Viewing nature pictures helps adolescents recover from social exclusion

An experimental study in Spain found that exposure to social ostracism reduces the positive affect and perceived social competence of adolescents. However, both of these characteristics were restored in adolescents who watched pictures of nature scenes afterwards. The paper was published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology.

Social ostracism is the deliberate exclusion of an individual or group from social interactions, relationships, or participation in a community. It can take subtle forms, such as being ignored or left out, or more explicit forms like shunning, public rejection, or expulsion from a group.

Ostracism has been practiced throughout history in many societies, including in ancient city-states, religious communities, traditional villages, and modern organizations. In some cultures and groups, such as tightly knit religious sects or honor-based communities, ostracism is used as a mechanism of social control and norm enforcement. In contemporary settings, it can occur in workplaces, schools, online communities, and social media through exclusion, silence, or coordinated ignoring.

Social ostracism frustrates the basic human need for belonging, reduces self-esteem, and damages a sense of meaningful existence. Even short episodes of exclusion can produce strong emotional responses such as distress, anger, sadness, and anxiety. Prolonged or repeated ostracism is associated with depression, loneliness, reduced cognitive performance, and increased stress-related health problems. In some cases, ostracized individuals may withdraw socially, while in others they may respond with aggression or attempts to regain acceptance at any cost.

Study author Adrián Moll and his colleagues note that previous studies indicated that contact with nature can ameliorate the adverse consequences of daily difficulties. Contact with nature was found to enhance a sense of being away from daily demands, and to reduce stress and anxiety. They conducted a study aiming to explore whether exposure to nature could help ameliorate the adverse effects of social ostracism.

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Study participants were 304 adolescents from two secondary schools in Spain. Approximately 47% of them were male. Their ages ranged between 12 and 18 years.

Study participants were divided into 6 groups, each of which underwent a different combination of experimental conditions. Three groups were exposed to social ostracism, while the other three experienced social inclusion (the opposite of ostracism). Within each of these sets of three groups, one group viewed pictures of nature after the first treatment (which was ostracism or inclusion, depending on the group), one group viewed pictures of urban areas, while the third group viewed neutral pictures (e.g., an arrow, a pen, mathematical symbols).

The study was conducted in participants’ classes. At the start, each participating student was asked to write the names of five classmates he/she would choose to work with in a group on a piece of paper and hand it to their teacher. The teacher was cooperating with the researchers and left the classroom after collecting the papers. The teacher pretended that he/she was going outside to read the papers and match students with classmate choices.

In reality, the feedback participating students received did not depend on those papers. When the teacher returned, students assigned to the ostracism group were simply informed that “Almost no one in the class wants to group with you to work on the class project: your name has been written by less than three people”. Students assigned to the social inclusion group were told that “Everybody wants to group with you for the class project: a lot of people have written down your name”. After reading this feedback, depending on the group, students viewed pictures assigned to their group on a PowerPoint presentation (10 seconds per picture, 14 pictures in total).

While the teacher was away, study participants completed assessments of affect (the PANAS scale), perceived social competence (“I find it easy to make friends among my classmates”), and directed attention (the Cancellation task). After receiving information on social ostracism or inclusion, participants completed these assessments again, but also an assessment of social pain.

They completed assessments of affect, perceived social competence, and directed attention once more after viewing their assigned picture, but also an assessment of psychological restoration. Directed attention was measured because stressful experiences (such as social ostracism) can be expected to reduce attentional resources. Study authors wanted to see whether this would happen and whether exposure to nature would restore it.

Results showed that being exposed to social ostracism reduced the positive affect and perceived social competence of these participants. However, it had no effects on directed attention. Exposure to nature restored both positive affect and perceived social competence. The other two types of pictures did not have this restorative effect. Directed attention improved regardless of the type of pictures participants viewed, and study authors attribute this to a learning effect.

“Altogether, these findings suggest that visual nature exposure can be a potential positive mechanism for adolescents to recover diminished resources due to social ostracism,” study authors concluded.

The study contributes to the scientific understanding of the psychological effects of contact with nature. However, the study participants were exclusively secondary school students. Effects on other demographic groups might differ.

Additionally, participants experienced just a single, brief, experimentally induced ostracism event (the feedback about being selected or not). This is unlike real-world ostracism where people usually experience many different ostracism cues of different types and during prolonged periods. Study authors also note that the study was conducted in class and that it is possible that students perceived social cues from their classmates that might have sent a different message compared to the ostracism feedback.

The paper, “Exposure to nature scenes mitigates the adverse effects of adolescents’ social ostracism,” was authored by Adrián Moll, Silvia Collado, Eleanor Ratcliffe, Miguel Ángel Sorrel, and José Antonio Corraliza.