CEN Kolloquium: Kate Schertz, Outside One’s Self: How Urban Nature Experiences Shape Self-Perspective

Reducing self-focus and taking a broader perspective has a variety of psychological benefits. However, people often find this hard to do, particularly under conditions of emotional distress or conflict. In this talk, I will present a line of work that uses both ecological momentary assessment and experimental methods to examine how short-term experiences in natural environments can facilitate perspective broadening. Study 1 focuses on how environmental effects on social orientation are reflected in conscious thoughts during visits to public spaces of varying naturalness. Study 2 examines if natural environments can increase perspective broadening emotion regulation when people are in acute emotional distress. Study 3 explores how natural environments shape discussions of interpersonal conflict in romantic couples. Overall, this work provides evidence that natural environments shape social and affective processing in nuanced ways, and can be leveraged to improve wellbeing and interpersonal functioning.

Speaker bio:

Dr. Kathryn Schertz is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan, working in the Emotion & Self Control Lab with Dr. Ethan Kross and at Michigan State University, working in the Clinical Psychophysiology Lab with Dr. Jason Moser. She completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Chicago, working in the Environmental Neuroscience Lab with Dr. Marc Berman. Her research bridges social, clinical, cognitive, neuroscience and environmental approaches to psychology, to understand how physical environments and self-regulation intertwine to improve wellbeing and bolster social connection. She is particularly interested in the role of natural environments on social and affective processing. Dr. Schertz will be starting as an assistant professor at Iowa State University in August 2026.

The colloquium will be held online via WebEx: https://mpib-berlin.webex.com/mpib-berlin/j.php?MTID=maff3dee0ad54cb921191ff33d0b92347

Meeting number: 2744 645 6180

Password: ArpQMePJ352