Ecological empathy

[2] Kim-Pong Tam developed a method of measuring individuals' dispositional empathy with nature (DEN), and has demonstrated its robust connection to conservation behavior.

The DEN scale has been used by psychologists and educators in a variety of contexts since it was developed, to measure empathy towards nature in both students and adults, and has been translated and used internationally.

Sample items (Mayer & Franz, 2004, p. 513) include: Across a number of studies, higher rates of ecological empathy have been found to correlate with increased conservation attitudes and behavior.

Wang and colleagues found that inducing empathy for nature (through photographs and videos) led to increased pro-environmental behaviors.

The study found that empathy towards nature led participants to make a commitment to the environment (a mediating factor), which in turn prompted increased environmental behavior.

Based on Daniel Batson’s Model of Altruism, Jaime Berenguer designed a study to test the effects of empathy on moral reasoning.

Participants who were prompted to practice empathy when reading a passage about an environmental dilemma were able to construct significantly more moral arguments for their positions than those in the neutral condition.

[33] Gary Lynne and colleagues found that “empathy nudging”, when combined with financial incentives, can have a powerful impact on farmers’ business decisions regarding sustainable agriculture.

[35] Empathy will predict environmental actions only to the extent that it is able to transcend outgroup differences (natives vs. newcomers within a space) and geographic distance.

As a result, individuals develop a deeper understanding of environmental issues and have the skills to make informed and responsible decisions”.

He critiques environmental education which focus too much on rules and the cultivation of systemic knowledge, and argues that “Nature programs should invite children to make mud pies, climb trees, catch frogs, paint their faces with charcoal, get their hands dirty and their feet wet.

Other popular environmental children’s books (as cited by Holm[48]) include The Lorax, Washing the Willow Tree Loon,[49] Hoot[50] Flush,[51] The Wheel on the School, The Missing 'Gator of Gumbo Limbo,[52] The Empty Lot,[53] The Great Kapok Tree, Just a Dream,[54] and The Forever Forest: Kids Save a Tropical Treasure.

[57] Numerous films have been created to draw attention to current environmental issues and promote ecological empathy among audiences.

Notable examples are: The 11th Hour, Angry Inuk, Anthropocene: The Human Epoch, Food, Inc., An Inconvenient Truth, The Cove, The Redwoods, The Story of Stuff, and The True Cost.

Jessica Blythe and colleagues studied the use of future scenarios about the ocean (presented in either written or virtual reality format) and found post-empathy levels to be significantly higher in both conditions.

Projecting and combining their own emotions with that of their characters, storytelling participants can develop empathy for environmental actors and the planet itself.

Indigenous stories, time spent outdoors to play freely with one another, and the building of relationship provide a foundation for empathic learning.

In many Indigenous cultures, environmental knowledge is passed on through siblings, peers, and elders—through storytelling and powerful rituals and ceremonies (in contrast to the traditional lecture format of modern schools).

Celidwen and Keltner explain, “Indigenous Peoples recover and recontextualize stories in ongoing co-creation and participation, thus strengthening identity and purpose, and restoring community bonds.

Wharton et al.[16] have identified six practices adults can use with children to support their empathy towards marine life: Sarah Webber and colleagues found that zoo visitors observing orangutans interacting with a digital interface (projected on the floor of their enclosure) responded with cognitive, affective, and motor empathy towards the orangutans.

[15] In their small-scale evaluation of a zoo-based nature preschool, Ernst and Budnik found that children’s levels of empathy towards both humans and animals increased over the course of the school year.

For wild animals, they found significant increases in emotional sharing and empathic concern, but not in the cognitive (perspective-taking) component.

[70] A growing body of research suggests that humane education programs, especially those involving human-animal interactions, facilitates the development of empathy in children.

[84] Dan Yue and colleagues designed educational materials including texts depicting the poaching of animals in an anthropomorphic way, such as one written from the perspective of a tiger cub whose mother was killed by poachers.