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Utah State University

Psychology Faculty Publications

Decision-making

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Full-Text Articles in Education

Promoting Healthy Decision-Making Via Natural Environment Exposure: Initial Evidence And Future Directions, Meredith S. Berry, Meredith A. Repke, Alexander L. Metcalf, Kerry Jordan Jul 2020

Promoting Healthy Decision-Making Via Natural Environment Exposure: Initial Evidence And Future Directions, Meredith S. Berry, Meredith A. Repke, Alexander L. Metcalf, Kerry Jordan

Psychology Faculty Publications

Research within psychology and other disciplines has shown that exposure to natural environments holds extensive physiological and psychological benefits. Adding to the health and cognitive benefits of natural environments, evidence suggests that exposure to nature also promotes healthy human decision-making. Unhealthy decision-making (e.g., smoking, non-medical prescription opioid misuse) and disorders associated with lack of impulse control [e.g., tobacco use, opioid use disorder (OUD)], contribute to millions of preventable deaths annually (i.e., 6 million people die each year of tobacco-related illness worldwide, deaths from opioids from 2002 to 2017 have more than quadrupled in the United States alone). Impulsive and unhealthy …


Delay Discounting As An Index Of Sustainable Behavior: Devaluation Of Future Air Quality And Implications For Public Health, Meredith S. Berry, Norma P. Nickerson, Amy L. Odum Sep 2017

Delay Discounting As An Index Of Sustainable Behavior: Devaluation Of Future Air Quality And Implications For Public Health, Meredith S. Berry, Norma P. Nickerson, Amy L. Odum

Psychology Faculty Publications

Poor air quality and resulting annual deaths represent significant public health concerns. Recently, rapid delay discounting (the devaluation of future outcomes) of air quality has been considered a potential barrier for engaging in long term, sustainable behaviors that might help to reduce emissions (e.g., reducing private car use, societal support for clean air initiatives). Delay discounting has been shown to be predictive of real world behavior outside of laboratory settings, and therefore may offer an important framework beyond traditional variables thought to measure sustainable behavior such as importance of an environmental issue, or environmental attitudes/values, although more research is needed …