Biophilia: what it is and how it influences the human mind

Biophilia is a term that was initially defined by Erich Fromm as the love of life, seen from a psychological and survival perspective, while Edward O. Wilson was the one who further developed its meaning and its influence on human beings 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 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 health mental.

• Related article: "Erich Fromm: biography of the father of humanistic psychoanalysis"

What is biophilia?

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

refers to the love of life, being the essence of that humanist ethic that has gained special prominence in his books as one of the central themes in them.

In this sense, biophilia starts from a perspective aimed at survival from an attitude careful, productive and also creative towards life itself, being essential 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 relation with it.

From the term necrophilia, Fromm started to speak about the term biophilia upon knowing 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 pronounced in his speech the words long live death!, to which Unamuno responded, among In other words, that he had just heard a necrophiliac and senseless scream and that it tormented him to think that General Millán Astray had the power to dictate the rules of the psychology of the masses

This story had a very deep meaning for Fromm, since 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 came to use the term necrophilia, to the detriment of biophilia, in some of his works to refer to malignant aggression, that kind of human cruelty and destructiveness that implies the desire to leave others being based on sadistic pleasure.

After Fromm, it was the biologist Edward O. Wilson, who further elaborated the concept of biophilia, for his book "Biophilia" (1984), in which he establishes the claim that people feel an innate affinity for all living things 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 affirmed that human beings have managed to live and survive throughout their history while being in contact with nature, since they have only recently lived in cities.

• You may be interested: "The 8 types of emotions (classification and description)"

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, including a sociological study in which more than 350,000 people participated, published in 2009, in which Wilson's theory was confirmed by finding that the more surrounded people were in the place where they lived, the less frequent the cases were from mental disorders, pulmonary and vascular diseases, so the quality of life and, therefore, the perceived well-being were higher in people who lived in rural settings than in those who lived in large cities.

On the other hand, there are other studies that speak of a set of symptoms collected under the name of "nature deficit disorder". Leaving aside the labels and diagnoses, 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 the like, have found that the natural environment facilitates the experiencing of positive sensations and also decreases the stress levels, so a good option for those who are experiencing high stress levels would be an escape to any natural environment whenever it is possible.

Some research has even been able to observe that, within cities, routine walks through urban spaces in which there is abundant nature and noise levels lower than in the urban center, such as parks or river walks, help reduce stress and depression levels, also being a highly recommended option for children and adolescents who are exposed to high levels of noise and stress by the daily hustle and bustle, together with a poor exposure to nature, which together seriously impairs a correct and healthy developing.

Likewise, various studies affirm that a daily walk through nature improves the concentration levels of boys and girls, so it would be a more than advisable routine to put into practice. This could be due to the fact that 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, which is affected in cases with ADHD, can rest and relax, relieving the wear and tear that is usually suffered in the potentially stressful environment urban.

As a result of the coronavirus pandemic, we have been able to verify the influence of biophilia in human beings by observing that need to be outdoors, especially during the of confinement, which has given way to a greater appreciation of the benefits of being surrounded by nature and is that 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.

• Related article: "The 10 psychological benefits of practicing physical exercise"

Influence of environmental and genetic factors on biophilia

In a study published in 2022 by Chia-chen Chang and his colleagues, 1,153 pairs of twins were investigated about the environmental contributions and genetics 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 them in their orientation towards nature and also in the frequency in which they choose to visit some 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 was a moderate heritability of biophilia or nature orientation (46%), and it was also found that there were considerable environmental influences on the frequency of experiences in the nature, being moderated by the level of urbanization of the locality in which people have been raised. This study opens the door to a new research focus on bioethics and the interactions man-nature by having demonstrated the contributions of genes in the experiences in the nature of the Humans.