Background There is a significant amount of litera

Transcript:Background There is a significant amount of litera:
Background There is a significant amount of literature which makes claims, or provides some evidence for, the impact of nature on mental health and well-being (Keniger et al. 2013; Nisbet et al. 2011). Subjective nature connectedness is a strong predictor of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors that may also be positively associated with subjectivewell-being (Capaldi et al. 2014). Most of this literature, however, tends to focus on immediate impacts of, for example, walking in a forest or other green area (Ward Thompson et al. 2013). Exposure to green space, or natural areas, have been suggested as having cognitive, physical, mental and spiritual impacts (Russell et al. 2013; Bell et al. 2008). Similarly there are studies which have looked at the idea of nature connectedness, or nature relatedness, and factors which influence the degree of nature connectedness (e.g. Zylstra 2014). One of the proposed contributory factors to sense of nature connectedness has been childhood experiences in nature (Sebba 1991; Chawla 2007). A greater sense of nature connectedness, it is suggested, leads to more pro-environmental behaviours (Schultz 2000; Restall & Conrad 2015) . The studies outlined here were intended to explore some of these ideas and to add to the data and literature in this area. The Nature Relatedness Scale (Nisbet et al. 2009) “We propose a new construct, nature relatedness (NR), to describe individual levels of connectedness with the natural world. Nature relatedness is not unlike the deep ecology concept of an ecological self, the notion of a self-construal that includes the natural world. The concept of NR encompasses one’s appreciation for and understanding of our interconnectedness with all other living things on the earth.” (p718) The nature relatedness scale used in these studies was developed by Nisbet et al. It consists of three factors: NR-Self factor can be thought of as the ecological self, or how strongly people identify with the natural environment. NR-Perspective factor is an indication of how one’s personal relationship with the environment is manifested through attitude and behaviour. NR-Experience factor reflects the physical familiarity and attraction people have to nature. While the NR scale used in study 1 was the 21 question long version, the scale used to develop the model in the second study was the NR short version (Nisbet & Zelenski 2013). Analysis of the scale found that the 6 question short scale was more robust in developing the model. Study 1 The first study