Hodgepodge
A mix of recent psychological research ranging from the stars above us to the stars of rugby.
Hello, a very warm welcome to the latest Compassionate Nature article which marks 6 months of weekly articles. To celebrate this edition is a slightly random mix of recent research papers that have caught my attention for various reasons.
Hodgepodge or hodge podge is a great sounding phrase that is I think is probably underused. It means a collection of unrelated things and can be applied in lots of contexts.
I am using the phrase to celebrate the milestone of 6 months of writing Compassionate Nature articles by reviewing recent psychological research covering topics which I haven’t been able to fit into one of the previous articles or are different to the usual nature and compassion themes. This mix provides an eclectic collection with topics which I hope you will also find interesting, including rugby player mental health and moral reasoning within AI.
We start though with a nature based study which explores an aspect of nature connectedness that has received limited research attention.
Compassionate nature is a free reader supported publication. Please consider subscribing for free to support my writing and to never miss a weekly post. You don’t need to use Substack to subscribe, just an email address which will only ever be used to send each published article.
Look at the stars, look how they shine for you
“The sky was clear - remarkably clear - and the twinkling of all the stars seemed to be but throbs of one body, timed by a common pulse.”
In his novel Far from the Maddening Crowd Thomas Hardy invokes the sense of wonder that can be experienced from looking at the night sky. His words also highlight the need for a clear sky, not just from clouds but also from light pollution, perhaps something Hardy wouldn’t have recognised. Light pollution, for example from the glare of street lighting, is an increasing issue that affects around 80% of the global population although is perhaps not as well discussed as other forms of environmental pollution. Increasing levels of urbanisation will only exacerbate the resulting negative impacts upon human health, wildlife and our ability to see the night sky.
Observing the night sky, either informally or formally through activities such as astronomy, provides a way of connecting with nature which has attracted limited research attention, given most related research focuses on daytime activities. Chris Barnes and Holli-Anne Passmore’s recent paper (2024) helps to address this gap. A sense of awe and wonder is often connected with nature and perhaps the clear night sky can invoke those, which the paper considers through a new measure, the Night Sky Connectedness Index (NSCI). The measure consists of 12 questions relating to an individuals connection to and concern around protecting observing the night sky. The new measure was assessed via a sample of 406 adults (mean age of 43) of whom 55% were women, who had varying levels of interest in the night sky. It was compared to existing wellbeing and nature connection measures as well as a measure of attachment to the night sky, to assess reliability and validity which were found to be good (for the statistical geeks, the overall Cronbach’s alpha value was .90). The results suggest that people scoring highly on the NSCI had high levels of nature connectedness and a significant relationship was found between NSCI and subjective wellbeing scores, which were not found in the existing night sky attachment measure. The results suggest the sense of connection to the night sky may be helpful to mental wellbeing in the same manner as other elements of nature connectedness, especially in consideration of awe and wonder. The study also suggested that participant living in more light polluted areas felt less connected to the night sky and felt less protective, perhaps illustrating the low level of awareness of light pollution. One limitation of the study may be a skewed bias in the sample towards the interest in the night sky, with 60% of the participants describing themselves as a visual astronomer or a astrophotographer. Putting that aside, considering the night sky is both an interesting aspect of nature connection and helps bring attention to a form of pollution that perhaps does get the attention it deserves.
The spirit of science
“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
Physicist Stephen Hawking’s words echo the connection to the night sky as well as highlighting the wonder that can occur within both informal and formal research. A 2023 paper by Jesse Preston, Thomas Coleman and Faith Shin considered what meaning, connection and awe occurred during scientific research, along with the relationship between such moments of transcendence to wellbeing and learning. To do so they also developed a new assessment, the Spirituality of Science (SoS) measure, with ten questions, which they validated and tested across a series of studies. Using a sample of 500 adults, of which 57% were men, reliability and validity of the measure was assessed as good (stats geeks, it had a Cronbach’s alpha of .93) against existing measures relating to belief and interest in science, religiosity and cognitive aspects. The results suggest that the SoS measure was different to existing measures of attitudes towards science and correlated with psychological measures of awe and spirituality. The SoS measure was then assessed to wellbeing using a sample of 526 adults (mean age 35), 56% of whom were male, who were all non-religious. The wellbeing aspects included perceived stress, subjective happiness and levels of meaning and satisfaction in life. The results suggest a positive relationship between greater scores on the SoS to higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction and meaning. Lastly the authors assessed the SoS relationship to learning, with a smaller study of 171 undergraduate students, who were nearly all female, with a mean age of 19. After completing the SoS and measures of belief in science the particpants either read an article on black holes or on mortgages, after which they were asked three related questions. The SoS predicted greater engagement with reading and greater correct responses on the black hole article, suggestive of a link between the SoS and engagement with science related learning. Overall the results suggest that some people may find that elements of science provide a spiritual like experience and this may provide benefit to their wellbeing and support learning processes. There are limitations, the studies are cross-sectional and causal relationships between finding moments of awe and wonder in science to wellbeing and engagement cannot be firmly established. The participants in the wellbeing study were all non-religious and so results may be different for individuals who do have a faith. This is a relatively new area of psychological research, it will be interesting to see what further studies contribute.
The morals of AI
“How do you tell the difference between a machine that’s actually moral and one that’s simply convincing its trainer that it is?’
Another new area of psychological research is around moral reasoning and Artificial Intelligence (AI) and as Paul Bloom wrote in a 2013 New Yorker article there are lots of questions to consider. Moral reasoning is an established psychological area of research, with various theories on how we reach the decisions we do. You may have know of a famous moral question about diverting a runaway train to stop it killing many people, albeit that by doing so the train will kill a few railway workers working on a sidetrack. There are variations on this which test the moral reasoning , such as what happens if one of the workers is a close family relative? A recent 2024 paper by Jean-Francois Bonnefon and colleagues provides a well presented overview of some of the challenges around AI and moral decisioning. There is a lot to consider, so I have only selected a few points that I thought were especially interesting or thought provoking.
The authors highlight that we hold AI to much higher standards around decisions that may cause harm than we do other humans, and indeed we can have an inflated view of other humans abilities. This is reflected in lower tolerance toward crashes involving a self-driving car compared to tolerance of crashes involving human drivers. Studies suggest we express more anger and blame towards an AI machine that makes a mistake than we do a human who makes a similar mistake. Interestingly not only do we appear to hold AI to a higher accountability we also have lower levels of trust. Studies of co-operative games have shown we are less likely to cooperate with an AI player than a human player.
How does AI make moral decisions, including assessing fairness and addressing biases? Such activities can include online content moderation and allocation of medical resources as well as road safety, all activities that we use AI for now. The authors suggest a broad spectrum of contributors including AI designers, consumers of AI services and ethicists are required to help inform such activities, with a suggested framework on how to explore the moral questions and how the answers could be adopted.
The authors also briefly consider the role of using AI within creative activities, such as writing and art, with studies suggesting that individuals who use AI within such formats can be seen as less trustworthy. This is a rapidly growing area stemming from recent innovations such as ChatGPT, where perhaps the usage and engagement of AI for creative purposes is further progressed than the moral considerations.
When the final whistle blows
“Only when you’ve been out there at the very highest level do you know how much pain you have to go through and what difficulties you have to deal with”
When the Lions and Wales captain Sam Warbuton retired from professional rugby at the age of 29 the words of ex-player and coach Shaun Edwards reflected the experience of elite rugby players. What happens when a player retires from a life dominated by training, diet and exercise routines designed to support a playing career at the highest level? Jaqueline Mooney and colleagues recent paper (in press, 2024) considers the role of athletic identity, values and psychological flexibility upon the mental wellbeing of retired elite players. Athletic identify relates to how much of an individuals sense of self-worth is tied in with their sporting identity, while psychological flexibility may be helpful in managing negative emotions and mood states. The study was undertaken during 2021 involving adult elite rugby players who had retied within the last 25 years. The sample consisted of 77 players, mainly male (83%) and mainly from rugby union (82 %), with 50% having played at international level. While nearly all the participants were in current employment, the majority (80%) were not employed in any capacity to do with rugby. Nearly half (47%) had retired within the last three years and 40% had been forced to retire due to injury. Around a third of the participants had received mental health support in the past.
The study assessed their subjective wellbeing, psychological distress and flexibility levels, personal values and athletic identity. The results suggest that greater levels of wellbeing was associated with a higher degree of psychological flexibility and correlation with personal values, while greater levels of psychological distress was associated with more association to athletic identity and lower psychological flexibility. The findings also showed that 64% of the ex-players reported low levels of subjective wellbeing and 43% had measures of psychological distress that met clinical thresholds. Such levels are a concern within retired players and suggest that existing wellbeing support programmes offered by clubs may not be sufficient to support elite players transition into retirement. The study results suggest that in addition to addressing symptoms of psychological distress, such support should consider fostering psychological flexibility and helping players align their values and identity to a non-playing life. There are limitations in the study, the sample demographics are a restricted representation of professional players and as a cross-sectional study no causal relationships can be established. The study was also undertaken in 2021 during covid lockdown periods which may influence the results. These limitations aside, the study highlights that for many players leaving elite rugby, especially as a result of injury, can result in significant psychological challenges that require support which goes beyond the treatment of symptoms of poor mental wellbeing.
I hope you have enjoyed the topics covered in this special edition of the Compassionate Nature research digest. I am immensely proud of the back catalogue of articles from the last six months, covering many aspects of compassion, environmental psychology and nature connection research, which I really hope you have enjoyed reading too. I was not sure when starting out writing how many people would be interested, so it is rather wonderful to have a growing number of subscribers to Compassionate Nature.
Thank you so much for your support and encouragement, it means a great deal and is much appreciated. I hope you will join me for the next six months too.
If you think the article would be helpful to someone else please do share on, it is a freely available public post.
I would also love to hear what you think, so please leave a comment, send me an email at TheCompassionateNatureHub@gmail.com or leave a reply if you see it via social media.
You can also support my work for free by subscribing to the publication and join over two hundred readers in never missing a weekly post. You don’t need to use Substack to subscribe just an email address. Your support means a great deal - thank you
References
Barnes, C., & Passmore, H. A. (2024). Development and testing of the Night Sky Connectedness Index (NSCI). Journal of Environmental Psychology, 93, 102198. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2023.102198
Bonnefon, J. F., Rahwan, I., & Shariff, A. (2024). The moral psychology of Artificial Intelligence. Annual Review of Psychology, 75, 653-675. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-030123-113559
Mooney, J., Bethell, A., Wagstaff, C., & White, R. (2024). The impact of athletic identity, psychological flexibility, and value consistent living on the mental health and well-being of retired elite rugby players. Journal of Clinical Sport Psychology, 1(aop), 1-26. https://doi.org/10.1123/jcsp.2023-0001
Preston, J. L., Coleman III, T. J., & Shin, F. (2023). Spirituality of Science: Implications for meaning, well-being, and learning. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 01461672231191356. https://doi.org/10.1177/01461672231191356