definition of environmental hypothesis

• Florence Nightingale: Environmental Theory

Get to know the concepts behind Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Theory in this study guide about nursing theories . Learn about Nightingale’s biography, her career, her works that shaped nursing. The next part is an in-depth discussion about her Environmental Theory, its metaparadigm, major, and subconcepts, including its application to nursing practice. 

Table of Contents

Personal life, environmental theory, crimean war, awards and honors, human beings, environment, health of houses, ventilation and warming, bed and bedding, personal cleanliness, nutrition and taking food, chattering hopes and advice, social considerations, environmental factors, analysis of the environmental theory, assumptions of florence nightingale’s theory, recommended resources, external links, further reading, biography of florence nightingale.

Florence Nightingale ( 12 May 1820 – 13 August 1910) was a nurse who contributed to developing and shaping the modern nursing practice and has set examples for nurses who are standards for today’s profession. Nightingale is the first nurse theorist well-known for developing the Environmental Theory that revolutionized nursing practices to create sanitary conditions for patients to get care. She is recognized as the founder of modern nursing. During the Crimean War, she tended to wounded soldiers at night and was known as “ The Lady with the Lamp .” 

Florence Nightingale was born on May 12, 1820, in Nightingale, Italy. She was the younger of two children. Her British family belonged to elite social circles. Her father, William Shore Nightingale, a wealthy landowner who had inherited two estates—one at Lea Hurst, Derbyshire, and the other in Hampshire, Embley Park Nightingale was 5 years old.

Her mother, Frances Nightingale, hailed from a family of merchants and took pride in socializing with prominent social standing people. Despite her mother’s interest in social climbing, Nightingale herself was reportedly awkward in social situations. She preferred to avoid being the center of attention whenever possible. Strong-willed, Nightingale often butted heads with her mother, whom she viewed as overly controlling. Still, like many daughters, she was eager to please her mother. “I think I am got something more good-natured and complying,” Nightingale wrote in her own defense concerning the mother-daughter relationship.

Florence Nightingale was raised on the family estate at Lea Hurst, where her father provided her with a classical education, including German, French, and Italian studies. As for being homeschooled by her parents and tutors, Nightingale gained excellence in Mathematics.

Nightingale was active in philanthropy from a very young age, ministering to the ill and poor people in the village neighboring her family’s estate. At seventeen, she decided to dedicate her life to medical care for the sick resulting in a lifetime commitment to speak out, educate, overhaul and sanitize the appalling health care conditions in England.

Despite her parents’ objections, Nightingale enrolled as a nursing student in 1844 at the Lutheran Hospital of Pastor Fliedner in Kaiserswerth, Germany.

Only announcing her decision to enter the field in 1844, following her desire to be a nurse , was not easy for Florence Nightingale . Her mother and sister were against her chosen career, but Nightingale stood strong and worked hard to learn more about her craft despite society’s expectation that she become a wife and mother.

As a woman, Nightingale was beautiful and charming that made every man like her. However, she rejected a suitor, Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, because she feared that entertaining men would interfere with the process. The income given to her by her father during this time allowed her to pursue her career and still live comfortably. Though Nightingale had several important friendships with women, including correspondence with an Irish nun named Sister Mary Clare Moore, she had little respect for women in general and preferred friendships with powerful men.

Florence Nightingale ‘s Environmental Theory defined Nursing as “the act of utilizing the patient’s environment to assist him in his recovery.”

It involves the nurse’s initiative to configure environmental settings appropriate for the gradual restoration of the patient’s health and that external factors associated with the patient’s surroundings affect the life or biologic and physiologic processes and his development.

She identified 5 environmental factors: fresh air , pure water , efficient drainage , cleanliness or sanitation, and light or direct sunlight .

Based on her observations in the Crimea, Florence Nightingale wrote Notes on Matters Affecting the Health, Efficiency, and Hospital Administration of the British Army , an 830-page report analyzing her experience and proposing reforms for other military hospitals operating under poor conditions. The book would spark a total restructuring of the War Office’s administrative department, including establishing a Royal Commission for the Health of the Army in 1857.

In 1860, her best-authored works were published, “Notes on Nursing,” outlining nursing principles. It is still in print today with translation in many foreign languages. In all, she had published some 200 books, reports, and pamphlets. Using the money she got from the British government, she funded St. Thomas’ Hospital’s establishment, and within it, the Nightingale Training School for Nurses.

In the 1870s, Nightingale mentored Linda Richards , “America’s first trained nurse,” and enabled her to return to the USA with adequate training and knowledge to establish high-quality nursing schools. Linda Richards went on to become a great nursing pioneer in the USA and Japan.

In the early 1880s, Nightingale wrote an article for a textbook in which she advocated strict precautions designed, she said, to kill germs. Nightingale’s work served as an inspiration for nurses in the American Civil War. The Union government approached her for advice in organizing field medicine. Although her ideas met official resistance, they inspired the volunteer body of the United States Sanitary Commission.

Appointments

In 1853, Florence Nightingale accepted the superintendent’s position at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London. She held this position until October 1854.

In 1854, Britain was involved in the war against the Russians (Crimean War). British battlefield medical facilities were deplorable, prompting Minister at War Sidney Herbert to appoint Nightingale to oversee the wounded’s care. She arrived in Constantinople, Turkey, with a company of 38 nurses. The introduction of female nurses in military hospitals was a major success. Sanitary conditions were improved while nurses worked as capable assistants to physicians and raised the British soldier’s morale by acting as bankers, sending the injured man’s wages home, wrote letters to their families, and read to the wounded.

The Crimean War began, and soon reports in the newspapers described the desperate lack of proper medical facilities for wounded British soldiers at the front. Sidney Herbert, the war minister, already knew Nightingale and asked her to oversee a team of nurses in Turkey’s military hospitals. In 1854 she led an expedition of 38 women to take over the management of the barrack hospital at Scutari, where she observed the disastrous sanitary conditions.

She returned to England in 1856. In 1860, she established the Nightingale Training School for nurses at St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Once the nurses were trained, they were sent to hospitals all over Britain, where they introduced the ideas they had learned and established nursing training on the Nightingale model.

England has given Florence Nightingale numerous awards and honors.

Nightingale became known as “The Lady with the Lamp.” During the Crimean War, she initially made her rounds on horseback and at night used an oil lamp to light her way, then reverted to a mule cart and finally a carriage with a hood and curtains. Nightingale remained at Scutari for a year and a half. In the summer of 1856, she left once the Crimean conflict was resolved and returned to her childhood home at Lea Hurst. To her surprise, she was met with a hero’s welcome, which the humble nurse did her best to avoid.

The Queen rewarded Nightingale’s work by presenting her with an engraved brooch that came to be known as the “Nightingale Jewel” and by granting her a prize of $250,000 from the British government.

In 1883, Nightingale was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. In 1904, she was appointed a Lady of Grace of St John’s Order (LGStJ) . In 1907, she became the first woman to be awarded the Order of Merit . In the following year, she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London.

Despite being known as the heroine of the Crimean War, Florence Nightingale fell ill in August 1910. She seemed to recover and was reportedly in good spirits. However, she developed an array of troubling symptoms a week later, on the evening of Friday, August 12, 1910. She died unexpectedly at 2 pm the following day, Saturday, August 13, at her home in London. She left a large body of work, including several hundred previously unpublished notes.

Usually, well-known people with great contributions are offered national funerals, but Nightingale had expressed the desire that her funeral is a quiet and modest affair.

Respecting her last wishes, her relatives turned down a national funeral, and the “Lady with the Lamp” was laid to rest in her family’s plot at St. Margaret’s Church, East Wellow, in Hampshire, England.

In honor of the life and career of the “Angel of the Crimea,” the Florence Nightingale Museum sits at the site of the original Nightingale Training School for Nurses, which houses more than 2,000 artifacts. And up to this day, the name “Florence Nightingale” is universally recognized and known as the pioneer of modern nursing.

Florence Nightingale has a memorial in St. Paul’s Cathedral, where a formal memorial service was held. There is a Florence Nightingale Museum located at St. Thomas Hospital in London, where she founded the nursing school. The US Navy launched a namesake troop transport during World War II, “USS Florence Nightingale,” which served gallantly during the course of the war, receiving four battle stars.

In addition to the Florence Nightingale School of Nursing and Midwifery’s continued operation at King’s College London, The Nightingale Building in the School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Southampton is also named after her.

Furthermore, four hospitals in Istanbul are named after Nightingale: F. N. Hastanesi in Şişli (the biggest private hospital in Turkey), Metropolitan F.N. Hastanesi in Gayrettepe, Avrupa F.N. Hastanesi in Mecidiyeköy, and Kızıltoprak F.N. Hastanesi in Kadiköy, all belonging to the Turkish Cardiology Foundation.

Florence Nightingale’s voice was saved in a phonograph recording from 1890 preserved in the British Library Sound Archive. The recording is in aid of the Light Brigade Relief Fund and says: “When I am no longer even a memory , just a name, I hope my voice may perpetuate the great work of my life. God bless my dear old comrades of Balaclava and bring them safely to shore. Florence Nightingale.”

Many exhibits and artifacts are displayed and a bit of folklore with an exhibit featuring the preserved owl Athena, her little pet and companion who lived in her pocket. With America’s first female doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell opened the Women’s Medical College.

The photos above were taken by Luca Borghi in August 2011, courtesy of the Florence Nightingale Museum.

In 1912, the Red Cross’s International Committee instituted the Florence Nightingale Medal , awarded every two years to nurses or nursing aides for outstanding service.

The International Nurses Day and International CFS Awareness Day are celebrated on her birthday each year.

Nightingale’s Environmental Theory

The  Environmental Theory by Florence Nightingale defined Nursing as “the act of utilizing the environment of the patient to assist him in his recovery.” It involves the nurse’s initiative to configure environmental settings appropriate for the gradual restoration of the patient’s health and that external factors associated with the patient’s surroundings affect the life or biologic and physiologic processes and his development. Nightingale discussed the Environmental Theory in her book Notes on Nursing: What it is, What it is Not.  She is considered the first theorist in nursing and paved the way in the foundation of the nursing profession we know today.

Major Concepts of Florence Nightingales Theory

The major concepts of Florence Nightingale’s Theory are:

“What nursing has to do… is to put the patient in the best condition for nature to act upon him” (Nightingale, 1859/1992)

Nightingale stated that nursing “ought to signify the proper use of fresh air, light, warmth, cleanliness, quiet, and the proper selection and administration of diet – all at the least expense of vital power to the patient.” She reflected the art of nursing in her statement that “the art of nursing, as now practiced, seems to be expressly constituted to unmake what God had made disease to be, viz., a reparative process.”

Human beings are not defined by Nightingale specifically. They are defined in relation to their environment and the impact of the environment upon them.

Nightingale stresses the physical environment in her writing. In her theory, Nightingale’s writings reflect a community health model in which all that surrounds human beings is considered concerning their health state.

Nightingale (1859/1992) did not define health specifically. She stated, “We know nothing of health, the positive of which pathology is negative, except for the observation and experience. Given her definition that the art of nursing is to “unmake what God had made disease,” then the goal of all nursing activities should be client health.

She believed that nursing should provide care to the healthy and the ill and discussed health promotion as an activity in which nurses should engage.

Subconcepts of the Environmental Theory

The following are the subconcepts of Florence Nightingale’s theory:

“Badly constructed houses do for the healthy what badly constructed hospitals do for the sick. Once ensure that the air is stagnant and sickness is certain to follow.”

“Keep the air he breathes as pure as the external air, without chilling him.”

Nightingale believed that the person who repeatedly breathed his or her own air would become sick or remain sick. She was very concerned about “noxious air” or “effluvia” and foul odors from excrement. She also criticized “fumigations,” for she believed that the offensive source, not the smell , must be removed.

Nightingale also stressed the importance of room temperature. The patient should not be too warm or too cold. The temperature could be controlled by an appropriate balance between burning fires and ventilation from windows.

Nightingale believed that second to fresh air, the sick needed light. She noted that direct sunlight was what patients wanted.

She stated that patients should never be “waked intentionally” or accidentally during the first part of sleep . She asserted that whispered or long conversations about patients are thoughtless and cruel. She viewed unnecessary noise, including noise from the female dress, as cruel and irritating to the patient.

She discussed the need for color and form changes, including bringing the patient brightly colored flowers or plants. She also advocated rotating 10 or 12 paintings and engravings each day, week, or month to provide variety for the patient. Nightingale also advocated reading, needlework, writing, and cleaning to relieve the sick of boredom.

Nightingale noted that an adult in health exhales about three pints of moisture through the lungs and skin in a 24-hour period. This organic matter enters the sheets and stays there unless the bedding is changed and aired frequently.

She believed that the bed should be placed in the lightest part of the room and placed so the patient could see out of a window. She also reminded the caregiver never to lean against, sit upon, or unnecessarily shake the patient’s bed.

“Just as it is necessary to renew the air around a sick person frequently to carry off morbid effluvia from the lungs and skin, by maintaining free ventilation, so it is necessary to keep pores of the skin free from all obstructing excretions.”

“Every nurse ought to wash her hands very frequently during the day.”

Nightingale noted in her Environmental Theory that individuals desire different foods at different times of the day and that frequent small servings may be more beneficial to the patient than a large breakfast or dinner. She urged that no business be done with patients while they are eating because this was a distraction.

Florence Nightingale wrote in her Environmental Theory that to falsely cheer the sick by making light of their illness and its danger is not helpful. She encouraged the nurse to heed what is being said by visitors, believing that sick persons should hear the good news that would help them become healthier.

Nightingale supported the importance of looking beyond the individual to the social environment in which they lived.

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.”
• Pure water – “well water of a very impure kind is used for domestic purposes. And when the epidemic disease shows itself, persons using such water are almost sure to suffer.”
• Effective drainage – “all the while the sewer may be nothing but a laboratory from which epidemic disease and ill health are being installed into the house.”
• Cleanliness – “the greater part of nursing consists in preserving cleanliness.”
• Light (especially direct sunlight) – “the usefulness of light in treating disease is very important.”

The factors posed great significance during Nightingale’s time when health institutions had poor sanitation, and health workers had little education and training and were frequently incompetent and unreliable in attending to the patients’ needs.

Also emphasized in her environmental theory is providing a quiet or noise-free and warm environment, attending to patient’s dietary needs by assessment , documentation of time of food intake, and evaluating its effects on the patient.

Deficiencies in these five factors produce illness or lack of health, but the body could repair itself with a nurturing environment.

In the era that we are in today, we are faced with environmental conditions beyond what ought to be natural and nurturing. Some of the global environmental issues we have now are global warming, nuclear radiation threats, human-made environmental calamities, and pollution. From these occurrences, Nightingale’s model seemed to be ideal. Her concept of providing fresh air to patients is in question with today’s industrialization effects.

In addition to the analysis of the concept of ventilation, it is not always beneficial for all clients to have fresh air. Natural air has its impurities which in turn may infect open wounds and drainages such as in burns .

With the idea of providing light, the light emitted by the sun today is proven to be harmful already because of the destruction of the Earth’s ozone layer. Exposing the patient constantly to direct sunlight may be more destructive to the patient’s betterment than beneficial.

A healthy environment indeed heals, as Nightingale stated. Still, the question now is how our environment would remain healthy amidst the negative effects of the progress of technology and industrialization.

Since the applicability of some of the concepts to specific situations today is non-feasible, this theory’s development is utterly needed to accommodate the changes in the environment that we currently have. Still, above all this, it is very clear that Nightingale’s Environmental Theory is superb as a starting point of our profession’s progression and catalyzed nursing improvement.

The assumptions of Florence Nightingale in her Environmental Theory are as follows:

• Florence Nightingale believed that five points were essential in achieving a healthful house: “pure air, pure water, efficient drainage, cleanliness, and light.”
• A healthy environment is essential for healing. She stated that “nature alone cures.”
• Nurses must make accurate observations of their patients and report the state of the patient to the physician in an orderly manner.
• Nursing is an art, whereas medicine is a science. Nurses are to be loyal to the medical plan but not servile.

Florence Nightingale’s language to write her books was cultured and flowing, logical in format, and elegant in style. Nightingale’s Environmental Theory has broad applicability to the practitioner. Her model can be applied in most complex hospital intensive care environments, the home, a worksite, or the community. Reading Nightingale’s Environmental Theory raises consciousness in the nurse about how the environment influences client outcomes.

In Nightingale’s Environmental Theory, there is scant information on the psychosocial environment compared to the physical environment. The application of her concepts in the twentieth century is in question.

The Environmental Theory of Nursing is a patient- care theory . It focuses on altering the patient’s environment to affect change in his or her health. Caring for the patient is of more importance than the nursing process , the relationship between patient and nurse, or the individual nurse.

In this way, the model must be adapted to fit the needs of individual patients. The environmental factors affect different patients unique to their situations and illnesses. The nurse must address these factors on a case-by-case basis to make sure the factors are altered to best care for an individual patient and his or her needs.

Recommended books and resources to learn more about nursing theory:

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• Nursing Theorists and Their Work (10th Edition) by Alligood Nursing Theorists and Their Work, 10th Edition provides a clear, in-depth look at nursing theories of historical and international significance. Each chapter presents a key nursing theory or philosophy, showing how systematic theoretical evidence can enhance decision making, professionalism, and quality of care.
• Knowledge Development in Nursing: Theory and Process (11th Edition) Use the five patterns of knowing to help you develop sound clinical judgment. This edition reflects the latest thinking in nursing knowledge development and adds emphasis to real-world application. The content in this edition aligns with the new 2021 AACN Essentials for Nursing Education.
• Nursing Knowledge and Theory Innovation, Second Edition: Advancing the Science of Practice (2nd Edition) This text for graduate-level nursing students focuses on the science and philosophy of nursing knowledge development. It is distinguished by its focus on practical applications of theory for scholarly, evidence-based approaches. The second edition features important updates and a reorganization of information to better highlight the roles of theory and major philosophical perspectives.
• Nursing Theories and Nursing Practice (5th Edition) The only nursing research and theory book with primary works by the original theorists. Explore the historical and contemporary theories that are the foundation of nursing practice today. The 5th Edition, continues to meet the needs of today’s students with an expanded focus on the middle range theories and practice models.
• Strategies for Theory Construction in Nursing (6th Edition) The clearest, most useful introduction to theory development methods. Reflecting vast changes in nursing practice, it covers advances both in theory development and in strategies for concept, statement, and theory development. It also builds further connections between nursing theory and evidence-based practice.
• Middle Range Theory for Nursing (4th Edition) This nursing book’s ability to break down complex ideas is part of what made this book a three-time recipient of the AJN Book of the Year award. This edition includes five completely new chapters of content essential for nursing books. New exemplars linking middle range theory to advanced nursing practice make it even more useful and expand the content to make it better.
• Nursing Research: Methods and Critical Appraisal for Evidence-Based Practice This book offers balanced coverage of both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies. This edition features new content on trending topics, including the Next-Generation NCLEX® Exam (NGN).
• Nursing Research (11th Edition) AJN award-winning authors Denise Polit and Cheryl Beck detail the latest methodologic innovations in nursing, medicine, and the social sciences. The updated 11th Edition adds two new chapters designed to help students ensure the accuracy and effectiveness of research methods. Extensively revised content throughout strengthens students’ ability to locate and rank clinical evidence.

Recommended site resources related to nursing theory:

• Nursing Theories and Theorists: The Definitive Guide for Nurses MUST READ! In this guide for nursing theories, we aim to help you understand what comprises a nursing theory and its importance, purpose, history, types or classifications, and give you an overview through summaries of selected nursing theories.

Other resources related to nursing theory:

• Betty Neuman: Neuman Systems Model
• Dorothea Orem: Self-Care Deficit Theory
• Dorothy Johnson: Behavioral System Model
• Faye Abdellah: 21 Nursing Problems Theory
• Hildegard Peplau: Interpersonal Relations Theory
• Ida Jean Orlando: Deliberative Nursing Process Theory
• Imogene King: Theory of Goal Attainment
• Jean Watson: Theory of Human Caring
• Lydia Hall: Care, Cure, Core Nursing Theory
• Madeleine Leininger: Transcultural Nursing Theory
• Martha Rogers: Science of Unitary Human Beings
• Myra Estrin Levine: The Conservation Model of Nursing
• Nola Pender: Health Promotion Model
• Sister Callista Roy: Adaptation Model of Nursing
• Virginia Henderson: Nursing Need Theory

The following are the references and sources used for this guide:

• Florence Nightingale: Part I. Strachey, Lytton. 1918. Eminent Victorians. (n.d.). Florence Nightingale: Part I. Strachey, Lytton. 1918. Eminent Victorians. Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://www.bartleby.com/189/201.html
• Florence Nightingale and Lynn McDonald (Editor) (2010). “An introduction to Vol 14”. Florence Nightingale: The Crimean War.  Wilfrid Laurier University Press . ISBN   0889204691 .
• Himetop. (n.d.).  Florence Nightingale Museum – . Retrieved July 31, 2014, from https://himetop.wikidot.com/florence-nightingale-museum
• Cohen, I. B. (1984). Florence Nightingale. Scientific American ,  250 (3), 128-137. [ Link ]
• Nursing Theory and Conceptual Framework, Fundamentals of Nursing: Human Health and Function, Ruth F. Craven and Constance J. Hirnle, 2003, pp.56
• The Nature of Nursing, Fundamentals of Nursing: Concepts, Process, and Practice, Second Edition, Barbara Kozier, Glenora Erb, Audrey Berman, Shirlee Snyder, 2004, p.38
• Nightingale, F. (1860/1957/1969). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. In McEwen, M. and Wills, E. (Ed.).  Theoretical basis for nursing.  USA: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
• Nightingale, F. (1992). Notes on nursing: What it is and what it is not. (Com. ed.). (Original publication 1859). In George, J. (Ed.). Nursing theories: the base for professional nursing practice .  Norwalk, Connecticut: Appleton & Lange.
• Florence Nightingale Foundation
• Collection of Letters of Florence Nightingale
• Papers of Florence Nightingale, 1820-1910
• Baly, Monica and E. H. C. G. Matthew. “Nightingale, Florence (1820–1910)”, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography  Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2011
• Bostridge, Mark (2008). Florence Nightingale. The Woman and Her Legend. Viking (2008); Penguin (2009). US title Florence Nightingale. The Making of an Icon. Farrar Straus (2008).
• Rees, Joan. Women on the Nile: Writings of Harriet Martineau, Florence Nightingale, and Amelia Edwards. Rubicon Press: 1995, 2008

Originally published on August 4, 2014. Biography was written by Wayne, G. 

With contributions by Wayne, G., Ramirez, Q., Vera, M.

5 thoughts on “Florence Nightingale: Environmental Theory”

God bless Florence Nightingale for her good work towards nursing. I am proud to be a nurse!

Thanks, Florence Nightingale, for curing human lives it encourages me to become a good professional nurse.

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How can I be a good midwifery student and also learn fast

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Florence Nightingale - Nursing Theorist

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.

Biography of Florence Nightingale

Florence Nightingale was born in 1820 in Italy to a wealthy British family. She was raised in the Anglican faith, and believed the God called her to be a nurse. This call came to her in February 1837 while at Embley Park.

She announced her intention to become a nurse in 1844. Her mother and sister were angry at her decision, but Nightingale stood strong. She worked hard to learn about nursing, despite society’s expectation that she become a wife and mother. In fact, she rejected a suitor because she thought it would interfere with her nursing career. In 1853, she accepted the position of superintendent at the Institute for the Care of Sick Gentlewomen in Upper Harley Street, London. She held this position until October 1854. The income given to her by her father during this time allowed her to pursue her career and still live comfortably.

Though Nightingale had several important friendships with women, including a correspondence with an Irish nun named Sister Mary Clare Moore, she had little respect for women in general, and preferred friendships with powerful men.

She died in 1910.

Career of Florence Nightingale

Nightingale is best known for her pioneering work in the field of nursing. She tended to wounded soldiers during the Crimean War. She became known as the “Lady with the Lamp” because of her night rounds. While nursing soldiers during the war, Nightingale worked to improve nutrition and conditions in the wards. Many injured soldiers were dying from illnesses separate from their injuries, such as typhoid, cholera, and dysentery. Nightingale made changes on the wards or started the process by calling the Sanitary Commission. Her work led to a reduction in the death rates of injured soldiers from 42% to 2%. Nightingale believed the deaths were the result of poor nutrition, inadequate supplies, and the soldiers being dramatically overworked. After collecting evidence that pointed to unsanitary conditions as a major cause of death, Nightingale worked to improve sanitation in army and civilian hospitals during peacetime.

After the Crimean War, she established a nursing school at St. Thomas’ Hospital in London in 1860. The first nurses trained at this school began working in 1865 at the Liverpool Workhouse Infirmary. It was the first secular nursing school in the world, and is now part of King’s College London. Her work laid the foundation for modern nursing, and the pledge all new nurses take was named after her.

Nightingale wrote Notes on Nursing (1859), which was the foundation of the curriculum for her nursing school and other nursing schools. This short text was considered the foundation of nursing education, and even sold well to the public. She also wrote Notes on Hospitals , Notes on Matters Affecting the Health , and Efficiency and Hospital Administration of the British Army . Nightingale spent the rest of her career working toward the establishment and development of nursing as a profession, paving the way for nursing in its current form.

In 1883, Nightingale was given the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria. In 1907, she was the first woman to receive the Order of Merit. In 1908, she was given the Honorary Freedom of the City of London. International Nurses Day is celebrated on her birthday.

Some of Florence Nightingale’s works are:

Florence Nightingale’s Contribution to Nursing Theory: Environmental Theory

Florence Nightingale is attributed with establishing the modern practice of nursing. She also contributed to the field with nursing theories still used today. One of her nursing theories is the Environmental Theory , which incorporates the patients’ surrounding environment in his or her nursing care plan .

In this theory, the role of the nurse is to use the patient’s environment to help him or her recover and get back to the usual environment. The reason the patient’s environment is important is because it can affect his or her health in a positive or negative way. Some environmental factors affecting health according to Nightingale’s theory are fresh air, pure water, sufficient food and appropriate nutrition, efficient drainage, cleanliness, and light or direct sunlight. If any of these factors is lacking, it can delay the patient’s recovery. Nightingale also emphasized providing a quiet, warm environment for patients to recover in. The theory also calls for nurses to assess a patient’s dietary needs, document food intake times, and evaluate how the patient’s diet affects his or her health and recovery.

Determining a patient’s environment for recovery based on his or her condition or disease is still practiced today, such as in patients suffering from tetanus, who need minimal noise to keep them calm and prevent seizures.

For more detailed information: Nightingale’s Environmental Theory

See also: Nightingale’s Modern Nursing Theory

For more information about the life on Florence Nightingale:

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Florence Nightingale Environmental Theory of Nursing Explained

Florence Nightingale’s environmental theory of nursing has one core principle: that nursing is the act of utilizing the environment of the patient in order to assist that patient in their recovery. Nightingale’s proposal is simple. By configuring the environment of a patient so that it best meets their needs at that moment, it would assist in the healing process.

Nightingale believed that there were many natural elements that could help a patient begin to have their health restored. Nursing, she proposed, was more than just emotionally caring for a patient, following doctor’s orders, or meeting physical needs. By adding light, warmth, fresh air, quietness, and cleanliness to the environment in a proper order, then along with meeting nutritional needs, a patient could “unmake what God had made disease to be.”

How Nightingale Believed Disease Would Form

Florence Nightingale didn’t use her environmental theory of nursing to create definitions of who was a patient or a human being. She didn’t even attempt to define what “good health” would actually be. Nightingale even said that medical practitioners know nothing of health except for when it is either positive or negative. She simply believed that nurses could make environmental modifications to help eliminate the promotion of internal disease.

This meant that Nightingale believed that people who did not take care of their personal environments properly would be more susceptible to disease. Here are some examples of this from her environmental theory of nursing.

• Home Ventilation. Nightingale believed that people who repeatedly breathed their own air, without any new fresh air coming into a home, would eventually become sick and then remain that way. She believed that the exposure to foul odors would create “noxious air” that would need to be removed for the healing process to begin.
• Temperature. Nightingale also believed that a home should not be too warm or too cold. If there was a temperature imbalance, then there was a greater risk of becoming ill due to being too warm or too cold.
• Light. Nightingale often believed that one of the best things a patient could be given was direct access to sunlight.
• Noise. Nightingale also believed that sleep had an intensely powerful healing effect on the body. She believed that nurses should never wake up people intentionally or even accidentally during the first part of sleep. Any unnecessary noise was considered to be a cruel and unusual punishment to a patient.

Florence Nightingale also believed that variety was important to the healing process. By bringing in fresh flowers, changing uniform colors, or rotating the artwork in a room, it could stimulate the senses of the patient. This stimulation could then encourage the body to continue healing.

Personal Cleanliness and the Environmental Theory of Nursing

Nightingale recognized that patients who had to remain in bed would exhale a lot of moisture thorough their skin and lungs every day. These organic deposits would then stay on the sheets and other bedding, negatively affecting the environment. Unless the bedding was changed and aired-out frequently, it could become difficult for a patient to recover.

Nightingale also believed that a patient’s bed was their own domain. She encouraged nurses to never lean or sit on a bed.

Personal cleanliness didn’t apply just to the environment of the patient. Nightingale also stressed that nurses should also focus on improving their own personal cleanliness. She encouraged nurses to wash their hands frequently throughout the day as a way to fend of illness. She believed that if nurses could keep their skin free from “obstructing excretions,” then they could maintain their good health.

Social Considerations and the Environmental Theory of Nursing

Florence Nightingale also believed that nurses could encourage or discourage the healing process based on their interactions with a patient. She believed that nurses who attempted to falsely cheer up a patient were not creating an appropriate environment. Instead of joking about the illness or offering fake platitudes, she suggested that patients should be exposed to good news. Good news, she proposed, could assist a patient in becoming healthier.

Nightingale also encouraged nurses to look at the importance of a patient’s social networks. Having close family or friends near to the patient, although it could sometimes be a hindrance, would ultimately improve the environment for the patient. Since the goal of nursing was to eradicate an illness, she believed that nurses should heed what was being said by visitors and encourage positive interactions.

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.

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Adapting and Creating Healing Environments: Lessons Nurses Have Learned From the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of this article is to discuss how nurse leaders influenced facility design decisions, quickly evaluated the outcomes, and rapidly adapted the environment based on their own observations, assessments, changing regulatory requirements, and the needs of patients, nurses, and the caring workforce. Nurses must validate their clinical voice in the future design of healthcare environments based on the adaptations discovered and instituted during COVID-19. Many lessons were learned and physical adaptations made during the pandemic. While the pandemic spotlighted the emotional and physical stress and strain on nurses, it is important to consider all adaptations made in the physical environment to improve care delivery.

• • This article discusses how nurse leaders influenced facility design decisions, evaluated the outcomes, and rapidly adapted the environment during the recent pandemic.
• • All environmental adapations made in the physical environment should improve care delivery and evidence based design.
• • Lessons from the pandemic can be an opportunity to create education, expertise, and advocacy to reinstate the physical design of the healthcare environment into the domain of healthy work environments.

The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly impacted hospitals, nurses and all care providers, and our society as a whole. The eyes of our nation and the world have clearly been on nurses who have “suited up” and gone into battle with an unseen, novel virus claiming the lives of patients and the care providers themselves. The actual care environment and the design of patient rooms and care units were suddenly recognized as inadequate to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. The design was impacting nursing care, and immediate changes were required to adapt acute care patient rooms into intensive care rooms and negative pressure isolation rooms, and to create changes to mechanical systems to exhaust air to the outside of the hospitals. Nurse leaders were quickly involved in identifying alternative sites for care such as triage tents in parking lots, adapting existing space to support nurses and other providers in their care of patients, and creating space for providers to don and doff personal protective equipment (PPE) safely. The purpose of this article is to discuss how nurse leaders influenced facility design decisions, quickly evaluated the outcomes, and rapidly adapted the environment based on their own observations, assessments, changing regulatory requirements, and the needs of patients, nurses, and the caring workforce.

Historically, nursing has a long and rich heritage in health care design. Florence Nightingale was a pioneer in linking the physical environment to the outcome of her patients. Observing the deplorable conditions of the military hospital in Scutari and the mental and emotional status of the soldiers, Florence chronicled her thoughts in Notes on Nursing regarding the connections between hygiene, clean water, light, fresh air, and sanitation on the soldier’s outcomes. 1 , 2 Sometime in history, nurses became silent in taking a leadership role and advocating for the importance of the physical environment for patients and families and their own work environment. Florence Nightingale’s legacy provides a strong foundation for leading the design of the care and work environment. Nurses need to reclaim the physical environment as part of the domain of caring.

The science of health care design is a maturing science and continues to validate the observations and changes Florence made to improve the caring environment. Research design principles and the implementation of evidence-based design aligns well with our nursing evidence-based practice and the nursing process. Nurse leaders can create new knowledge and evidence to apply to practice. Nightingale pioneered this practice through environmental alteration, where she put the patient and staff in optimal conditions and created the healthy work environment.

Nurse leaders should engage in all aspects of creating healthy work environments where form follows function. In other words, the physical environment should support nurses to fully function within their abilities to provide quality care to patients. Creating and supporting a healthy work environment is the responsibility of all nurses. 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. Long cluttered hallways, poor documentation areas without regard to ergonomics, inadequate or a lack of respite areas, and challenging unit layouts can all contribute to nurse fatigue, distraction, injury, and work dissatisfaction. The pandemic has brought even more of a focus on the work environment and the impact it has on nurses.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought about unprecedented stress and strain on nurses. Although nurses are the most trusted profession according to Gallup polls ( https://news.gallup.com/poll/328136/ethics-ratings-rise-medical-workers-teachers.aspx ), the level of influence and decision-making power in hospitals does not match the public’s praise. Health systems are shifting and in a state of chaos. It is time for nurses to lead and drive the change and transformation the health care system desperately needs. Throughout the pandemic, nurses have stepped into a frontline leadership role to help health system employees navigate through this crisis.

Examples of Nurses Leading in Crisis

Sarah Francis, MSN, RN, NEA-BC, EDAC, served on the alternative care location task force for Atrium Health System in North Carolina. She helped evaluate potential health care sites in the Charlotte area, including a former nursing school building, an existing ambulatory care clinic, and potential tent set-up sites. Francis agrees nurses are trained to lead in this capacity. She credits the staff for coming up with innovation solutions such as a grab-and-go grocery store set-up in the cafeteria for employees to use, delivered meals for staff and nurses on carts to the floor, and the use of video baby monitors. 3

Karin Henderson, Executive Director of Strategic Management, was asked to transform an existing vacated women’s hospital into an intensive care unit facility. In 4 weeks, an interdisciplinary team transformed a former maternity unit to meet the needs of patients with COVID-19. The focus on the transformation included safety, infection prevention, respiratory therapy, and negative pressure rooms. Henderson encouraged and empowered frontline leaders and staff to contribute to the design of this new surge unit. 4

Nurses at University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center identified dozens of ways to reduce the risk of COVID-19 exposure. 5 Intravenous (IV) pumps and ventilator control panels were moved outside patients’ rooms for nurses to monitor the devices and the patient without nurses going inside the room. Extending the IV pole and long tubing into the hallway was a solution created by nurses. Designating a nurse as a runner allowed nurses to avoid making multiple trips in and out of patients’ rooms.

Two nurses in Sao Carlos, Brazil, filled 2 latex gloves with warm water and tied them around the hand of a patient with COVID-19 who was isolated without family present. People have called it “Hands of Love” or the “Hand of God.” 6

Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Adaptation Theory

As asserted by Florence Nightingale’s Environmental Adaptation Theory, the nurses in the previous examples adapted and transformed their work environment to create the best healing space possible for their patients. 7 , 8

Nightingale was aware of the impact of the built environment based on her direct observations of the patients in the care environment. All her reflections were from her acute observations, the surrounding environment, and the deplorable conditions present. Her model can be viewed as a systems model focused on the client in the center, surrounded by aspects of the environment which should be all in balance. When one component is out of alignment or balance, the client/patient will experience stress or “dis-ease.” To bring the order back into alignment/balance, an adaptation must be made. Environmental alteration is the vehicle in which the transformation or change takes place. These changes place the patient in the best possible condition for nature to act, therefore facilitating the laws of nature. 8 Nightingale blended a mixture of theoretical and clinical experiences as part of her practice. The environment is the umbrella concept in the Nightingale theory of nursing. She adamantly believed the environment could be altered in such a manner as to improve conditions allowing natural laws to facilitate healing.

Nightingale also developed polar graphs to help document her observations showing how deplorable environments led to poor health and disease during the Crimean War. She was able to reveal how solders were dying from infection at a much greater rate than from their battle wounds. Her documentation and use of data caused the government to expand their funding of hospitals to improve conditions.

Nightingale’s definition of the environment includes anything, through manipulation, that assists in putting the individual in the best possible condition for nature to act. 1 The environment has internal and external components. Nightingale was concerned about elements entering the body such as food, water, and medication. Other concerns were ambient elements such as ventilation, light, noise control, visual stimulation, and room temperature. Nightingale strongly advocated for ventilation as 1 of the most important elements to promote healing. In a critical analysis of Nightingale’s theory, researchers describe how Nightingale considered the environment as an essential tool in the healing process with the components of the internal and external elements critical to optimal outcomes. 9 The authors continue to describe Nightingale’s belief that health goes beyond the absence of disease.

Evidence-based Design—today’s Modern “Nursing Notes”

An emerging body of science aligns with Nightingale’s theory and links the design of the physical environment to staff and patient safety, well-being, and other outcomes. It is important for health care professionals, particularly nurses, to understand how evidence-based design supports and creates healthy work environments. In their landmark study in the paper “The Role of the Physical Environment in the Hospital of the 21st Center: A Once-in-a Lifetime Opportunity,” Ulrich and Zimring 10 clearly documented and linked the physical environment to patient and staff outcomes. Their study showed how evidence-based health care designs promote environments and are not only efficient, but also therapeutic. Efficient design based on evidence and research findings enhance patients’ experiences and staff efficiency, improve family involvement, and are restorative for staff. The Nursing Institute for Healthcare Design (NIHD) was formed to support nurses in developing best practices and evidence-based design for health care. NIHD inspires and educates nurses about health care design and construction. NIHD provides resources, best practices, and current trends to continually adapt the environment to improve outcomes.

Implications from Practice: COVID-19 Adaptations

Nurses must validate their clinical voice in the future design of health care environments based on the adaptations discovered and instituted during COVID-19. Many lessons were learned and physical adaptations made during the pandemic. Although the pandemic spotlighted the emotional and physical stress and strain on nurses, it is important to consider all adaptations made in the physical environment to improve care delivery. The following is an environmental checklist:

• • Consider creating separate clean and contaminated entry and exits.
• • Wayfinding and signage are important to manage for staff and patient flow.
• • Create one-way flow to and from critical areas such as the entry, lobby, access to the emergency department, imaging, and clinics—anywhere patients may be screened.
• • Consider location of handwashing and sanitations stations at all entries and exits.
• • Temperature screening and badging for those entering the facility.

Public and Family Waiting Areas

• • Create flexible waiting area furniture layouts to allow people to be spaced out appropriately during a pandemic.
• • Size the waiting areas to be able to separate people either individually or in small family groupings when needed.
• • Consider how barriers might be used in these areas, for example, how might you locate large sheets of plastic or Plexiglass to help separate individuals.
• • Plan how family members will be able to get food and water, for example through a hospital-based application food-on-demand service.
• • Size the dining area to be able to separate people either individually or in small family groupings when needed.

Patient Rooms

• • Consider the use of private rooms whenever possible.
• • Consider how many patient rooms should be designed to be an airborne infectious isolation (AII) room on each floor and/or if you would like to dedicate one unit to use as an AII unit in a pandemic situation.
• • Consider how best to accommodate isolation supplies, for each patient room and for adequate storage on each unit.
• • Consider monitoring patients with equipment outside the room using an extension for IV tubing and ventilator tubing, and/or extension cords for equipment.
• • Team nursing was the care delivery model instituted during COVID to assist with decreasing the exposure of contamination by staff.

Patient Units

• • Separate learning and development and cancer treatment — Due to the compromised nature of both newborn and prematurely born babies, and people who are immunosuppressed due to cancer treatment, it is advisable to have separate entries to these services during a pandemic of this nature. This includes not sharing lobbies, waiting areas, elevators, or other amenities.

Diagnostic Areas

• • Consider the path to bring patients here from a clinic exam room, the emergency department, or the inpatient units, minimizing cross traffic as much as possible.
• • Discuss the need to have an AII diagnostic room/rooms.
• • As with any department consider what is needed for PPE storage needs, both outside of each room and in the department in general.

Operating Rooms

• • Consider the path to bring patients here from the emergency department or the inpatient units, minimizing cross traffic as much as possible.
• • Discuss the need to be able convert each patient space (post-anesthesia care unit, prep, or holding area) into a private space with separated air handling.
• • Discuss how many of these patient spaces need to be AII rooms.

Emergency Department

• • Consider one-way flow to and from the emergency department—or anywhere patients may be screened.
• • Consider location of handwashing and sanitation stations at all entry and exits locations.
• • Discuss the need to be able convert each patient space to be private.

Communication

• • Staff placed large photos of themselves to help connect and make care more personal. Mask and face shields depersonalized the caregiver.
• • FaceTime for staff, patient, and family can be used to improve communication.
• • Baby monitors can be used to facilitate communication.
• • Nurses can write on the glass to communicate with staff and patients.

Parking Lot and Alternative Care Sites

• • Create a masterplan for adjacent or offsite testing, patient care, and surge planning.

Respite Areas

The notion of respite areas has become one of the most critical needs during the pandemic. Nurse resilience and well-being have been compromised during COVID-19. No one could have predicted the effect of the patient volume, loss of life, and staff safety issues during the pandemic. Although caregiver wellness has been a subject in the past, a fresh discussion is necessary by nurse leaders and some industry standards should be instituted.

Many health care settings have created respite rooms for their nurses, whereas others blame space issues or budget issues for opting out of respite space. The pandemic has necessitated the need for nurses to work in highly stressful physical and emotional environments. Research has shown restorative spaces improve clinician well-being and resilience (Nejati et al, 2016). 11 With nursing burnout at an all-time high, staff agree respite spaces must include ample daylight and a view to the outside, and should be separated from the nurses’ station and staff lounge. 11 The American Nurses Association recently launched 2 important initiatives, Healthy Nurse Healthy Nation 12 and the Well-Being Initiative, 13 to provide resources and support to nurses across the United States. A curated list of ideas for creating restorative spaces and practices can be seen in Table 1 . Developing a culture of well-being starts with leadership and is vital to the success of these practices.

Table 1

Restorative Spaces and Practices for Nurses Post COVID

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.

Hypothesis Definition (Science)

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• Ph.D., Biomedical Sciences, University of Tennessee at Knoxville
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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.

Hypothesis Versus Theory

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.

• Theory Definition in Science
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The scientific method and climate change: How scientists know

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.

“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, and I use it to learn something about how the world works.”- Josh Willis, NASA oceanographer and Oceans Melting Greenland principal investigator

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 scientific method’s steps

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.

• Form a hypothesis (a statement that an experiment can test)
• Make observations (conduct experiments and gather data)
• Analyze and interpret the data
• Draw conclusions
• Publish results that can be validated with further experiments (rinse and repeat)

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 weight of all of this information taken together points to the single consistent fact that humans and our activity are warming the planet." - Josh Willis, NASA oceanographer and Oceans Melting Greenland principal investigator

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.

• 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. OMG will also collect data on the sea floor’s shape and depth, which determines how much warm water can reach any given glacier.
• Analyze and interpret data As the OMG crew and scientists collect data around 27,000 miles (over 43,000 kilometers) of Greenland coastline over that five-year period, each year scientists will analyze the data to see how much the oceans warmed or cooled and how the ice changed in response.
• Draw conclusions In one OMG study , scientists discovered that many Greenland glaciers extend deeper (some around 1,000 feet, or about 300 meters) beneath the ocean’s surface than once thought, making them quite vulnerable to the warming ocean. They also discovered that Greenland’s west coast is generally more vulnerable than its east coast.
• Publish results Scientists like Willis write up the results, send in the paper for peer review (a process in which other experts in the field anonymously critique the submission), and then those peers determine whether the information is correct and valuable enough to be published in an academic journal, such as Nature or Earth and Planetary Science Letters . Then it becomes another contribution to the well-substantiated body of climate change knowledge, which evolves and grows stronger as scientists gather and confirm more evidence. Other scientists can take that information further by conducting their own studies to better understand sea level rise.

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.

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What is a scientific hypothesis?

It's the initial building block in the scientific method.

Hypothesis basics

What makes a hypothesis testable.

• Types of hypotheses
• Hypothesis versus theory

Additional resources

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:

• If garlic repels fleas, then a dog that is given garlic every day will not get fleas.
• If sugar causes cavities, then people who eat a lot of candy may be more prone to cavities.
• If ultraviolet light can damage the eyes, then maybe this light can cause blindness.

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.

Types of scientific hypotheses

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.

Scientific theory vs. scientific hypothesis

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." 

• Read more about writing a hypothesis, from the American Medical Writers Association.
• Find out why a hypothesis isn't always necessary in science, from The American Biology Teacher.
• Learn about null and alternative hypotheses, from Prof. Essa on YouTube .

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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Apocalyptic environmentalism

Emancipatory environmentalism.

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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 .

Intellectual underpinnings

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.

Anthropocentric schools of thought

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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• Published: 03 September 2024

Leveraging the link between pro-environmental behaviour and well-being to encourage sustainable lifestyle shifts

• Michael M. Prinzing 1 &
• Kate Laffan 2  

npj Climate Action volume  3 , Article number:  73 ( 2024 ) Cite this article

Metrics details

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.

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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?

What do Americans believe about the effects of pro-environmental behaviour on well-being?

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).

Do such beliefs predict how often people enact pro-environmental behaviours?

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).

Do messages about the effects of pro-environmental behaviours on well-being motivate pro-environmental action?

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.

Participants

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.

Procedure and measures

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).

Procedure and Measures

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 availability

Data are available online: https://osf.io/g3pu2/ .

Code availability

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.

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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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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-024-00154-w

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