Nature connectedness
This built in desire may be the result of spending the majority of our evolutionary history (over 99%) closely connected to nature.
[12] Biophilia is genetic meaning those humans who were closely connected to nature throughout history would, presumably, have had better access to food and fresh water.
In order to sustain such, effort is required to gate competing stimuli or thoughts so that one can pay attention.
As yet, it remains to be empirically demonstrated that physical and psychological problems of urban living can arouse restoration needs that continuously maintain and reinforce nature-oriented preferences.
The purpose of this scale is to measure how connected an individual feels to nature but in a shorter way.
[7] This scale measures how emotionally connected people feel to the natural world, animals, and plants.
Participants are asked to choose the pair of circles that best describes their relationship with the natural environment.
Other ways to measure an individual's connection to nature include the Allo-Inclusive Scale and the Implicit Associates Test-Nature.
This scale shows acceptable reliability (Cronbach's α = 0.75) and validity (correlations with concern for environment).
As with the original scale, it is a single item question that measures nature connectedness with seven circle pairs that overlap to varying degrees.
The IINS was developed to measure the nature connectedness of young students or people with special cognitive needs.
For this purpose, the original circle pairs were extended by graphical elements created on the basis of children's perception of nature.
[27] The five factors are extraversion (i.e. social, outgoing), agreeableness (i.e. trusting, helpful), neuroticism (i.e. worried, anxious), openness to experience (i.e. imaginative, creative), and conscientiousness (i.e. organized, careful).
Nature relatedness (overall) is significantly related to extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
It may also be that highly nature related people are more environmental friendly because of the positive (albeit weak) relationship with conscientiousness.
[2] Evidence suggests that people vary in their subjective sense of connectedness with nature much like any of the five factors listed above.
Another study found that nature connectedness accounted for (mediated) the relationship between openness and pro-environmental behaviours.
[29] Nature connectedness is related to subjective well-being and other indicators of positive functioning such as solving a problem in one's life.
[24] Trait nature relatedness is significantly correlated with psychological well-being and its 6 dimensions (autonomy, environmental mastery, positive relations with others, self-acceptance, purpose in life, and personal growth).
[24] In recent years, a great deal of research has examined the benefits of mindfulness such as increased self-awareness, self-esteem, resilience[31] and reduced maladaptive rumination.
A life problem could be anything from finding enough time to study to resolving a fight participants had with close friends, significant others, or family members.
These relationships were mediated by state nature connectedness (not attentional capacity or self-awareness as previously suggested).
[34] In five studies, researchers[33] found that nature exposure relates to vitality at a state level.
Nature exposure also increased participants' generosity as measured by the amount of money they chose to donate to another student.
As participants' immersion increased in the nature slides, their intrinsic aspirations and generosity did as well.
As Stephen Jay Gould said: So far research has provided support for the assertion that nature connectedness (at a subjective level) is a reliable predictor of environmental behaviors.
As "an initial proxy for understudied regions", data on locations where humans live (away from the natural world, becoming more urban), and forest cover in cities (decreasing) was used.
[2] As these authors and Kaplan[47] explain, motivating ecological behaviours by increasing the connection to the natural environment may be more effective than establishing laws and rules that people have to follow.
