The connectedness to nature scale: A measure of individuals’ feeling in community with nature

Five studies assessed the validity and reliability of the connectedness to nature scale (CNS), a new measure of individuals’ trait levels of feeling emotionally connected to the natural world. Data from two community and three college samples demonstrated that the CNS has good psychometric properties, correlates with related variables (the new environmental paradigm scale, identity as an environmentalist), and is uncorrelated with potential confounds (verbal ability, social desirability). This paper supports ecopsychologists’ contention that connection to nature is an important predictor of ecological behavior and subjective well-being. It also extends social psychological research on self–other overlap, perspective taking, and altruistic behavior to the overlap between self and nature. The CNS promises to be a useful empirical tool for research on the relationship between humans and the natural world.     

There is no “I” in nature: The influence of self-awareness on connectedness to nature

Environmentalists and ecopsychologists claim that focusing on “I” leads people to feel less connected to nature. The present study empirically tests this argument by manipulating participants’ objective self-awareness (OSA). Heightened OSA has been shown to increase participants’ self-focus, but also increase the impact of individuals’ attitudes and personality characteristics. Integrating these effects, we predicted that individuals lacking pro-environmental internal characteristics (nonenvironmentalists and those high on exploitativeness) would show decreased connection to nature in response to heightened OSA, while individuals with pro-environmental internal characteristics would not. For these individuals, their pro-environmental internal characteristics should counteract the effects of OSA on connection to nature. Two studies provide empirical support for this hypothesis. Implications of this research for pro-environmental actions are discussed.