSP might be related to emotional involvement, but is not necessarily driven only by personal experiences. Although MSP can be related to nurture-based processes, such as peer and parental influences, it has also been related to basic individual differences not determined by socialization.

Eisenberger et al. (2010) explain that there are motivational differences in pursuing favorable nature experiences and avoiding unpleasant ones, measured by the MSP scale. Their MSP scale, therefore, measures the stated level of “enjoyment of pleasant sights, sounds, and tactile sensations” as a single construct. Eisenberger et al. report eight laboratory and field studies supporting the validity and reliability of the MSP measure, pinpointing the uniqueness of this trait separate from sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 1994), novelty preference (Rawlings, 2003), and need for cognition (Cacioppo et al., 1996). MSP is found to be related to such outcomes as enjoyment of nature scenes, interest in information about nature scenes, and preference for pleasant natural stimuli. Further, across all studies, Eisenbeger et al. continually found significant gender differences (women having higher MSP on average). These findings were shown consistently in both student (n = 1783) and adult (n = 264) samples.

On the basis of these findings, the present study aims to highlight this dispositional trait as a potential factor that can greatly enhance our understanding of how women and men differentially engage the natural environment. Further, it is a tenet of ecopsychology that there are therapeutic benefits of interacting with nature (e.g., Roszak et al., 1995), and a body of empirical evidence supports such claims (e.g., Chalquist, 2009; Cimprich & Ronis, 2003; Frumkin, 2001; Levitt, 1994; Milligan et al., 2004; Parry-Jones, 1990), so there is an implication that those higher in MSP may be more likely to benefit from interactions with nature.

Research objectives and hypotheses

Gender differences in levels of environmental concern and MSP revealed in previous literature have led to hypotheses dealing with the basic relationship between gender, environmental value orientations that influence environmental concern, and MSP.

Specifically, we hypothesized:

H1: There would be significant relationships between MSP, environmental value orientations, and nature-related behaviors.

H2: Significant gender differences would occur in MSP, environmental value orientations, and nature-related behaviors.

H3: MSP and gender would act as predictors of environmental value orientations, with MSP accounting for gender differences.

Methods

Participants

The data were collected in the Fall 2009 from a student sample totaling 390 undergraduate first-year students (200 women, 190 men). Participation served as partial fulfillment of a research requirement in an Introductory Psychology course. The average age of the participants was about 19 years old (M = 19.12, SD = 1.46, range = 18–29). Additionally, participants reported their last visit to a national park, national forest, or wilderness area as being an average of 11 months previous to the questionnaire being completed (M = 11.12, SD = 20.2, range = 0–156). In general, respondents reported hiking on average seven times per year.

Materials/measures

Measures were embedded in a much larger study based on visitor experiences at cultural national parks. The variables used for the analyses were included on the larger questionnaire and included the following factors: nature-related behavior, attitude toward the environment (ecocentrism/anthropocentrism/apathy scale), and MSP. All measures are discussed in more detail in the forthcoming paragraphs.

The behavioral outcomes measured for this study assessed respondents' engagement with the natural environment by using two 1-item indicators. Specifically, one open-ended question asked, “About how long ago was your last visit to a national park, national forest, or wilderness area?” The second question asked, “How often do you go hiking in a year?” These numerical responses were used as continuous dependent variables.

The Thompson and Barton (1994) environmental attitude scale was used to measure different aspects of underlying motivations of environmental attitudes. It is a 33-item inventory with two subsections measuring the value structures of ecocentrism and anthropocentrism (12 items each). A third subscale, environmental apathy (9 items), was also included in the Thompson and Barton scale. Each item is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, and each subscale is added together to give each participant a score for each of the three value orientations relating to environmental concern (ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, apathy). The reported alphas for each subsection by Thompson and Barton (1994) are as follows: ecocentrism (α = 0.78), anthropocentrism (α = 0.67), and apathy (α = 0.82). The alphas for the data collected in this study were ecocentrism (α = 0.67), anthropocentrism (α = 0.66), and apathy (α = 0.84).

MSP was developed to measure an individual's desire to seek out pleasurable nature experiences (Eisenberger et al., 2010). This scale is a 15-item inventory (α = 0.90) and is rated on 7-point scales ranging from strongly disagree to strongly agree, with the responses summed across the 15 items. Examples of items are “Beautiful scenery has always been a significant part of my life,” “I have found the sound of rustling leaves to be pleasant,” and “When I pass by flowers, I have often stopped to smell them.”

Procedure

Participants enrolled in the study were asked to sit in an 18 × 18 ft (5.5 × 5.5 m) laboratory. Four participants at a time entered the room and completed an informed consent form. After completion, a packet with applicable questionnaires was passed out to each participant. Participants had about 20 min to complete the demographic measures included in the packet.

Results

Table 1 shows zero-order correlations among the variables, and Table 2 shows the correlations with gender partialled out. As would be expected, MSP correlates positively with ecocentrism and number of hikes, and negatively with anthropocentrism, apathy, and months since last park visit. Note that all correlations are minimally changed when gender is partialled out. Both tables show a strong positive correlation between MSP and ecocentrism, suggesting that people who are motivated to be engaged in their environment also assign value to nature for its own sake even when controlling for gender. In addition, the negative correlations between MSP and the remaining value orientations suggest that apathy, or lack of environmental concern toward environmental issues, as well as anthropocentrism increase while reported level of MSP decreases. The correlations regarding nature-related behaviors support the notion that people who are higher on MSP also engage in more outdoor activities such as hiking and visiting national parks, national forests, or wilderness areas. This is particularly interesting because inherent in the definition of MSP is basic engagement in the natural world, meaning that this is a perception factor. These findings suggest that people more highly engaged in the natural environment not only experience nature differently, but also seek it out to recreate in it. Therefore, MSP alludes to a behavioral component, not just a perception component.

Table 1.

Zero-Order Correlations Between All Variables (Gender Coded as 0 = F, 1 = M)

	GENDER	MSP	ECO	ANTHRO	APATHY	HIKES	NP VISIT
Gender	1	−0.30^a	−0.10^b	0.02	0.17^a	0.02	0.04
MSP		1	0.67^a	−0.11^b	−0.43^a	0.15^a	−0.25^b
Ecocentrism			1	−0.02	−0.57^a	0.19^a	−0.31^b
Anthropocentrism				1	0.30^a	0.02	0.02
Apathy					1	−0.04	0.14^b
Hikes in year						1	−0.22^b
Months since NP visit							1

p < 0.01.

p < 0.05.

MSP, motivation for sensory pleasure; NP, National Parks.

Table 2.

Partial Correlations Controlling for Gender

	MSP	ECOCENTRISM	ANTHROPOCENTRISM	APATHY	HIKES	NP VISIT
MSP	1	0.67^a	−0.11^b	−0.40^a	0.16^a	−0.26^a
Ecocentrism		1	−0.02	−0.57^a	0.19^a	−0.31^a
Anthropocentrism			1	0.29^a	0.05	−0.01
Apathy				1	−0.06	0.15^b
Hikes in year					1	−0.22^b
Months since NP visit						1

p < 0.01.

p < 0.05.

MSP, motivation for sensory pleasure; NP, National Parks.

Table 3 shows analysis of variance comparisons of gender means on the dependent measures and analysis of covariance comparisons of the gender means with MSP controlled for. Women scored significantly higher (M = 85.06, SD = 11.94) than men (M = 76.76, SD = 14.09) on MSP [F(1385) = 39.15]. Given the 90-point range of the scale (15–105), a difference of almost 10 points on MSP suggests that there is major variation (i.e., >10% of the scale range) between how genders experience and engage their environment. Similar to previous research findings for environmental concern, women (M = 40.73, SD = 5.83) scored higher than men (M = 39.43, SD = 7.07) on ecocentrism. Interestingly, men scored significantly higher on the Thompson and Barton (1994) apathy subscale measuring value orientations (men, M = 24.04; women, M = 21.68). This means that, in general, males report being more indifferent with various environmental issues. Table 3 also shows that there were no significant differences between women and men on anthropocentric orientation toward nature or on reported nature-related behaviors (number of hikes taken in the past 12 months and length of time since last visit to a national park).

Table 3.

Gender Comparisons of Measured Variables, with No Covariate and with Motivation for Sensory Pleasure as a Covariate

	GENDER MEANS
NO COVARIATE	WOMEN	MEN	F(GENDER)	ETA²
MSP	85.06 (11.94)	76.76 (14.09)	39.15^a	0.09
Ecocentrism	40.73 (6.68)	39.43 (7.07)	3.95^b	0.01
Anthropocentrism	30.60 (6.43)	30.85 (6.43)	0.17	0.00
Apathy	21.72 (6.23)	24.07 (7.42)	11.50^a	0.03
Hikes last year	6.83 (12.78)	7.37 (11.87)	0.18	0.00
Visits to NP	10.35 (18.55)	11.95 (21.95)	0.59	0.00

MSP AS COVARIATE	MARGINAL MEAN (SE)	MARGINAL M (SE)	F(GENDER)	ETA²
Ecocentrism	39.49 (0.35)	40.85 (0.36)	7.05^a	0.02
Anthropocentrism	30.65 (0.43)	30.85 (0.44)	0.08	0.00
Apathy	22.55 (0.46)	23.12 (0.47)	0.73	0.00
Hikes last year	6.24 (0.89)	7.90 (0.91)	1.64	0.01
Visits to NP	11.92 (1.45)	10.36 (1.50)	0.53	0.00

p < 0.01.

p < 0.05.

MSP, motivation for sensory pleasure; NP, National Parks; SE, standard error.

Table 3 also indicates that the gender differences in environmental value orientations can be largely accounted for by differences in MSP. When MSP is included as a covariate, the significant gender difference in apathy disappears and that for ecocentrism actually reverses. On the basis of the above findings, it was of interest to see whether MSP and gender together predicted the value orientations better than either predictor alone. Three separate bivariate linear regression analyses were conducted (Table 4), using the three value orientations as the dependent variables. With MSP as the first predictor, only for ecocentrism did adding gender improve prediction, but doing so only increased R² by 0.01.

Table 4.

Regressions Showing the Role of Motivation for Sensory Pleasure in Predicting Environmental Values

	ECOCENTRISM		ANTHROPOCENTRISM		APATHY
	BETA	t	BETA	t	BETA	t
Model 1
MSP	0.54	12.49	−0.10	−1.97^a	−0.43	−9.36^b
R²		0.29		0.01		0.19
Model 2
MSP	0.57	12.79^b	−0.11	−1.96^a	−0.42	−8.64^b
Gender	0.12	2.63^b	−0.02	−0.28	0.04	0.86
R2		0.30		0.01		0.19

p < 0.05.

p < 0.01.

MSP, motivation for sensory pleasure.

Discussion

Support was found for all three hypotheses. Consistent with previous research, women scored higher than men on ecocentrism and lower on environmental apathy. Anthropocentrism and environmental apathy were positively correlated, and environmental apathy was negatively correlated with ecocentrism. Moreover, the results suggest that MSP is a strong correlate of ecocentrism, that gender differences in MSP are stronger than gender differences in ecocentrism, and that MSP accounts for all but the smallest amount of gender differences in ecocentrism. Thus, the desire to gain sensory pleasure from experiences with nature may be an overlooked individual difference factor that has important implications for women's motivations for engaging nature, for the ecofeminist perspective of women's greater affinity for nature, and for potential therapeutic benefits of interacting with nature.

The increased motivation for engaging in positive sensory experiences in nature, measured by MSP, is further supported by the significant associations with actual nature-related behaviors. The number of reported hikes taken in the past year by the participants was positively related to the need for positive sensory experiences, that is, MSP. This relationship suggests that people high in MSP not only experience the environment differently, but also seek out nature-related experiences more often, as shown with the negative correlation between MSP and reported months since last visit to a national park, national forest, or wilderness area. The latter finding suggests that people who report a longer time between visits to the designated outdoor settings have a lower need to have positive sensory experiences with nature. Of course there are other factors, such as income or access to transportation, which might influence the behavioral indictors used in this study. Although this is a potential limitation, and one that must be addressed, we believe that in the location of the present study—a community very close to a national park, national forests, and wilderness areas—this gap might not be as wide or barriers might be limited in comparison to other locations. It is also important to note that although these are interesting behavioral outcomes associated more with seeking outdoor experiences, other more day-to-day behaviors were not measured in this study, such as gardening, walking through a campus wooded area, or enjoying wildlife in a community natural area. Thus, these more common nature encounters may or may not be as readily predicted by MSP.

Despite these limitations, the relationships discovered in this article do suggest that there are behavioral implications with how one experiences and engages the natural environment. Therefore, we believe that this finding between MSP and nature experiences is interesting indeed, but deserves more attention and further exploration.

In summary, this study has shown that it might be of importance to take MSP, as a personality factor, into account when trying to understand how engagement or experience with the natural world might vary, particularly along gender lines. Extending the understanding of the relationship between a higher MSP in women and the role of MSP in explaining ecocentrism is introduced in this article, providing a new platform to understand environmental behaviors. Further, the fact that the need to have pleasurable nature experiences predicts certain environmental value orientations adds a new dimension that is minimally investigated in the literature. Therefore, if MSP is a strong determinant of environmental value orientations, particularly ecocentrism and apathy, and women score higher on both MSP and ecocentrism (as in this sample), understanding and utilizing these findings in the realm of ecopsychology could be important in predicting who might benefit most from experiences with nature (e.g., Chalquist, 2009; Cimprich & Ronic, 2003; Frumkin, 2001; Levitt, 1994; Milligan et al., 2004; Parry-Jones, 1990).

Thus, the foundation of ecopsychology, rooted in the importance of the relationship between the human condition and the natural world, is built on the awareness that human health is associated with a healthy ecosystem. Therefore, a healthy ecosystem can potentially affect human well-being. If this is the case, the notion of MSP, related to how individuals engage their environment, greatly enhances the psychological understanding of individual experience within the natural environment, leading to different implications on well-being. If individuals seek out different experiences in their environment and have different sensitivities, how people bond with nature might also be different. Specific to this study, gender variation in MSP might also indicate that women experience and engage natural environments differently than men and thus their well-being might be affected in different ways. Implications of these findings could inform nature-related interventions, gender-specific therapies, and even sustainable behavior improvements.

Footnotes

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by Cooperative Agreement No. H2380040002, Metrics of Human Responses to Natural Sound Environments from the National Park Service.

Author Disclosure Statement

Grantees undertaking projects under government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely their findings and conclusions. Therefore, points of view or opinions do not necessarily represent the official National Park Service policy. No competing financial interests exist.

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