Evoked pleasure and approach-avoidance in response to pollution

Abstract

From year-to-year, environment is becoming one of the major concerns of human societies. Few studies have investigated the biological processes involved in environmental scene perception. Here, we initiate a line of research by beginning to study emotional processes involved in this perception. Our results demonstrate a clear distinction between “Clean” and “Polluted” environments according to the pleasure and approach desire ratings they induced. Moreover, women expressed higher pleasure in the “Clean” condition, as did older participants. Finally, rural scenes induced higher pleasure in participants than urban ones.