Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche
Antarctica elicits a strong spiritual response in tourists and visitors and these responses often include feelings of awe and humility. This paper examines theories that may explain this response. A comparison is made between four Darwinian based theories of landscape psychology; Psycho-evolutionary...
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ftunivcanter:oai:ir.canterbury.ac.nz:10092/18573 2023-05-15T13:49:08+02:00 Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche McBride, Sean 2019 application/msword http://hdl.handle.net/10092/18573 English en eng University of Canterbury http://hdl.handle.net/10092/18573 All Rights Reserved Other 2019 ftunivcanter 2022-09-08T13:40:37Z Antarctica elicits a strong spiritual response in tourists and visitors and these responses often include feelings of awe and humility. This paper examines theories that may explain this response. A comparison is made between four Darwinian based theories of landscape psychology; Psycho-evolutionary theory, Attention Restoration theory, Prospect Refuge theory and the Savanna hypothesis. The predictive ability of each theory is applied to the expected experience of people viewing Antarctic landscapes and compared to the general results of surveys of actual experiences of Antarctic tourists/visitors. Three of the theories predict a preference for savanna-like environments, or at least an environment that contains trees and bushes. Antarctica has none of these and yet it is viewed positively by most visitors. In contrast to these theories, based as they are on an idea that humans are adapted to an ancestral environment, one researcher found the anomaly that Tundra was highly preferred in his study. Antarctica has many similarities to Tundra. The mechanism for this preference is not understood considering that Tundra would not logically be considered a prime habitat for humans. Psycho-evolutionary theory, Attention Restoration theory and Prospect Refuge theory fail to predict the experiences of Antarctic visitors whereas Attention Restoration theory has potential for understanding the Antarctic experience and can deal with the Tundra anomaly as well. The implications of this are discussed in relation to tourism and the Antarctic research stations. Some recommendations for further research are outlined. Other/Unknown Material Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Tundra University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository Antarctic The Antarctic |
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Open Polar |
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University of Canterbury, Christchurch: UC Research Repository |
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ftunivcanter |
language |
English |
description |
Antarctica elicits a strong spiritual response in tourists and visitors and these responses often include feelings of awe and humility. This paper examines theories that may explain this response. A comparison is made between four Darwinian based theories of landscape psychology; Psycho-evolutionary theory, Attention Restoration theory, Prospect Refuge theory and the Savanna hypothesis. The predictive ability of each theory is applied to the expected experience of people viewing Antarctic landscapes and compared to the general results of surveys of actual experiences of Antarctic tourists/visitors. Three of the theories predict a preference for savanna-like environments, or at least an environment that contains trees and bushes. Antarctica has none of these and yet it is viewed positively by most visitors. In contrast to these theories, based as they are on an idea that humans are adapted to an ancestral environment, one researcher found the anomaly that Tundra was highly preferred in his study. Antarctica has many similarities to Tundra. The mechanism for this preference is not understood considering that Tundra would not logically be considered a prime habitat for humans. Psycho-evolutionary theory, Attention Restoration theory and Prospect Refuge theory fail to predict the experiences of Antarctic visitors whereas Attention Restoration theory has potential for understanding the Antarctic experience and can deal with the Tundra anomaly as well. The implications of this are discussed in relation to tourism and the Antarctic research stations. Some recommendations for further research are outlined. |
format |
Other/Unknown Material |
author |
McBride, Sean |
spellingShingle |
McBride, Sean Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
author_facet |
McBride, Sean |
author_sort |
McBride, Sean |
title |
Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
title_short |
Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
title_full |
Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
title_fullStr |
Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
title_full_unstemmed |
Meditations on ice: Antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
title_sort |
meditations on ice: antarctica’s impact on the human psyche |
publisher |
University of Canterbury |
publishDate |
2019 |
url |
http://hdl.handle.net/10092/18573 |
geographic |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Tundra |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctica Tundra |
op_relation |
http://hdl.handle.net/10092/18573 |
op_rights |
All Rights Reserved |
_version_ |
1766250911648186368 |