Ethnobiology and Conservation 2017, 6:10 (14 July 2017)doi:10.15451/ec2017­07­6.10­1­7

ISSN 2238­4782 ethnobioconservation.com

SHORT REVIEW

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Landscapes preferences in the human species:insights for ethnobiology from evolutionarypsychology

ABSTRACT

According to evolutionary psychology, landscapes preferences by the human species are

influenced by their evolutionary past. A set of psychological processes may have been selected

to guide the selection of landscapes that offered advantages for the survival and reproduction

of human groups in the past. In addition, these psychological mechanisms may also influence

the current human behavior in landscapes preference. Based on this, Gordon Orians

postulated the savanna hypothesis, which predicts that the human being prefers these

environments, since in the past, African savanna environments had a set of important

characteristics for survival. If this is true, there are important implications for ethnobiological

studies that seek to understand the factors that can influence the selection and management of

landscapes by human groups.

Keywords: Evolutionary Ethnobiology, Evolutionary Psychology, Socio­ecological Systems

Joelson Moreno Brito Moura1, Washington Soares Ferreira Júnior2, Taline Cristina da Silva3, UlyssesPaulino Albuquerque4

1 Programa de pós­graduação em Etnobiologia e Conservação da Natureza, Departamento de Biologia, Universidade FederalRural de Pernambuco, Rua Dom Manoel de Medeiros, s/n, Dois Irmãos, PE, 52171­900, Brasil

2 Departamento de Biologia, Universidade de Pernambuco, Cidade Universitária, Petrolina, PE, 56300­000, Brasil

3 Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Estadual de Alagoas, Santana do Ipanema, Al, 57500­000, Brasil

4 Laboratório de Ecologia e Evolução de Sistemas Socioecológicos (LEA), Centro de Biociências, Departamento de Botânica,Cidade Universitária, Recife, PE, 50670­90, Brasil

E­mail address: JMBM (bmoura.joelson@gmail.com), WSFJ (kba.bio@hotmail.com), TCS (talinecs@hotmail.com),UPA (upa677@hotmail.com)

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INTRODUCTION

There are some evidences – such as theemergence of bipedalism – that points to theAfrican continent as the point of origin of thefirst human beings (Rodrigo 2014). Somescientists defend the idea that a set ofpsychological mechanisms was selected inour evolutionary past, particularly at a timewhen human groups were primarily hunter­gatherers in African environments,influencing human behaviors that favoredtheir survival (Klasios 2016, Orians andHeerwagen 1992). This idea has founded anumber of investigations in the field ofevolutionary psychology (see Buss 1995).

One of the focuses of evolutionarypsychology is to understand the factors thatmay have affected the selection ofenvironments by human groups in theevolutionary past. In this case, the selectionof environments that favored and minimizedcosts, especially of survival andreproduction, may have been important inour evolutionary history. For some authors(Appleton 1975, Orians and Heerwagen1992, Sommer 1997), the savanna has acombination of environmental conditions thatallowed the survival and reproductivesuccess of the first hominids in thePleistocene. For example, as an openlandscape ­ unlike a tropical forest, whichhas a closed vegetation ­ but presentingshrubs and sparse trees ­ unlike the desertand tundra, landscapes with no trees at all ­the savannah has a combination ofperspective and refuge. Thus, its structurefacilitated the identification of the predatorapproach by the hominids and providedhiding among bushes and on top of trees.

Therefore, the savannah was the lessinhospitable environment, providing to thehominids not only physical shelter, but alsopsychological shelter (Appleton 1975).

Thus, a set of human behaviors, basedon certain psychological mechanisms, mayhave been selected to enhance the choice ofenvironments that favor the chance ofsurvival. Some authors support the idea thatthese mechanisms affect the currentbehavior of the human being. For example,in 1980, Gordon Orians elaborated ahypothesis based on the evidences ofhuman evolution (Orians 1980). As theevidences suggest that evolution occurred inthe African savanna in the Pleistocene, thereis an innate affinity in the human species toprefer open savanna­like landscapes –savanna hypothesis –, and this phenomenonhas been evidenced in various cultures (see,for example, Falk and Balling 2009, Oriansand Heerwagen 1992, Sommer 1997).

In this sense, innate preferences are onlytriggered according to certain environmentalstimuli that drive the mind to solve aparticular adaptive problem (Buss 1995). Forexample, when observing landscapephotographs of several biomes, people mayprefer savanna­like biomes. This choicewould be a response to a set of cognitiveprocedures or decision rules, depending inpart on other environmental stimuli (Buss1995). Thus, it is possible to indicate that thepreference for savanna environment isconsidered an evolved psychologicalmechanism1, because: 1) it solved theproblem of the perception of the approach ofpredators in human ancestral environments;2) it is driven only by a narrow range ofinformation – open landscape that offers

1 There are psychological mechanisms that process information from the environment and that evolved to solve particularadaptive problems that the first hominids faced under ancestral conditions (Buss 1995). Evolutionary psychologists oftenanalyze tasks to understand the types of psychological mechanisms required to solve specific adaptive problems and whichrelevant clues were available to humans in the paleoenvironments (Buss 1995).

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protection and resources; 3) it processes thisinformation making it possible to make adecision that will be expressed through amanifest action or behavior favorable tosurvival – that is, to prefer and settle in thesavanna (Buss 1995).

The evolutionary psychology scenario,and the predictions related to landscapepreference, provide interesting ideas forethnobiological investigations, since theymay favor the understanding of some humanbehavioral bases in their interactions withthe environment. In this article, we present abrief review of the current scenario on thestudy of human preferences for landscapes,based mainly on the findings of evolutionarypsychology, and the theoretical and appliedimplications for studies in ethnobiology.

The evolution of the human mind andpreference for landscapes

Due to the environmental conditions ofthe African Pleistocene savanna, our mindwas shaped during our evolutionary historyin such a way that some argue that we stillprefer environments with savanna­likevegetation (Orians and Hemerwagen 1992).The preference of humans for savannaenvironments has found support in severalempirical studies (see Balling and Falk 1982;Sommer 1997). Despite the evidencesupporting the savanna hypothesis, and itspopularity, there are recent conflictingfindings (see Han 2007, Hartmann andApaolaza­Ibáñez 2010), where landscapepreference was influenced primarily bypeople's familiarity with the environmentalcontext, where they currently live anddevelop, or by the presence of certain

elements of the environment that may bepresent in different landscapes, such asclean water and the presence of very greenvegetation (Hartmann and Apaolaza­Ibáñez2013). In this sense, sociocultural valuesand the current environmental context seemto have a share of influence on the way inwhich a person will respond affectively to theenvironment (Korpela et al. 2002). Thesefindings suggest that there is not necessarilyan innate response to savannaenvironments, which led to the emergence ofalternative hypotheses (Table 1).

In general, studies that tested the innatepreference for landscapes – whether or notthey support the savanna hypothesis – havemethodological biases, for example: 1) thephenomenon was evaluated in a fewcountries2; 2) the emotional scalesmeasured in relation to landscapeenvironments are ambivalent – happy­sad –,forcing people to choose only "positive" or"negative" options; and 3) the images useddo not cover the six large terrestrial biomes– desert, tundra, savanna, coniferous forest,deciduous forest and tropical forest (Han2007). Another criticism pointed out in theliterature is that these studies use images ofvery heterogeneous landscapes and thisalso generates biases, for example:landscape very similar to where the personlives or developed (Balling and Falk 1982);landscape with the presence of clean water– water alone evokes positive feelings, suchas pleasure and calmness (Ulrich 1983);very green vegetation in one landscape andnot very green in the other (Hartmann andApaolaza­Ibáñez 2010, 2013); andlandscapes with distinct shades of blue in

2 Among the countries evaluated are Nigeria – in which the landscape of savanna and tropical forest predominates –, SouthAfrica – with a landscape of savannah, desert and prairies –, Zimbabwe – prevailing savanna landscape –, Estonia – with alandscape of temperate forest and prairie –, Italy – with Mediterranean vegetation and temperate forest –, Switzerland –prevailing prairie and grassland landscape –, United States – with diversifying landscapes, including tundra, temperate forestand desert – and Spain – with temperate forest and prairies landscapes.

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the sky, which is considered a universallypreferred color (Saad and Gill 2000). Theselimitations do not allow one to understandwhether in fact the evolutionary past –evolution in a savanna environment, forexample – influences current humanpreferences.

All the theories/hypotheses cited in table1 argue that the behaviors that allowedhuman survival in paleoenvironments caninfluence the manner people react to

environmental stimuli in the present.Appleton (1975) argues, for example, thatopen landscapes that provide perspectivesof refuge – physical or symbolic – andpanoramic view, evoke positive reactions inpeople, as observed in the study byLückmann et al. (2013). However, somebehaviors that provided adaptive advantagesin the past may be poorly adapted at thepresent time. A good example of poorlyadapted behavior is the global preference for

Table 1: Some theories and hypotheses that try to understand the evolution of the human mind and

the development of preferences for landscapes of natural environments.

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sweet and greasy foods (Saad and Gill2000), which corresponds to an adaptivemechanism for food scarcity that wasprevalent in the ancestral world. However,today we do not suffer from the scarcity offood on the same scale as our ancestors.Thus, the presence of this behavior leads toa scenario of diseases such as diabetes andobesity (Saad and Gill 2000).

Relevance for ethnobiology

An interesting aspect for research inethnobiology is to understand the factorsthat affect human behavior linked to actionsdirected to the environment. Several studieshave investigated human perception aboutthe landscape and how this may provideclues about people's decisions on themanagement of certain environments (seeJohnson and Davidson­Hunt 2011). It hasbeen observed that the perception of peopleabout the environment can be affected byseveral elements, such as cultural, socialand biological factors (Silva et al. 2017). Thescenario presented by the evolutionarypsychology and its effects may assist inunderstanding the biological factors thataffect human perception and, as aconsequence, the interactions of humangroups and their environments.

In this sense, in a study of landscapeperception in an Australian Indigenous tribe,Stanley (2000) observed that there is aregular practice of burning vegetation,making them more open and scrublanddominated. For these indigenous people, a"good country" must have an openvegetation and low vegetation (Stanley2000). Thus, an evolutionary view of thepsychological origin of open landscapepreference may have important practicalimplications and help in understandinghuman responses to biologically diverse

environments (Williams and Cary 2002) andlandscape management.

Understanding the factors that influencethe classification and management oflandscapes by different human groups is amatter of interest for evolutionaryethnobiology (see Albuquerque and FerreiraJúnior 2017, Silva et al. 2017). There is a setof evidences demonstrating thetransformations in the landscapes by humangroups in the present and in the past,indicating that the landscapes can beidentified or managed in a way that meet theneeds of human survival (see Levis et al.2017, Silva et al. 2017). For example, in astudy carried out in a Conservation Unit inthe Brazilian northeast, Silva et al. (2017)observed that people from three humangroups adjacent to the Conservation Unitclassified environmental landscapesprimarily for utilitarian purposes, such as thepresence of useful species or managementcharacteristics in the past. The study ofMolares and Ladio (2014) showed that theclassification of landscapes in a Mapuchegroup, Argentina, is influenced byorganoleptic characteristics of plants, whichguided the use of these plants in medicinaluse.

Based on the consequences of theseevolutionary perspectives applied toethnobiology, landscapes transformed byhuman beings may meet a set ofcharacteristics. Among them, the presenceof useful plants for food and medicine, forexample, that are associated with thepsychological mechanisms selected in theevolutionary past, and modulated bydifferent factors, which offer greater well­being, safety perceptions, and others relatedto human survival in environments.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the Laboratory ofEcology and Evolution of Socio­ecologicalSystems, Universidade Federal dePernambuco, for the physical and intellectualsupport, and the Coordination for theImprovement of Higher Level Personnel(CAPES) for a scholarship granted to JMBM.

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Received: 14 March 2017Accepted: 16 June 2017Published: 14 July 2017

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