People-nature interactions within activity settings: understanding health-promoting mechanisms using Amos Rapoport’s three EBS questions

We apply Rapoport’s socio-cultural framework, particularly his three main questions for EBS (environment–behavior studies), to analyze people’s interaction with natural settings. Natural settings are conceptualized as systems of settings and activities. Natural settings (i.e., outdoor and green spaces) are composed of fixed-feature elements (standing water bodies, vegetation), semi-fixed-feature elements (outdoor furnishings, including art and artifacts), and non-fixed-feature elements (people, their activities and behaviors). Fixed, semi-fixed, and non-fixed elements of natural settings offer affordances or possibilities of action that link spatial, physical, and architectural aspects to psychological and health-related outcomes. Scaffolded by Rapoport’s ideas, we point to environment-in-use aspects for people in diverse cultural settings and show how nature-based interventions may help people mitigate climate-induced harm, recover from stress and mental fatigue, and build new coping strategies and skills – with culture acting as a mediating force. By approaching activity settings and their connecting patterns of nature-related affordances, we argue for an ecological approach to perception and practice to understand how contact with nature promotes health and psychological well-being for people in different cultures.