The human relationship with nature : development and culture / Peter H. Kahn, Jr.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kahn, Peter H., Jr., author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Environmental psychology.

Nature--Psychological aspects--Cross-cultural studies.

Nature.

Nature--Psychological aspects.

Genre:

Cross-cultural studies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xiv, 281 pages)

Other Title:

MIT Press CogNet.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. : MIT Press, [1999]

System Details:

text file

Summary:

Urgent environmental problems call for vigorous research and theory on how humans develop a relationship with nature. In a series of original research projects, Peter Kahn answers this call. For the past eight years, Kahn has studied children, young adults, and parents in diverse geographical locations, ranging from an economically impoverished black community in Houston to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon. Kahn seeks answers to the following questions: How do people value nature, and how do they reason morally about environmental degradation? Do children have a deep connection to the natural world that gets severed by modern society? Or do such connections emerge, if at all, later in life? How does culture affect environmental commitments and sensibilities? Are there universal features in the human relationship with nature? Kahn's empirical and theoretical findings draw on current work in psychology, biology, environmental behavior, education, policy, and moral development.

Contents:

1 The Biophilia Hypothesis: Empirical Support and Amplifying Evidence 9

2 The Biophilia Hypothesis: Conceptual Difficulties and Empirical Limitations 25

3 The Psychological Framework: Structure and Development 45

4 Obligatory and Discretionary Morality 63

5 Structural-Developmental Methods 77

6 The Houston Child Study 95

7 The Houston Parent Study 115

8 The Prince William Sound Study 129

9 The Brazilian Amazon Study 147

10 The Portugal Study 167

11 Epistemology, Culture, and the Universal 193

12 Environmental Education 211.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 253-275) and index.

Print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Kahn, Peter H. Human relationship with nature.

ISBN:

0262276666

9780262276665

Access Restriction:

Restricted for use by site license.