Volunteers or assigned leaders can distribute
Note: Budgets often do not prioritize these practices. Foundation funding or grants could be a source for funding these spaces.
The Year of the Nurse and the COVID-19 pandemic collided with unprecedented timing. Nurse leaders and staff nurses have been challenged on many levels. Lessons from the pandemic and the traumatized nursing workforce can be an opportunity to create education, expertise, advocacy to reinstate the physical design of the health care environment into the domain of healthy work environments. In one of the first articles addressing nurse leader competencies, Stichler, 14 described the health care executive competencies necessary to lead in health care facility design, including communication and relationship building, knowledge of the health care environment, business skills, professionalism, and leadership. Nurse leaders must continue efforts to influence the design of the work environment, which will enhance and affect the nurse and the patient.
Debbie D. Gregory, DNP, RN, is senior clinical consultant at Smith, Seckman, Reid, Inc., in Nashville, Tennessee. She can be reached at [email protected] . Jaynelle F. Stichler, DNS, RN, NEA-BCr, EDAC, FACHE, FAAN, is founding co-editor emerita of HERD Journal , research consultant at Caster Institute for Nursing Excellence, Sharp HealthCare, in [San Diego, CA], and professor emerita at the School of Nursing, San Diego State University, San Diego, California. Terri Zborowsky, PhD, RN, EDAC, CPXP, is design researcher at HGA in [Minneapolis, MN].
Note: This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
A hypothesis is an explanation that is proposed for a phenomenon. Formulating a hypothesis is a step of the scientific method .
Alternate Spellings: plural: hypotheses
Examples: Upon observing that a lake appears blue under a blue sky, you might propose the hypothesis that the lake is blue because it is reflecting the sky. One alternate hypothesis would be that the lake is blue because water is blue.
Although in common usage the terms hypothesis and theory are used interchangeably, the two words mean something different from each other in science. Like a hypothesis, a theory is testable and may be used to make predictions. However, a theory has been tested using the scientific method many times. Testing a hypothesis may, over time, lead to the formulation of a theory.
By Holly Shaftel, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
The scientific method is the gold standard for exploring our natural world. You might have learned about it in grade school, but here’s a quick reminder: It’s the process that scientists use to understand everything from animal behavior to the forces that shape our planet—including climate change.
“The way science works is that I go out and study something, and maybe I collect data or write equations, or I run a big computer program,” said Josh Willis, principal investigator of NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) mission and oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “And I use it to learn something about how the world works.”
Using the scientific method, scientists have shown that humans are extremely likely the dominant cause of today’s climate change. The story goes back to the late 1800s, but in 1958, for example, Charles Keeling of the Mauna Loa Observatory in Waimea, Hawaii, started taking meticulous measurements of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) in the atmosphere, showing the first significant evidence of rapidly rising CO 2 levels and producing the Keeling Curve climate scientists know today.
Since then, thousands of peer-reviewed scientific papers have come to the same conclusion about climate change, telling us that human activities emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, raising Earth’s average temperature and bringing a range of consequences to our ecosystems.
“The weight of all of this information taken together points to the single consistent fact that humans and our activity are warming the planet,” Willis said.
The exact steps of the scientific method can vary by discipline, but since we have only one Earth (and no “test” Earth), climate scientists follow a few general guidelines to better understand carbon dioxide levels, sea level rise, global temperature and more.
As you can see, the scientific method is iterative (repetitive), meaning that climate scientists are constantly making new discoveries about the world based on the building blocks of scientific knowledge.
The scientific method at work.
How does the scientific method work in the real world of climate science? Let’s take NASA’s Oceans Melting Greenland (OMG) campaign, a multi-year survey of Greenland’s ice melt that’s paving the way for improved sea level rise estimates, as an example.
All in all, the scientific method is “a way of going from observations to answers,” NASA terrestrial ecosystem scientist Erika Podest, based at JPL, said. It adds clarity to our way of thinking and shows that scientific knowledge is always evolving.
The PREFIRE mission will help develop a more detailed understanding of how much heat the Arctic and Antarctica radiate into space and how this influences global climate. NASA’s newest climate mission has started collecting data on the amount of heat in the form of far-infrared radiation that the Arctic and Antarctic environments emit to space. […]
Read this story in English here. Tainaliz Marie Rodríguez Lugo respiró hondo, se ajustó la máscara de buceo y se sumergió en el océano, metiendo primero sus pies cubiertos por aletas. Tres semanas antes, Rodríguez Lugo no sabía nadar. Pero ahora, esta estudiante universitaria recopilaba datos sobre la calidad del agua y los arrecifes de […]
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It's the initial building block in the scientific method.
What makes a hypothesis testable.
Bibliography.
A scientific hypothesis is a tentative, testable explanation for a phenomenon in the natural world. It's the initial building block in the scientific method . Many describe it as an "educated guess" based on prior knowledge and observation. While this is true, a hypothesis is more informed than a guess. While an "educated guess" suggests a random prediction based on a person's expertise, developing a hypothesis requires active observation and background research.
The basic idea of a hypothesis is that there is no predetermined outcome. For a solution to be termed a scientific hypothesis, it has to be an idea that can be supported or refuted through carefully crafted experimentation or observation. This concept, called falsifiability and testability, was advanced in the mid-20th century by Austrian-British philosopher Karl Popper in his famous book "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" (Routledge, 1959).
A key function of a hypothesis is to derive predictions about the results of future experiments and then perform those experiments to see whether they support the predictions.
A hypothesis is usually written in the form of an if-then statement, which gives a possibility (if) and explains what may happen because of the possibility (then). The statement could also include "may," according to California State University, Bakersfield .
Here are some examples of hypothesis statements:
A useful hypothesis should be testable and falsifiable. That means that it should be possible to prove it wrong. A theory that can't be proved wrong is nonscientific, according to Karl Popper's 1963 book " Conjectures and Refutations ."
An example of an untestable statement is, "Dogs are better than cats." That's because the definition of "better" is vague and subjective. However, an untestable statement can be reworded to make it testable. For example, the previous statement could be changed to this: "Owning a dog is associated with higher levels of physical fitness than owning a cat." With this statement, the researcher can take measures of physical fitness from dog and cat owners and compare the two.
In an experiment, researchers generally state their hypotheses in two ways. The null hypothesis predicts that there will be no relationship between the variables tested, or no difference between the experimental groups. The alternative hypothesis predicts the opposite: that there will be a difference between the experimental groups. This is usually the hypothesis scientists are most interested in, according to the University of Miami .
For example, a null hypothesis might state, "There will be no difference in the rate of muscle growth between people who take a protein supplement and people who don't." The alternative hypothesis would state, "There will be a difference in the rate of muscle growth between people who take a protein supplement and people who don't."
If the results of the experiment show a relationship between the variables, then the null hypothesis has been rejected in favor of the alternative hypothesis, according to the book " Research Methods in Psychology " (BCcampus, 2015).
There are other ways to describe an alternative hypothesis. The alternative hypothesis above does not specify a direction of the effect, only that there will be a difference between the two groups. That type of prediction is called a two-tailed hypothesis. If a hypothesis specifies a certain direction — for example, that people who take a protein supplement will gain more muscle than people who don't — it is called a one-tailed hypothesis, according to William M. K. Trochim , a professor of Policy Analysis and Management at Cornell University.
Sometimes, errors take place during an experiment. These errors can happen in one of two ways. A type I error is when the null hypothesis is rejected when it is true. This is also known as a false positive. A type II error occurs when the null hypothesis is not rejected when it is false. This is also known as a false negative, according to the University of California, Berkeley .
A hypothesis can be rejected or modified, but it can never be proved correct 100% of the time. For example, a scientist can form a hypothesis stating that if a certain type of tomato has a gene for red pigment, that type of tomato will be red. During research, the scientist then finds that each tomato of this type is red. Though the findings confirm the hypothesis, there may be a tomato of that type somewhere in the world that isn't red. Thus, the hypothesis is true, but it may not be true 100% of the time.
The best hypotheses are simple. They deal with a relatively narrow set of phenomena. But theories are broader; they generally combine multiple hypotheses into a general explanation for a wide range of phenomena, according to the University of California, Berkeley . For example, a hypothesis might state, "If animals adapt to suit their environments, then birds that live on islands with lots of seeds to eat will have differently shaped beaks than birds that live on islands with lots of insects to eat." After testing many hypotheses like these, Charles Darwin formulated an overarching theory: the theory of evolution by natural selection.
"Theories are the ways that we make sense of what we observe in the natural world," Tanner said. "Theories are structures of ideas that explain and interpret facts."
Encyclopedia Britannica. Scientific Hypothesis. Jan. 13, 2022. https://www.britannica.com/science/scientific-hypothesis
Karl Popper, "The Logic of Scientific Discovery," Routledge, 1959.
California State University, Bakersfield, "Formatting a testable hypothesis." https://www.csub.edu/~ddodenhoff/Bio100/Bio100sp04/formattingahypothesis.htm
Karl Popper, "Conjectures and Refutations," Routledge, 1963.
Price, P., Jhangiani, R., & Chiang, I., "Research Methods of Psychology — 2nd Canadian Edition," BCcampus, 2015.
University of Miami, "The Scientific Method" http://www.bio.miami.edu/dana/161/evolution/161app1_scimethod.pdf
William M.K. Trochim, "Research Methods Knowledge Base," https://conjointly.com/kb/hypotheses-explained/
University of California, Berkeley, "Multiple Hypothesis Testing and False Discovery Rate" https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/~hhuang/STAT141/Lecture-FDR.pdf
University of California, Berkeley, "Science at multiple levels" https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/howscienceworks_19
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Emancipatory environmentalism.
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environmentalism , political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment of the environment by humans; and through a reassessment of humanity ’s relationship with nature. In various ways, environmentalism claims that living things other than humans, and the natural environment as a whole, are deserving of consideration in reasoning about the morality of political, economic, and social policies.
For additional discussion of ethical issues related to the natural environment, see environmental ethics . For discussion of environmental statutes and regulations, including international conventions, see environmental law .
Environmental thought and the various branches of the environmental movement are often classified into two intellectual camps: those that are considered anthropocentric, or “human-centred,” in orientation and those considered biocentric, or “life-centred.” This division has been described in other terminology as “shallow” ecology versus “deep” ecology and as “technocentrism” versus “ecocentrism.” Anthropocentric approaches focus mainly on the negative effects that environmental degradation has on human beings and their interests, including their interests in health , recreation, and quality of life . It is often characterized by a mechanistic approach to nonhuman nature in which individual creatures and species have only an instrumental value for humans. The defining feature of anthropocentrism is that it considers the moral obligations humans have to the environment to derive from obligations that humans have to each other—and, less crucially, to future generations of humans—rather than from any obligation to other living things or to the environment as a whole. Human obligations to the environment are thus indirect.
Critics of anthropocentrism have charged that it amounts to a form of human “ chauvinism .” They argue that anthropocentric approaches presuppose the historically Western view of nature as merely a resource to be managed or exploited for human purposes—a view that they claim is responsible for centuries of environmental destruction. In contrast to anthropocentrism, biocentrism claims that nature has an intrinsic moral worth that does not depend on its usefulness to human beings, and it is this intrinsic worth that gives rise directly to obligations to the environment. Humans are therefore morally bound to protect the environment, as well as individual creatures and species, for their own sake. In this sense, biocentrics view human beings and other elements of the natural environment, both living and often nonliving, as members of a single moral and ecological community .
By the 1960s and ’70s, as scientific knowledge of the causes and consequences of environmental degradation was becoming more extensive and sophisticated, there was increasing concern among some scientists, intellectuals , and activists about Earth ’s ability to absorb the detritus of human economic activity and, indeed, to sustain human life. This concern contributed to the growth of grassroots environmental activism in a number of countries, the establishment of new environmental nongovernmental organizations, and the formation of environmental (“green”) political parties in a number of Western democracies . As political leaders gradually came to appreciate the seriousness of environmental problems, governments entered into negotiations in the early 1970s that led to the adoption of a growing number of international environmental agreements.
The division between anthropocentric and biocentric approaches played a central role in the development of environmental thought in the late 20th century. Whereas some earlier schools, such as apocalyptic (survivalist) environmentalism and emancipatory environmentalism—as well as its offshoot, human-welfare ecology —were animated primarily by a concern for human well-being, later movements, including social ecology, deep ecology , the animal-rights and animal-liberation movements, and ecofeminism , were centrally concerned with the moral worth of nonhuman nature.
The vision of the environmental movement of the 1960s and early ’70s was generally pessimistic, reflecting a pervasive sense of “civilization malaise” and a conviction that Earth’s long-term prospects were bleak. Works such as Rachel Carson ’s Silent Spring (1962), Garrett Hardin’s “The Tragedy of the Commons” (1968), Paul Ehrlich ’s The Population Bomb (1968), Donella H. Meadows’ The Limits to Growth (1972), and Edward Goldsmith’s Blueprint for Survival (1972) suggested that the planetary ecosystem was reaching the limits of what it could sustain. This so-called apocalyptic, or survivalist, literature encouraged reluctant calls from some environmentalists for increasing the powers of centralized governments over human activities deemed environmentally harmful, a viewpoint expressed most vividly in Robert Heilbroner’s An Inquiry into the Human Prospect (1974), which argued that human survival ultimately required the sacrifice of human freedom. Counterarguments, such as those presented in Julian Simon and Herman Kahn ’s The Resourceful Earth (1984), emphasized humanity’s ability to find or to invent substitutes for resources that were scarce and in danger of being exhausted.
Beginning in the 1970s, many environmentalists attempted to develop strategies for limiting environmental degradation through recycling , the use of alternative energy technologies , the decentralization and democratization of economic and social planning, and, for some, a reorganization of major industrial sectors, including the agriculture and energy industries. In contrast to apocalyptic environmentalism, so-called “emancipatory” environmentalism took a more positive and practical approach, one aspect of which was the effort to promote an ecological consciousness and an ethic of “stewardship” of the environment. One form of emancipatory environmentalism, human-welfare ecology—which aims to enhance human life by creating a safe and clean environment—was part of a broader concern with distributive justice and reflected the tendency, later characterized as “postmaterialist,” of citizens in advanced industrial societies to place more importance on “quality-of-life” issues than on traditional economic concerns.
Emancipatory environmentalism also was distinguished for some of its advocates by an emphasis on developing small-scale systems of economic production that would be more closely integrated with the natural processes of surrounding ecosystems. This more environmentally holistic approach to economic planning was promoted in work by the American ecologist Barry Commoner and by the German economist Ernst Friedrich Schumacher . In contrast to earlier thinkers who had downplayed the interconnectedness of natural systems, Commoner and Schumacher emphasized productive processes that worked with nature, not against it, encouraged the use of organic and renewable resources rather than synthetic products (e.g., plastics and chemical fertilizers ), and advocated renewable and small-scale energy resources (e.g., wind and solar power) and government policies that supported effective public transportation and energy efficiency .
The emancipatory approach was evoked through the 1990s in the popular slogan, “Think globally, act locally.” Its small-scale, decentralized planning and production has been criticized, however, as unrealistic in highly urbanized and industrialized societies. ( See also urban planning ; economic planning .)
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npj Climate Action volume 3 , Article number: 73 ( 2024 ) Cite this article
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Four studies investigated whether awareness of links between pro-environmental behaviour (PEB) and well-being can motivate sustainable lifestyle shifts. We find that most US adults believe most PEBs do not affect well-being. Yet, when people do expect such benefits, they tend to have more positive attitudes and intentions regarding PEBs and enact more PEBs. We also find that messages about how PEB can increase well-being consistently improved attitudes towards PEBs and made people more persuasive in their subsequent efforts to encourage others to live sustainably. These effects were especially pronounced among people who did not previously believe that PEB improves well-being. Effects on PEB intentions were inconsistent, however, and we found no effect on a revealed measure of PEB (i.e., seeking sustainability tips). Overall, these results underscore the importance of beliefs about PEBs’ impact on well-being and suggest that public messaging about that relationship might help motivate sustainable lifestyles.
Introduction.
Mitigating and adapting to climate change and other environmental problems like pollution and biodiversity loss represent some of the greatest challenges facing humanity today. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts that it will not be possible to meet carbon emissions goals without substantial changes in household behaviour – particularly in high-emissions countries like the United States, Australia, Japan, and much of Europe 1 . Expert analysis of other environmental challenges also highlight the importance of lifestyle shifts 2 . Such shifts will likely require not only “command-and-control” initiatives from governments, such as carbon taxes, but also voluntary action. Accordingly, researchers across many fields have called for more behavioural science research on the factors that lead to sustainable lifestyle shifts 3 , 4 , 5 .
One of the most robust and striking findings from existing research is that pro-environmental behaviours (PEBs) are associated with greater individual well-being. Dozens of studies, conducted around the world and encompassing tens of thousands of individuals, have consistently found that the frequency with which people voluntarily engage in PEBs is positively correlated with positive psychological outcomes, like happiness and life-satisfaction 6 , 7 . Moreover, this link remains even after controlling for a host of potential confounds 6 , and recent experimental evidence indicates that instructing people to incorporate more PEB into their daily routines leads to subsequent increases in their well-being 8 .
Past research points to several likely pathways from PEB to well-being. One is through improved health, which might result from PEBs that involve exercise (e.g., walking or biking instead of driving) or eating a primarily plant-based diet 9 , 10 , 11 . Another pathway might be through improved social connection, resulting from PEBs that involve more frequent interactions with others (e.g., carpooling or volunteering for environmental organisations) 12 . Other potential routes from PEB to well-being include reputational benefits from observable, status-enhancing PEBs like owning solar panels or electric vehicles 13 , 14 , and the intrinsic satisfaction, or “warm glow,” that can come from doing something good for the environment 15 .
The finding that PEB is positively related to well-being is all the more striking given that PEBs are often depicted as onerous and unpleasant, both in popular media 16 , 17 , 18 , and social scientific research 19 , 20 . Past research has found, unsurprisingly, that the more individuals expect PEB to be personally costly (in terms of money, time, comfort, and convenience), the less they engage in it 21 . Yet, the more that people anticipate feeling positive emotions as a result of engaging in PEBs, the more likely they are to engage in them 22 . This suggests that the (likely mistaken) narrative that engaging in PEBs has a net negative effect on one’s well-being may act as a motivational barrier to pro-environmental action, and that highlighting the potential well-being benefits (as opposed to, e.g., financial costs) of PEB could be a powerful motivational tool 23 , 24 , 25 . Uncovering effective, novel communication strategies is of particular importance given the evidence of the limited and waning efficacy of extant messaging efforts 26 , 27 .
In four studies, we investigated people’s beliefs about the impact of PEBs on individual well-being, how these beliefs relate to engagement in PEBs, and whether messages aimed at influencing these beliefs can encourage people to incorporate more PEB into their lifestyles. (See Table 1 for summaries of each study and the research questions that they address.) Study 1 was an observational study using a representative sample of United States adults ( N = 511; proportionally matched to the US Census in terms of age, sex, and political orientation). We assessed participants’ beliefs about whether a range of PEBs affect well-being and if so how. We also assessed the frequency with which participants engage in those behaviours. Studies 2-4 (combined N = 1,196) were randomised, controlled experiments, in which we presented participants with different kinds of messages about how PEBs can increase a person’s well-being and tested for effects on pro-environmental outcomes. In Study 2, the messages were personal narratives. In Study 3 they were summaries of relevant research. And in Study 4 they were combined messages, with both narrative and research elements. In Study 4, we recontacted participants from Study 1, enabling us to investigate how their pre-existing beliefs about the relationship between PEB and well-being (assessed approximately two weeks before) shape the impact of a message about that very relationship.
We examined a range of outcomes indicative of pro-environmental motivation and action. According to a venerable social psychological theory 28 , behaviour is shaped by a person’s attitudes towards the relevant behaviours and intentions to enact those behaviours. Accordingly, in each experiment, we asked participants to report on their attitudes towards, and intentions to engage in, PEBs. Alongside these self-report outcomes, in Studies 3-4, we included two behavioural measures. We presented participants with a link to a website with information and guidance about how to incorporate PEBs into one’s lifestyle and tracked whether participants visited the website. This provides a revealed PEB measure – i.e., an immediate, concrete action aimed at living more sustainably. Additionally, we asked participants to write messages aimed at encouraging others to adopt more environmentally friendly habits. These participant-written messages were then evaluated for persuasiveness. In Study 3 the participant-written messages were rated by an independent sample of participants ( N = 100). We then used these ratings as training data for a generative pre-trained transformer, which we used to rate the participant-messages in Study 4 (see Method for details). The idea behind this final measure was to investigate whether telling people about how PEB can increase well-being might contribute to broader societal shifts in the way that people think and talk about PEB. In other words, could messages about the PEB-well-being relationship have “ripple effects,” influencing not just those directly exposed to the messages, but also the people they subsequently interact with?
In Study 1, we assessed participants’ beliefs about whether and how PEBs affect a person’s happiness and satisfaction with life. For 14 out of 21 PEBs, a majority of participants indicated that they did not think that the behaviour affects individual well-being. The exceptions were walking or biking instead of driving, eating organic food or food from a home garden, reducing consumption of meat and animal products, and educating oneself about the environment. For these specific behaviours, at least half of the participants indicated a belief that there is some effect on a person’s well-being. Turning to the question of how PEBs are believed to affect well-being, as Fig. 1 shows, the average for all 21 PEBs was positive. Contrary to how PEBs are often portrayed in the media, when people believe PEBs to have any effect on well-being, they tend to believe that the behaviours increase well-being. (See Table S1 in the Supplemental Information for complete descriptive statistics.)
Points and error bars indicate means and 95% confidence intervals for each behaviour. The diamond at the bottom indicates the average across behaviours. Grey Xs represent individual observations, and shaded regions indicate probability densities. Participants responded using slider scales ranging from “reduces a lot” (coded as –5) to “no effect” (0) to “increases a lot” (5).
In Study 1, we also assessed how frequently participants enact each of these PEBs. We used a multilevel model, with repeated observations nested within participants, to test whether beliefs about the well-being effects of PEBs predict the frequency with which people engage in them. The dependent variable in this model was frequency (i.e., how often participants reported enacting each PEB), and the independent variables were belief (i.e., the effect, if any, that participants think the PEB has on well-being), behaviour type (i.e., a 21-level categorical variable reflecting the specific PEB in question), and their interaction, while allowing for a random effect of participant. This revealed significant effects of belief, \({\chi }^{2}\) (1) = 409.45, p < 0.001, behaviour type, \({\chi }^{2}\) (20) = 2022.58, p < 0.001, and an interaction, \({\chi }^{2}\) (20) = 102.59, p < 0.001. We decomposed this interaction using simple slopes analysis 29 , which enables us to examine the link between belief and frequency at each level of behaviour type. Figure 2 illustrates these results (see also Table S2 in the Supplemental Information). In every case, more favourable beliefs predicted more frequent engagement. These associations were not particularly large (standardised coefficients ranged from 0.10 to 0.38, with a mean of 0.26). Yet the finding that the association was significant and positive for all 21 behaviours points to a highly robust link. The more that people think a PEB has positive effects on a person’s well-being, the more often they enact that PEB. (In an exploratory sensitivity analysis, we added demographic covariates – including age, gender, race, income, education, and political orientation – to this model. This had no effect on the pattern of results. Correlations between sociodemographic variables and person-means for PEB beliefs and frequency of enactment are presented in the Supplemental Information, Table S3 .)
This figure plots the standardised coefficients for the associations between individuals’ beliefs about how PEBs affect individual well-being and the frequency with which those individuals enact each PEB. Points and error bars indicate means and 95% confidence intervals for each behaviour. The diamond at the bottom indicates the average across behaviours. The response scales for the frequency measure were: “never” (coded as 0), “rarely” (1), “sometimes” (2), “often” (3), and “always” (4).
In Studies 2-4, we randomly assigned participants to read either a message about how PEB can increase well-being (Well-Being condition) or a control message (Control condition). In Study 2, the messages were first-person narratives about a person who decides to incorporate more PEB into their lifestyle. In the Well-Being condition, the narrator describes how PEBs are “good for me,” whereas the narrator in the Control condition described PEBs as feeling “burdensome,” but also “morally right” and “vital for the sake of the planet.” In Study 3, the messages were summaries of research on PEB (framed as excerpts from a popular science magazine). In the Well-Being condition, the message summarized research on how PEB can increase well-being. In the Control condition, the message summarized research on how a carbon tax might effectively and efficiently address climate change. Finally, in Study 4, the messages included both a personal narrative and summary of research. In this case, however, the research summary in the Control condition was not about carbon taxes, but about how environmental problems like climate change and biodiversity loss are largely attributable to developed nations.
In each study, the well-being messages highlighted some of the potential pathways from PEB to well-being that were mentioned in the introduction: improved health, improved social connection, and intrinsic satisfaction. For example, in the Study 2 message, the narrator stated that, “…getting outside and walking (instead of driving) has improved my mood and energy levels. By talking with coworkers about office sustainability, I’ve made some new friends.”
Figure 3 presents the results for all four of the dependent variables that we examined. (Additionally, Table S4 of the Supplemental Information reports the complete results for all regression models mentioned in this subsection.) Across the three experiments, we consistently found that participants in the Well-Being condition reported more positive attitudes towards PEB. We observed similar effects from a personal narrative, in Study 2, t (325) = 2.63, p = .009, d = .29, 95% CI: [.07, .51], and a summary of relevant research, in Study 3, t (499) = 2.13, p = .034, d = .19, 95% CI: [.01, .37]. In Study 4, we tested whether this effect was moderated by participants’ prior beliefs about how PEB affects well-being (assessed approximately 2 weeks before). A regression model revealed significant main effects of experimental condition, b = .19, 95% CI: [.02, .35], p = .025, and prior beliefs, b = .36, 95% CI: [.24, .48]. p < .001, as well as a marginally significant interaction, b = –.16, 95% CI: [–.325, .003]. p = .054. The negative sign of the interaction term indicates that the effect of the message on attitudes towards PEB is larger for participants who were previously less inclined to believe that PEBs increase well-being.
This figure presents the condition means and 95% confidence intervals for each dependent variable in each randomised experiment. Box plots indicate the median and interquartile range, with vertical lines showing the highest and lowest observed values within 1.5 times the interquartile range.
Turning to intentions, Studies 2-3 used broad measures that asked participants how strongly they intended to maintain “environmentally friendly habits” or a “sustainable lifestyle” in general. A significant effect of the personal narrative emerged in Study 2, t (325) = 2.36, p = .019, d = .26, 95% CI: [.04, .48]. However, Study 3 did not reveal an effect of a summary of research on PEB and well-being, t (499) = –.70, p = .487, d = –.06, 95% CI: [–.24, .11]. In Study 4, we used a much more fine-grained measure, asking participants how strongly they intended to engage in 21 specific PEBs (the same behaviours as in Study 1). We tested for an effect of the experimental intervention and whether this effect was moderated by prior beliefs. Using a multilevel model, we treated each behaviour as a distinct observation, nesting these repeated observations within participants. Thus, the analysis included 7,686 total observations (i.e., 21 observations from 366 participants). We found no effect of condition, b = .04, 95% CI: [–.17, .25], p = .714, a significant effect of prior beliefs, b = .16, 95% CI: [.12, .19], p < .001, and no interaction, b = .03, 95% CI: [–.02, .08], p = .207. Thus, although beliefs about how PEBs affect well-being appear to shape people’s intentions to engage in those PEBs, our combined narrative and research message did not influence PEB intentions.
Participants in Studies 3-4 were asked to write messages encouraging people to adopt environmentally friendly habits. These messages were then scored for persuasiveness by humans (Study 3) and a large language model (Study 4). In Study 3, we used a multilevel model to regress persuasiveness ratings on experimental condition, while allowing for a random effect of judge. This revealed that the judges considered the messages written by participants in the Well-Being condition more persuasive than messages written by participants in the Control condition, b = 7.53, 95% CI: [3.28, 11.78], p < .001. In Study 4, we were also able to test whether the effect of experimental condition was moderated by participants’ prior beliefs. A regression model indicated a significant effect of condition, b = 7.99, 95% CI: [1.67, 14.31], p = .013, no effect of prior beliefs, b = 3.46, 95% CI: [–1.17, 8.08], p = .142, and a marginally significant interaction, b = –5.86, 95% CI: [–12.22, 0.50], p = .071. The negative sign of the interaction term indicates that, as with attitudes towards PEB, the effect of the message may have been larger for participants with less favourable prior beliefs about PEB.
Finally, in Studies 3-4, at the end of the survey we presented participants with a link to a website where they could find information and guidance about how to incorporate more PEB into their daily lives. As a measure of revealed PEB, we tracked which participants clicked on this link. (This measure was pre-registered in Study 4, but exploratory in Study 3.) Only a small number of participants clicked on the link ( n = 32, or 6% of the sample in Study 3; n = 48, or 13% in Study 4). In Study 3, a logistic regression model revealed no effect of the experimental intervention, b = .44, 95% CI: [–0.29, 1.20], p = .245. In Study 4, there was no effect of the experimental intervention, b = –.37, 95% CI: [–1.04, 0.26], p = .252, a significant effect of prior beliefs, b = .48, 95% CI: [.11, .86], p = .010, and no interaction, b = –.12, 95% CI: [–.68, .43], p = .662. Hence, although beliefs about the effects of PEB on well-being were associated with a greater likelihood of visiting a website with sustainability tips, our attempt to alter these beliefs with brief text-based messages did not increase this likelihood.
Research consistently points to a positive relationship between PEB and individual well-being 7 , 8 , contrary to the oft-presented narrative that engaging in PEB reduces one’s well-being 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 . This raises the question of whether the positive relationship between PEB and well-being can be leveraged to encourage sustainable lifestyle shifts. To address this overarching question, we investigated how people typically think about the relationship between PEB and well-being, how beliefs about this question relate to people’s pro-environmental attitudes and behaviours, and whether messages about how PEB can increase well-being might motivate greater pro-environmental action.
Our findings from Study 1 indicate that most Americans think that most PEBs do not affect well-being, whether positively or negatively. When people do expect some effect on well-being, they tend to expect positive impacts. For all 21 of the PEBs we examined in Study 1, the average expectation was that the behaviours will have a modest, positive effect on a person’s well-being. Importantly, however, these expectations varied across behaviours and individuals. A minority of people (ranging from approximately 1% to 10%, depending on the behaviour) anticipate negative impacts. Additionally, we found that these perceptions are associated with people’s attitudes towards PEBs and intentions to engage in them (Study 4), as well as the frequency with which they do engage in PEBs (reported in Study 1 and revealed in Study 4).
In Studies 2-4 we attempted to influence perceptions of the PEB-well-being relationship using brief, text-based messages that highlighted some of the potential pathways from PEB to well-being that we discussed above (e.g., improved health and social connection). On one hand, we found only inconsistent evidence for effects on intentions to engage in PEB (a positive and significant effect in Study 2, but null effects in Studies 3 and 4) and no evidence that they influence a revealed measure of PEB (Studies 3-4). This suggests that short, written messages about PEB and well-being may be too “light-touch” – at least on their own – to have substantial downstream impacts on behaviour. On the other hand, we found that these messages did consistently enhance attitudes towards PEB (Studies 2-4) and led people to be more persuasive in their subsequent efforts to encourage others to live sustainably (Studies 3-4).
The observed effects were not especially large (median d = .26), though they were not far from the norm in psychological research more generally (median d = .32 among pre-registered studies) 30 . As other researchers have argued 31 , psychological outcomes are determined by a very large number of factors, meaning that the effect of manipulating any one factor in isolation is likely to be small. Yet, small effects can have important consequences when aggregated across individuals and over time – analogous to the way that individuals’ contributions to large-scale environmental problems are very small, though the problem itself arises from the aggregation of such small effects. Moreover, in Study 4, we found that people’s pre-existing beliefs moderated the effect of the messages. Those who were previously less inclined to think that PEB can increase well-being showed larger effects, suggesting that, if messages about how PEB can improve well-being would be particularly effective if directed towards such individuals.
Another way to increase the magnitude of the effects might be to create messages focused on how specific PEBs could increase one’s well-being. One limitation of the present studies is that, although the messages mentioned a handful of specific behaviours (e.g., walking or biking to work and eating more plant-based meals, and reducing home power consumption), they also referred to PEBs in general terms. Moreover, the measures of attitudes towards and intentions to engage in PEB referred to “environmentally-friendly actions” and “sustainable lifestyles,” rather than individual behaviours. The only exception was the PEB intentions measure in Study 4, which assessed participants’ intentions to engage in 21 specific PEBs. In an exploratory (i.e., not pre-registered) analysis, we examined the effects of the experimental intervention on each behaviour individually (see Table S5 in the Supplemental Information). Although none of these behaviour-specific effects were significant, the effect-size estimates were largest for behaviours that were mentioned in the experimental message (e.g., reducing meat consumption, walking, biking, and carpooling instead of driving). Hence, focusing messages and measures on individual behaviours could potentially lead to larger and more consistent effects on attitudes, intentions, and behaviour.
Strengths of the present work include large and (in Studies 1 and 4) representative samples, as well as pre-registered replications of the experimental findings. Limitations include the brevity of the studies and the narrowness of the behavioural (i.e., non-self-report) measures. Future work could follow up with participants days or weeks after they are exposed to messages about the relationship between PEB and well-being. This will be important for determining the longevity of the impacts of such interventions. Additionally, our revealed measure of PEB was fairly limited (involving participants’ decisions to visit a website with information and guidance about sustainable lifestyle choices). Future research might be able to use a wider range of revealed measures of PEB to provide further insights. Finally, although we examined the way in which the impacts of our messages were shaped by pre-existing beliefs about the PEB-well-being relationship, future research could test for interactions with other theoretically relevant factors, such as baseline levels of well-being, trust in science, or beliefs about climate change.
In sum, our results suggest that individuals’ beliefs about how PEB affects a person’s well-being could help drive sustainable lifestyle changes. We found clear and consistent evidence that such beliefs are related to pro-environmental action and that messages designed to shift these beliefs can promote more positive attitudes and conversations around PEB. Moreover, these effects may be especially powerful among those less inclined to expect positive effects of PEB on well-being. Numerous past experiments, using a variety of stimuli, have failed to elicit any effects on pro-environmental attitudes, intentions or behaviours 26 , 32 , 33 , leading some to conclude that individuals’ beliefs, attitudes, and intentions regarding PEB are quite fixed 26 . However, the results of the present research suggest that messages about the personal benefits of PEB are an exception to this trend. Our finding that messages about PEB and well-being make people more persuasive and motivating in their communication about PEB is perhaps the most noteworthy. It points to the potential for “ripple effects” – i.e., ways in which messages about the personal benefits of PEB may have effects beyond the individuals directly exposed to them. Such messages could potentially begin to reshape the way that people think and communicate about PEB, and thereby help contribute to sustainable lifestyle shifts.
All participants provided informed consent. The protocols for Studies 1 and 4 were approved by the board at the London School of Economics and Political Science (#253852), and the protocols for Studies 2-3 were approved by the institutional review board at Yale University (#2000033354). All studies were pre-registered. The pre-registration forms, full materials, data, and analytic code are all available online https://osf.io/g3pu2/ . All participants were recruited through Prolific ( https://www.prolific.co/ ). All p -values reflect two-sided tests.
We recruited a sample of 518 adults from across the United States. Due to a technical error, several ( n = 4) responses were duplicates (i.e., participants completing the survey a second time) and therefore deleted. As pre-registered, we also excluded ( n = 3) responses that failed an attention check, leaving an analysis sample of N = 511.
The sample was representative of US adults in terms of age, sex, and political affiliation. (Unfortunately, at the time, Prolific did not allow researchers to recruit samples that are simultaneously representative of race/ethnicity and political affiliation. Hence, given that climate change and environmentalism are heavily politicised topics in the United States 34 , we opted for political representativeness over racial representativeness. That said, overall, the proportions for race/ethnicity were relatively similar to the US Census.) The mean age was 46.44 ( SD = 16.03). Of the 511 participants, 49% identified as men, 50% women, 1% other or decline to state; < 1% identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, 5% Asian or Asian American, 9% Black or African American, 5% Hispanic or Latine/Latinx, 73% White or European American, 6% mixed race/ethnicity, < 1% other. Median annual household income was reported to be between $50,000 and $99,999. About half of the sample (54%) reported having a bachelor’s degree or more education.
We first presented participants with a list of 21 PEBs, based on a measure used in prior research 13 . The instructions read: “On the next page is a list of things that people sometimes do as a part of their daily activities. We would like to know if you think any of these behaviours affect a person’s well-being – that is, their happiness and satisfaction with life.” On the following page, we asked, “Do you think that any of the following affect a person’s well-being, either positively or negatively? Please select any that apply.” On the following survey page, for any selected behaviours we asked, “In what way do you think these behaviours affect a person’s well-being? Do you think that they increase or reduce an individual’s well-being? By how much?” The response scales were sliders ranging from “reduces a lot” (coded as −5) to “increases a lot” (coded as 5). The default position for each slider was in the centre of the scale (0). Finally, we assessed the frequency with which participants engage in these same 21 behaviours, asking: “How often do you personally engage in these behaviours? Please do not indicate what other people might like for you to do, or what you would like to do. Simply indicate what you normally do.” The response scales were 5-point Likert scales ranging from “never” to “always.” The presentation order for the behaviours was randomised.
We recruited a convenience sample of N = 327 participants from across the United States ( M age = 34.84, SD age = 12.25; 50% identified as men, 48% women, 1.8% other gender or decline to state; 10% identified as Asian, 5% Black or African American, 7% Hispanic or Latinx/Latine, 69% White, 7% mixed race/ethnicity, 1.5% other or decline to state).
We randomly assigned participants to read one of two versions of “a short story about a person’s decision to make a change to their lifestyle.” Both were entitled, “Why I decided to ‘go green.’” The first two paragraphs were identical across conditions and described various actions that the narrator had taken to live more sustainably (e.g., reducing driving, conserving electricity, organising colleagues to promote sustainability at work). The only difference between conditions was the stated motivation for these actions. In the Control condition ( n = 162), the narrator stated that, although PEB feels burdensome, it is “morally right” and “vital for the sake of the planet.” In the Well-Being condition ( n = 165), the narrator described how, alongside benefits to the environment, PEB improved his well-being.
After reading the narrative, participants reported their attitudes towards PEB and intentions to engage in PEB. Drawing on past research 28 , we asked participants whether, for them, an environmentally friendly lifestyle would be: worthwhile, good, wise, silly, pointless, and awful. Presentation order was randomised, and the response scale was a 5-point Likert scale ranging from “Not at all” to “Extremely.” We reverse-scored the three negative adjectives (silly, pointless, awful) and took the average as a measure of attitudes towards PEBs. This measure displayed excellent internal reliability (coefficient \(\omega\) = .90). We assessed PEB intentions by asking participants for their agreement (1 = “Strongly disagree”, 7 = “Strongly agree”) with the statements: “I intend to maintain environmentally friendly habits”; “I will try to live a sustainable lifestyle”; “I am committed to living in an environmentally friendly way.” We took the average of the three as a measure of intentions to engage in PEBs. This measure also displayed excellent internal reliability (coefficient \(\omega\) = .95).
We recruited a convenience sample of N = 503 participants from across the United States. As pre-registered, we excluded n = 2 participants who responded to an open-ended question with nothing, nonsense, or clearly irrelevant information. This left N = 501 participants in the primary sample ( M age = 38.74, SD age = 14.01; 49% identified as men, 50% women, 1.4% other gender or decline to state; 6% identified as Asian, 5% Black or African American, 3% Hispanic or Latinx/Latine, 79% White, 5% mixed race/ethnicity, < 1% other or decline to state).
We also recruited N = 100 additional participants to evaluate the persuasiveness of messages written by participants in the primary sample ( M age = 32.83, SD age = 12.19; 50% identified as male, 50% female; 7% identified as Asian, 5% Black or African American, 11% Hispanic or Latinx/Latine, 64% White, 8% mixed race/ethnicity, and 5% other.
We told participants in the primary sample that they would be reading an excerpt from an article that appeared in a popular science magazine and randomly assigned participants to read one of two messages. In the Well-Being condition ( n = 263), participants read a message that described “growing scientific evidence… that pro-environmental behaviour has personal benefits”, improving a person’s well-being. In the Control condition ( n = 238), participants read an excerpt that described a carbon tax and how such a policy could be an effective way to incentivize people to live more sustainably. The rationale for this control condition was to ensure that all participants read a message about academic research. The carbon tax was selected as a command-and-control policy that many economists argue is an effective and efficient way to address climate change 35 .
After participants read the messages, we asked them to write persuasive messages. The instructions read: “Your goal in this message is to encourage people to adopt environmentally friendly habits. Give reasons or arguments. Feel free to mention points made in the article and/or personal examples from your life or people you know. Your message should be about 4 sentences.” After writing their messages, participants reported their attitudes towards, and intentions to engage in, PEB. We used the same measures as in Study 2, which again showed excellent internal reliability (coefficient ω s= 0.90 and 0.94 for attitudes and intentions respectively). Finally, we presented participants with a link to a website where they could find guidance and tips about how to live more sustainably and tracked whether participants clicked on the link. This last outcome was pre-registered as exploratory.
After collecting the primary sample data, we showed participants’ messages to the independent sample of judges. We gave the judges the following instructions: “We want to know how persuasive you find the following messages. Do they make you more or less motivated to adopt or maintain environmentally friendly habits? (These messages were written by participants in a prior study. Please ignore typos, spelling and grammatical errors, etc.)” Each judge rated five messages, randomly selected without replacement from the pool of messages written by the primary sample. Judges used a 100-point slider scale, ranging from “Not at all persuasive” to “Extremely persuasive,” to respond to the question, “How persuasive is this message? Does it motivate you to adopt or maintain environmentally friendly habits?”
Approximately two weeks after conducting Study 1, we invited the participants from that study to return for a different study. This enabled us to take advantage of the representativeness of the original sample and to test whether the effects of the experimental intervention were moderated by prior beliefs (reported in Study 1) about the effects of PEBs on well-being. We received 388 complete responses. As pre-registered, we excluded, n = 22 responses that failed an attention check or spent less than 5 seconds on the survey page that presented the message, leaving an analysis sample of N = 366. The mean age was 47.92 ( SD = 15.92). Of the total participants, 47% identified as men, 52% women, 1% other or decline to state; < 1% identified as American Indian or Alaska Native, 4% Asian or Asian American, 10% Black or African American, 5% Hispanic or Latine/Latinx, 74% White or European American, 6% mixed race/ethnicity, < 1% other. The median reported annual household income was between $50,000 and $99,999. About half of the sample (55%) reported having a bachelor’s degree or more education.
To verify the representativeness of this sample, we tested whether any observed variables influenced participants’ likelihood of returning for this study after they completed Study 1. In a series of logistic regression models, we regressed a dummy-coded variable (0 = did not return, 1 = did return) on sociodemographic factors (age, race, gender, income, education, political orientation), beliefs about PEBs, and the frequency with which participants engage in PEBs (for these latter two, we averaged across the 21 specific PEBs). The only significant predictor was age, with older participants being somewhat more likely to return, b = .02, p = .001. As the variables of interest in the study (PEB beliefs and frequency) did not predict likelihood of returning, and the age distribution was only trivially different between Study 1 ( M = 46.44, SD = 16.03) and Study 4 ( M = 47.92, SD = 15.92), we conclude that the Study 4 sample can be treated as nationally representative to the same degree as the Study 1 sample.
We randomly assigned participants to read one of two messages (Well-Being, n = 178, or Control, n = 188), which included an abbreviated version of the personal narratives from Study 2 (i.e., with simplified language and one fewer examples), followed by short research summaries. Complete materials are available online: https://osf.io/g3pu2/ . Afterwards, participants wrote short persuasive messages in response to the same prompt as in Study 3. They then reported on their intentions to engage in PEBs. The instructions read: “Do you intend to engage in any of these behaviours? Please do not indicate what other people might like for you to do, or what you would like to do. Simply indicate what you actually plan to do. I intend to…” This stem was then completed by the same PEBs from Study 1. The response scale was a 7-point Likert ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree.” Participants completed the same 6-item attitudes measure as in Study 2. Finally, as in Study 3, we presented participants with a link to guidance and tips about how to live more sustainably and tracked whether they clicked on the link. The presentation order for items in each measure was randomised.
We used a generative pre-trained transformer (GPT) model to rate the persuasiveness of the participant-written messages. Recent work has shown that ratings from GPT models can very closely mirror those of human judges 36 . However, to further strengthen the validity of this measurement approach, we used the ratings provided by the human judges in Study 3 as training data. Specifically, we divided the 500 ratings from Study 3 into a training dataset (a randomly selected n = 400) and a test dataset (the remaining n = 100). We created a “fine-tuned” version of OpenAI’s GPT–3.5 ( https://platform.openai.com/finetune ), which we iteratively queried using their application programming interface ( https://platform.openai.com/docs/api-reference ). For improved measurement reliability, we used three different prompts. One simply included the participant-written message. One prefaced the message with, “Does this message motivate you to adopt environmentally-friendly habits?” And another prefaced the message with, “Does this message draw you towards living a more environmentally-friendly lifestyle?” The scores resulting from these three prompts were correlated with each other (0.45 ≤ rs ≤ 0.69), and we aggregated them into a single persuasiveness rating using a confirmatory factor analysis (see Fig. S1 in the Supplemental Information). The prompt files are available online, alongside the rest of the online materials.
Data are available online: https://osf.io/g3pu2/ .
Analytic code is available online: https://osf.io/g3pu2/ .
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Michael M. Prinzing
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Conceptualization: M.P. & K.L.; Methodology: M.P. & K.L.; Formal analysis, M.P.; Visualization, M.P.; Writing, M.P. & K.L. Both authors read and approved the manuscript.
Correspondence to Kate Laffan .
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Prinzing, M.M., Laffan, K. Leveraging the link between pro-environmental behaviour and well-being to encourage sustainable lifestyle shifts. npj Clim. Action 3 , 73 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00154-w
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COMMENTS
Environmental Factors. In Florence Nightingale's Environmental Theory, she identified five (5) environmental factors: fresh air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness or sanitation, and light or direct sunlight. Pure fresh air - "to keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air without chilling him.".
A hypothesis is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon, serving as a starting point for further investigation and experimentation. It is formulated based on existing knowledge and observations, allowing researchers to test its validity through controlled methods. In the context of scientific inquiry, a hypothesis provides a clear, testable statement that can lead to predictions about the ...
The environmental factors that affect health, as identified in the theory, are: fresh air, pure water, sufficient food supplies, efficient drainage, cleanliness of the patient and environment, and light (particularly direct sunlight). If any of these areas is lacking, the patient may experience diminished health.
Florence Nightingale is the most recognized name in the field of nursing. Her work was instrumental for developing modern nursing practice, and from her first shift, she worked to ensure patients in her care had what they needed to get healthy. Her Environmental Theory changed the face of nursing to create sanitary conditions for patients to get care.
Nightingale's Environmental Theory was one of the most provocative concepts of her day, with practical, daily application for contemporary nursing, including management of the physical environment, psychological environment, nutritional status and nursing care planning (Dossey et al., 2005) Her clear, concise, critical thinking and vision have ...
Hypothesis: An explanation for an observed phenomenon. Research Hypothesis: A statement about a phenomenon that also includes the potential mechanism or cause of that phenomenon. Though a research hypothesis doesn't need to adhere to this strict framework it is often best described as the "if" in an "if-then" statement.
Nightingale's environmental theory. Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), considered the founder of educated and scientific nursing and widely known as "The Lady with the Lamp", [ 1] wrote the first nursing notes that became the basis of nursing practice and research. The notes, entitled Notes on Nursing: What it is, and What it is Not (1860 ...
Florence Nightingale's environmental theory of nursing is a theory that focuses on patient care. By individualizing each environment, healing could be created and deeper relationships between the patient and nurse could form. In this way, the best care possible could be provided. Filed Under:
Environmental science studies all aspects of the environment in an interdisciplinary way. This means that it requires the knowledge of various other subjects including biology, chemistry, physics, statistics, microbiology, biochemistry, geology, economics, law, sociology, etc. ... A theory is a tested and confirmed explanation for observations ...
hypothesis. science. scientific hypothesis, an idea that proposes a tentative explanation about a phenomenon or a narrow set of phenomena observed in the natural world. The two primary features of a scientific hypothesis are falsifiability and testability, which are reflected in an "If…then" statement summarizing the idea and in the ...
This environmental theory or adaptation theory relies on the nurse to give feedback and insight on the physical work environment to carry out the care and clinical workflow to deliver care. We know the physical work environment has the potential of being a barrier to nurses' healthy work lives. ... Nightingale's definition of the environment ...
Gaia hypothesis. The Gaia hypothesis, also known as Gaia theory or Gaia principle, proposes that all organisms and their inorganic surroundings on Earth are closely integrated to form a single and self-regulating complex system, maintaining the conditions for life on the planet. The scientific investigation of the Gaia hypothesis focuses on ...
A hypothesis is an explanation that is proposed for a phenomenon. Formulating a hypothesis is a step of the scientific method. Alternate Spellings: plural: hypotheses. Examples: Upon observing that a lake appears blue under a blue sky, you might propose the hypothesis that the lake is blue because it is reflecting the sky.
Form a hypothesis OMG hypothesizes that the oceans are playing a major role in Greenland ice loss. Make observations Over a five-year period, OMG will survey Greenland by air and ship to collect ocean temperature and salinity (saltiness) data and take ice thinning measurements to help climate scientists better understand how the ice and warming ocean interact with each other.
Description. Applications of Hypothesis Testing for Environmental Science presents the theory and application of hypothesis testing in environmental science, allowing researchers to carry out suitable tests for decision-making on a variety of issues. This book works as a step-by-step resource to provide understanding of the concepts and ...
Abstract. This paper advances two arguments about environmental problems. First, it interrogates the strength and limitations of empiricist accounts of problems and issues offered by actor-network theory. Drawing on the work of C.S. Peirce, it considers how emerging environmental problems often lead to abductive inferences about the existence ...
Broadly, the environmental impact categories are similar across the methodologies, and their relevance has been assessed and reported in the ILCD Handbook. 34 The mid-point environmental impact categories are related to 'Areas of Protection', or the end-point outcome of an environmental impact, i.e. on human health, the natural environment ...
A scientific hypothesis is a tentative, testable explanation for a phenomenon in the natural world. It's the initial building block in the scientific method. Many describe it as an "educated guess ...
Environmental Determinism Definition. Environmental determinism is a theory that developed in the fields of anthropology, sociology, and geography. ... Adherents to the theory of environmental ...
Environmental economics. The pollution haven hypothesis posits that, when large industrialized nations seek to set up factories or offices abroad, they will often look for the cheapest option in terms of resources and labor that offers the land and material access they require. [ 1] However, this often comes at the cost of environmentally ...
environmentalism, political and ethical movement that seeks to improve and protect the quality of the natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities; through the adoption of forms of political, economic, and social organization that are thought to be necessary for, or at least conducive to, the benign treatment ...
We examined a range of outcomes indicative of pro-environmental motivation and action. According to a venerable social psychological theory 28, behaviour is shaped by a person's attitudes ...