OTTAWA -- Happiness takes on a
whole new meaning when it comes
to Ottawa psychology researcher
John Zelenski.
Zelenski, the head of Carleton University's
"happiness lab," is just starting
to get comfortable with happiness.
Not the mental state, but the word itself
used to describe his line of scientific inquiry,
a field of study that has gathered
steam in the past decade.
Recently, that inquiry had led Zelenski
to ask how nature makes us happy.
And whether the human happiness generated
by admiring a sunset or walking
through the woods can help save the
planet.
There are also policy implications.
For example, should nations create
a quantifiable "happiness indicator" to
be used next to economic indicators as
a way to track to progress? Should governments
offer incentives to work less
if it makes workers happier?
Rates of depression have increased
substantially over the past generation
and depression is poised to become the
next big epidemic.
Just this week, the Canadian Mental
Health Association urged employers to
take more responsibility for the mental
health of employees, citing a Conference
Board of Canada figure that found
workers who reported a high degree of
stress balancing work and family life
missed 7.2 days of work each year --
double the absentee rate of their lessstressed
fellows.
Zelenski's nature research led him to
look at the symbiotic relationship between
nature and human happiness.
People connected to nature are happy.
People who are happy live lives of
ecologically friendly "voluntary simplicity."
It's an endless cycle.
At the same time, people are more
motivated to change their behaviour
because of a desire to explore and
learn than because a municipality or
the federal government mandates them
to live eco-friendly lives. Being environmentally
responsible doesn't have
to be about sacrifice and deprivation
because happiness can motivate people
to change, says Zelenski.
To explore that, Zelenski's team developed
a questionnaire called a "nature-
relatedness" tool and recruited
hundreds of undergraduates and 145 executives
from the federal government
and the private sector to determine
how their scores in nature-relatedness
compared with their happiness.
Here's what they found so far:
. People who felt connected to nature
also had a sense of purpose in life and
more self-acceptance. Both contribute
to happiness.
. Nature-related people spend more
time outdoors. This wasn't a surprise.
But nature-related people were also
more agreeable, open to experience and
conscientious. They were also more extroverted,
but this may mean they are
more likely to be thrill-seekers, and not
necessarily more sociable.
. Taking a course in biology or geography
may help make you happy.
The Carleton researchers followed
two subgroups of students within a
large group of 170 undergraduates. Of
these, 94 had enrolled in nature-related
courses such as environmental science,
earth science or natural history.
The other 76 students, who were not
taking a nature-related course, were
the control group.
The students in the environmental
courses were both more nature-related
and happy. Analysis suggested that
changes in nature-relatedness over the
course of the term accounted for improved
happiness over time.
Meanwhile, the control group declined
significantly in nature-relatedness
as the term wore on from fall to
winter. Perhaps even non-nature lovers
are susceptible to lack of contact with
the outdoors over the winter.
. Those who identified themselves
as environmentalists and ardent vegetarians
fared about the same on the
nature-relatedness scale as people who
enjoyed hunting and fishing. The two
groups come to nature from different
angles and perhaps even have polar opposite
political views, but enjoyment
of nature made them happier in both
cases, says Zelenski.
"They're certainly different, but the
environment is the source of happiness."
So do people love nature because they
are happy, or are they happy because
they love nature?
"At this point in our research, both
causes seem possible. And both could
be true," says Zelenski.
-- Canwest News Service
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