Biophilia: What It Is And How It Influences The Human Mind
Biophilia is a term that was originally defined by Erich Fromm as the love of life, seen from a psychological and survival perspective, while Edward O. Wilson was the one who developed its meaning and influence on the world in greater depth. human being in greater depth, giving this term a more biological and evolutionary character.
For Wilson, biophilia is known as an affinity of the human being, of innate origin, for all living beings and for life itself, so that among their primary needs to feel healthy and achieve well-being would be the need to be in contact with the nature.
In this article we will explain in greater detail what the concept of biophilia consists of how it came about and we will also talk about some research carried out around this concept that has shown some quite revealing results, among which it is worth highlighting the benefits of being in contact with nature for mental health.
Biophilia is a concept that was initially used by the psychologist Erich Fromm, author of books such as “The art of listening”, “The art of loving” or “The fear of freedom”, among others. For Fromm the word biophilia It refers to the love of life, being the essence of that humanist ethics that has gained special prominence in his books as it is one of the central themes in them
In this sense, biophilia is based on a perspective focused on survival from a careful, productive and also creative attitude towards one’s own life, being fundamental for the mental health of each person.
At the opposite pole of biophilia would be the term necrophilia which refers to the attraction that some people have towards death or towards any aspect that has some relationship with it.
Fromm started from the term necrophilia to talk about the term biophilia when he learned of the words that Miguel de Unamuno used to respond to General Millán Astray in the auditorium of the University of Salamanca on October 12, 1936, when the latter uttered the words in his speech Long live death!, to which Unamuno responded, among other words, that he had just heard a necrophilous and senseless scream and that it tormented him to think that General Millán Astray had the power to dictate the norms of the psychology of the masses.
This story had a very deep meaning for Fromm, given that the term necrophilia confronted his humanistic vision of love for life and survival of the human being. However, he assumed the term necrophilia as a psychodynamic motivated character trait of some human beings. Fromm even used the term necrophilia, to the detriment of biophilia, in some of his works to refer to malignant aggression that type of cruelty and human destructiveness that implies the desire to leave others being based on sadistic pleasure.
After Fromm, it was the biologist Edward O. Wilson who elaborated in greater depth the concept of biophilia, in his book “Biophilia” (1984), in which he established the statement that People feel an innate affinity for all living beings and for life itself, so that among their primary needs to feel healthy and achieve well-being would be the need to be in contact with nature. In this sense, Wilson stated that human beings have managed to live and survive throughout their history by being in contact with nature, since they have only recently lived in cities.
Relationship between biophilia and mental health
Following Wilson’s publication, in which he considers that the concept of biophilia is based on that primary need that human beings have to be in contact with nature since 99% of the history of humanity has passed being closely linked to it.
Various investigations have been carried out in this regard, among which it is worth highlighting a sociological study in which more than 350,000 people participated, published in 2009, in which Wilson’s theory was confirmed when it was found that the more surrounded people were in the place in which they lived, the cases of mental disorders, lung and vascular diseases were less frequent, so the quality of life and, therefore, perceived well-being were higher in people who lived in rural environments than in those who lived in rural areas. the big cities.
On the other hand, there are other studies that talk about a set of symptoms included within the name of “nature deficit disorder.” Leaving labels and diagnoses aside, it has been possible to observe in this sense that There are a series of negative manifestations at different levels of physical and psychological health, such as higher levels of obesity and depression in urban environments
These investigations that support the theory of biophilia and similar, have found that the natural environment facilitates the experience of positive sensations and also reduces stress levels, so a good option for those people who are experiencing high levels of stress would be a getaway to any natural environment whenever possible.
Some research has even been able to observe that, within cities, routine walks through urban spaces where there is abundant nature and lower noise levels than in the urban center, such as parks or river walks, Help reduce stress and depression levels being also a highly advisable option for children and adolescents who are exposed to high levels of noise and stress due to daily hustle and bustle, along with poor exposure to nature, which together seriously harms correct and healthy development.
Likewise, various studies affirm that a daily nature walk improves the concentration levels of boys and girls, so it would be a more than advisable routine to put into practice. This could be because when people are surrounded by nature they have fewer distracting and irrelevant stimuli than if they were in the city, so that the executive attention system, which is affected in cases with ADHD, can rest and relax. managing to alleviate the wear and tear that is usually suffered in the potentially stressful urban environment.
As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, we have been able to verify the influence of biophilia on human beings by observing the need to be outdoors, especially during the confinement stage, which has given rise to a greater appreciation of the benefits of being surrounded by nature and a habit that has grown significantly in recent years has been the practice of physical exercise and, especially, hiking in the mountains through different routes
Influence of environmental and genetic factors on biophilia
In a study published in 2022 by Chia-chen Chang and his collaborators, 1,153 pairs of twins were investigated about the environmental and genetic contributions of bioethics, such as that human orientation towards nature, such as the preference for living in less urbanized areas and also in relation to various factors that influence the experience in nature (for example, duration, frequency of visits to places where one is surrounded by nature, etc.).
In the case of each pair of monozygotic twins, who share almost 100% of their genes, Great similarities could be observed between each other in their orientation towards nature and also in the frequency in which they choose to visit a place of nature the percentage of similarities being lower in those dizygotic twins, who share approximately 50% of their genes.
This last study showed striking results when it was found that there were a moderate heritability of biophilia or nature orientation (46%), and it was also found that there were considerable environmental influences on the frequency of nature experiences, being moderated by the level of urbanization of the locality in which people grew up. This study opens the door to a new research approach on bioethics and human-nature interactions by having demonstrated the contributions of genes to human beings’ experiences in nature.
