Background

Qualitative Analysis on how people define nature

In every study I have been running for the past 3 years, I’ve included the open-ended question: “How do you define nature?”.

To date, I have 1697 unique defintions of nature, collected from Fall 2022 - Winter 2024 (both student samples on SONA and general public samples on Prolific).

So far, the coding team has only manually coded 390 of these definitions. This document reports what we have found through this manual coding, as well as some of the natural language processing I have done using the R package Quanteda.

Coding Process

Coding was approached from a data-driven perspective. The first step was to look through a sample of 50 definitions and generate descriptive codes to sort them into categories. The coding team had several meetings where we discussed the individually generated codes and agreed upon a code-book to continue coding. This initial coding was completed using a student sample of 103 definitions.

The sample of codes discussed in this post is from Fall 2022 using a Prolific sample. Because the demographics of the sample changed, the codebook was adapted to accommodate the types of themes arising with this population.

The coding team consists of 4-6 coders who individually assign codes to each definition. The team meet weekly to discuss the codes and form consensus on what each definition should ultimately be coded with. If consensus could not be reached, the item was coded based on majority vote.

Code book

The current iteration of the codebook (V2.4) includes the following codes. The full codebook can be viewed here

Code	Definiton	Example
Naturally occurring/Natural	Specifically says naturally occuring or something that comes with the Earth intrinsically Includes a definition that states nature is not artifical. The term “organic” or “innate” can be a synonym for natural'n	“Any element that naturally exists in the world” “Nature is something that is innate, occurring naturally in its respective environment.”
The world around us	Definition describes where people live or what surrounds them. AND/OR Definition specifically inlcudes “the world around us”	“Nature is the raw environment that surrounds our civilization.” “Nature is the world around us.”
Environment	The word “environment” is present in their definition Using the term “ecosystem” can be also interpreted as the “environment”	“A cultivating environment.” “Grass, trees, animals, the entire ecosystem in general”
Everything	Definition refers to everything in this world. They mention the word “everything” in context to our whole planet Earth or our whole Universe, galaxy, etc. Includes “reality”	“I define nature as absolutely everything in the universe; one whole system.” “I would say that it’s whatever”objective reality” is more or less.”
Wild	Provides the terms “wild”, “wilderness”, “wildlife”	“It is where wildlife can roam freely and everything is natural.” “outdoorsy, wilderness”
Examples (non-human)	Gives examples (at least one) of “nature” that are for geography, non-living and living things Includes the four elements (wind, earth, fire, water). Includes products of the earth, plants and animals Also includes the terms “flora and fauna”	“The outdoors with trees, the ocean, bugs and animals” “The flora and fauna of the Earth.” “the physical world around me (e.g. skies, wind, trees, water, etc)”
Not touched by humans	Definition describes nature as not touched, not altered, not made/created by humans, existing without human interference, independent from humanity/human nature The definition mentions nature that is not “Manipulated” and/or “Artificial” as these terms refer to human interaction. Can include caveats such as “relatively” or “mostly” Need to explicitly state that this is excluding humans (you shouldn’t need to draw a long inference)	“I would define nature as something that has not been modified by humans.” “Something that exists in the world, largely untouched by humans.” “None artificial”
Excludes humans	Outright says that humans are not part of nature.	“the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations” “I would define nature as the aspects of the world separate from human society.”
Includes humans	Specifically includes humans in their definition. You shouldn’t have to struggle to fill their logic. They need to clearly include humans as part of nature. Using a term that is general applied to humans (e.g., people, beings, everyone)	“Nature includes all humans, animals, plants, and even things like viruses and bacteria.” “Nature is all the living things that make up and inhabit the world we live in, us included”
Human-made	This code is for definitions that cite examples of human-made things. Eg. Urban, built, pollution, houses, etc Definition says that nature includes things that are “unnatural” or “artificial” You can use both this code and Includes humans if their definition says that Humans are nature	“Aspects of people’s built environment (e.g., roads, trees, pollution) that can affect overall physical and mental health” “I would define nature as all the elements that surround us whether it be natural, or”unnatural”, because everything comes from these elements.”
Behavioral definitions	The way someone or something acts in different situations. Includes any reference to human or animal social structure.	“Nature is unindoctrinated behavior and ways of thinking that represent a persons relationship with their environment.” “Nature could also mean how the social standards of society can influence someone.”
Metaphyscial definitions	Using non-physical terms to describe nature. Things that cannot be measured Describing a state of being or a characteristic of a thing. Using the term “essence” or “intrinsic”, also includes “The way things are” Includes reference to re ligion/sprituality - God created, mother earth, Gaia	“mother earths beauty” “God’s creation, plants, animals, ecosystems, life both large and microscopic working and living in harmony.” “The physical state of the environment in its truest, original form.”
Alive	Definition contains the word “alive” Alternatively uses words such as “living”, “life” Uses the term “growth” or “growing” Uses terms that are explicitly reserved for living things (e.g., biological, breathe, use oxygen etc) Include even if they say “living and non-living”	“Anything that comes into being through a biological occurence” “Outdoors, life”
Outdoors/Outside	Mentions nature being “outside”, “outdoors”, or “out there”.	“The outdoors, things that are not man-made”
Evaluative	Placing a value on nature that is moral (being good or clean etc), emotional (pleasant, calm), or aesthetic (beautiful), or meaningful in basis (“nice”) Provides a colour (e.g.,green) somewhere in the definition	“Beauty, outdoors, clean” “Green, animals, plants. Nature is a mass all around us. It is more than us and we should value it.”

Descriptive Data

Data collected on 8 Nov 2022

Sample size = 390
Mean age: 29.31 years old (SD = 6.1); range: 18, 44
205 Females; 180 Males; 5 did not report

Looking at the frequency of codes

Examples of Codes

Descriptive Codes include 1. Alive 2. Wild (including wildlife) 3. Outdoors or Outside

Nature is all the living things on earth.

The outdoors, specifically the woods or the forest

Wilderness without anything manmade.

Exclusive Codes include: 1. Not touched by humans 2. Excludes humans

Everything not man-made.

Life outside of humans

Inclusive Codes include: 1. Everything 2. Includes humans 3. Human-made examples

Nature includes all humans, animals, plants, and even things like viruses and bacteria.

nature is our environment and everything in it (forest , birds , cities, humans )

the universe in which we exist and all things in it

Evaluative Codes include: 1. Moral value (e.g., being good, clean, naturally occurring) 2. Emotional value (e.g., pleasant, calm) 3. Aesthetic value (e.g., beautiful) 4. Applying a color (e.g., Green)

Nature is everything that is wholesome and original in the world

natural beauty, organic

nature is the outdoors, it’s the calm you feel when walking in the woods, its the sleep inducing feeling when it rains the joy you feel in the first snowfall.

Green and wild

Spatial Codes include: 1. The world around us 2. Environment

Nature is defined as the elements of life that surround us.

An outdoor environment that has not been completely changed by technology.

Examples Codes include: 1. lists of things that people associate with nature

All of the flora and fauna in the world, along with the geographic features of the world such as oceans, mountains, deserts, waterfalls, etc. Everything organic that is around us, even when we don’t pay attention to it.

Metaphysical Codes include: 1. Religious and/or spiritual connotations 2. Nature as something intrinsic

The raw existence of life.

Everything which God created.

Depends on context, but what immediately came to mind is Mother Nature, or just in general the great outdoors

Correlations between codes

People who use Spatial terms to define nature also tend to use more Evaluative terms. But they are less likely to use Metaphysical or Descriptive terms.

People who use Descriptive terms to define nature are more likely to give Examples. But they are less likely to Exclude Humans.

Unsurprisingly Excluding Humans in your definition of nature is negatively correlated with Including Humans in your definition. This is theh strongest correlation.

If you are more Metaphysical in your definition, you are not likely to give any examples of nature.

Relationship with Other Variables

All of the above analysis was done using the manual coding that we did in the lab. Below I’m playing around with natural language processing in R using Quantdata.

Exploring Definitions with Quanteda

feature	frequency	rank
plants_animals	31	1
around_us	21	2
without_human	15	3
natural_world	15	3
natural_environment	13	5
physical_world	12	6
world_around	12	6
world_around_us	12	6
living_things	12	6
outside_world	12	6
animals_plants	11	11
trees_animals	11	11
not_man_made	11	11
flora_fauna	10	14
not_man-made	9	15
trees_grass	7	16
human_intervention	6	17
anything_not	6	17
trees_plants	6	17
environment_not	6	17

Defining Nature