title: Nature gives us strength: exposure to nature counteracts ego-depletion.
abstract: Previous research rarely investigated the role of physical environment in counteracting ego-depletion. In the present research, we hypothesized that exposure to natural environment counteracts ego-depletion. Three experiments were conducted to test this hypothesis. In Experiment 1, initially depleted participants who viewed pictures of nature scenes showed greater persistence on a subsequent anagram task than those who were given a rest period. Experiment 2 expanded upon this finding by showing that natural environment enhanced logical reasoning performance after ego-depleting task. Experiment 3 adopted a two- (depletion vs. no-depletion) -by-two (nature exposure vs. urban exposure) factorial design. We found that nature exposure moderated the effect of depletion on anagram task performance. Taken together, the present studies offer a viable and novel strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of ego-depletion.
authors.affiliation: a The University of Hong Kong.
authors.forename: Jason T
authors.initials: JT
authors.lastname: Chow
authors.forename: Shun
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Lau
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D004532:Ego; D004777:Environment; D056344:Executive Function / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D019368:Nature; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: natural environment; regulatory depletion; restoration; self-regulation