The Impact of Nature Exposure and Crowdedness Perception on Children's Prosocial Behaviour

For both adult and youth populations, research suggests that prosocial behaviors are positively influenced by nature exposure. The aesthetic of vegetated spaces, which means their physical features, seems to play an important role in the impact of nature on prosocial behaviors [2]. However, these spaces also include a whole "social" aspect due, for example, to the presence or absence of people. The present study examines the impact of nature and crowdedness perception on prosocial behaviors of children aged between 8 and 13 years, by randomly exposing participants (N = 66) to a picture of a vegetated/un-vegetated low-/high- crowded environment. We assumed that children exposed to vegetated (vs. un-vegetated) environments and low-crowded (vs. high-crowded) environments will behave more socially. We also assumed that the impact of vegetated environments on prosocial behaviors will be stronger when these environments are low crowded (interaction between vegetation condition and crowdedness condition). Hypotheses were tested using an ANCOVA and controlling for. Results show no significant impact of vegetation on prosocial behavior and no moderating effect of crowdedness perception. However, results show a significant impact of crowdedness perception on prosocial behavior, with children in low-crowded condition showing more prosocial behaviors than children in high-crowded condition. This result underlines the importance of seeing vegetated environments as places meeting needs of isolation, and not solely as places of public gathering.