Experiencing Nature to Satisfy Basic Psychological Needs in Parenting: A Quasi-Experiment in Family Shelters

Elise Peters, Jolanda Maas, Dieuwke Hovinga, Nicole Van den Bogerd and Carlo Schuengel
Additional contact information
Elise Peters: Department of Education, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, 2333 CK Leiden, The Netherlands
Jolanda Maas: Department of Clinical, Neuro and Developmental Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dieuwke Hovinga: Department of Education, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, 2333 CK Leiden, The Netherlands
Nicole Van den Bogerd: Department of Education, University of Applied Sciences Leiden, 2333 CK Leiden, The Netherlands
Carlo Schuengel: Amsterdam Public Health Research Institute, Section of Clinical Child and Family Studies, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 1081 BT Amsterdam, The Netherlands

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 22, 1-15

Abstract: Finding fulfillment of basic psychological needs may be difficult for parents living in shelters after becoming homeless or after escaping violence. This study tested if experiencing nature was associated with the basic psychological needs of parents in shelters. Need satisfaction and need frustration were measured among parents in shelters ( N = 160), with one measurement in the standard indoor context of the shelter and one measurement while experiencing nature. Experiencing nature was associated with enhanced need satisfaction ( d = 0.28) and reduced need frustration ( d = −0.24). The effect was especially pronounced for parents with young children. Our findings suggest that the physical environment matters for parents’ basic psychological need fulfillment as they interact with their children in the context of sheltering. This finding opens a potential avenue for supporting parental functioning and resilience in the face of risk if these effects were to be replicated across settings using controlled experimental designs. At the very least, the findings may be discussed with practitioners and parents in the context of making shelter life and work more conducive to mental health and family functioning.

Keywords: natural environment; parents; shelter; abused women; homeless families; basic psychological needs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8657/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/22/8657/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:22:p:8657-:d:448892

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().