Biophilia: Does Visual Contact with Nature Impact on Health and Well-Being?

Bjørn Grinde and Grete Grindal Patil
Additional contact information
Bjørn Grinde: Norwegian Institute of Public Health, PO Box 4404 Nydalen, 0403 Oslo, Norway
Grete Grindal Patil: Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Box 5003, N-1432 Ås, Norway

IJERPH, 2009, vol. 6, issue 9, 1-12

Abstract: It is concluded that an environment devoid of Nature may act as a "discord", i.e., have a negative effect. While the term mismatch is used for any difference between present living conditions and the environment of evolutionary adaptation, discords are mismatches with a potentially undesirable impact on health or quality of life. The problem is partly due to the visual absence of plants, and may be ameliorated by adding elements of Nature, e.g., by creating parks, by offering a view through windows, and by potted plants. The conclusion is based on an evaluation of some fifty relevant empirical studies.

Keywords: biophilia; discord; quality of life; health; evolutionary psychology; plants; indoor environment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2009
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (30)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/9/2332/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/6/9/2332/ (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:6:y:2009:i:9:p:2332-2343:d:5645

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 ().