Empathy with nature promotes pro-environmental attitudes in preschool children.

This study aimed to explore whether empathy with nature (i.e., the tendency to understand and share the emotional experience of the natural world) contributes to pro-environmental attitudes in early childhood. In a correlational investigation (Study 1), 138 (Mage = 57.78 months) preschool children completed a battery of tasks to measure their pro-environmental attitudes, empathy with nature, and empathy with humans. We found that empathy with nature positively predicts pro-environmental attitudes, even beyond the predictive power of empathy with humans. In a quasi-experimental investigation (Study 2), 46 children from two parallel classes in the same preschool were recruited as the intervention (n = 23, Mage = 66.74 months) and control (n = 23, Mage = 67.61 months) groups. An intervention session that aimed to induce empathy with nature was applied to the intervention group, whereas an active control teaching session was applied to the control group. After the intervention, the intervention group demonstrated greater pro-environmental attitudes than did the control group. Together, our studies provide converging evidence that empathy with nature promotes pro-environmental attitudes in early childhood, further implying the value of integrating empathy with nature in early childhood environmental education.

Chinese calligraphic handwriting practice promotes positive affect in adolescents: Converging evidence from correlational and experimental designs.

Chinese calligraphic handwriting (CCH) practice has proven to be beneficial to several aspects of psychological health and has been considered a complementary therapy for mental disorders. However, less is known about whether CCH practice benefits an individual's positive affect, a core component of affective well-being. Therefore, we examined this question in Chinese adolescents by combining correlational and experimental methods. In Study 1 (N = 1460), we found that high school students who practiced CCH had higher positive affect in their daily lives than those who did not practice CCH. In Study 2, a training experiment was conducted with college students, who were randomly assigned to receive either CCH training or no treatment. A six-day short-term CCH training led to a significant benefit in positive affect in the training group (N = 23) relative to the control group (N = 27). Together, our study provides converging evidence that CCH practice can promote positive affect in adolescents, further supporting the promotion of CCH in mental health practice.