Into the Wild: The Effects of 360° Immersive Nature Videos on Feelings of Commitment to the Environment

ABSTRACT

Pro-environmental attitudes and behavior are declining as people become increasingly disconnected from nature. The growing disconnection from nature is thought to be due to cultural shifts, such as the increasing use of electronic media. However, mediated nature contact through new forms of media may also strengthen feelings of environmental connectedness. Therefore, this experimental study (N = 56) investigated whether viewing immersive 360° nature videos can influence individuals’ commitment to the environment. According to the theory of spatial presence, immersive videos are perceived as unmediated nature experiences. The results indicate that immersive nature videos promote stronger feelings of spatial presence and commitment to the environment than regular nature videos. The participants’ need for affect was incorporated as a moderator of the impact of immersive nature videos on commitment to the environment, but a negative interaction was observed in contrast to the hypothesized effect.

KEYWORDS:

• Immersive videos
• indirect nature experiences
• commitment to environment
• need for affect
• virtual reality

Acknowledgements

The authors confirm that the manuscript has been submitted solely to this journal and is not published, in press, or submitted elsewhere. This work was not supported by grants or funding. There are no financial interests or benefits dependent on this manuscript. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, PB, upon reasonable request.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Priska Breves http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4074-8027

Notes

1 The avoidance subscale of the NFA shortscale by Appel et al. (2012) was additionally included, but removed by reviewer request.