Identifying with Nature Mediates the Influence of Valuing Nature's Beauty on Proenvironmental Behaviors

Abstract

The issue of motivating individuals to engage in proenvironmental behaviors (PEB; Scott, Amel, Koger, & Manning, 2016) has become increasingly important. Although research has shown that nature identity, particularly a sense of connectedness to nature (CN), predicts PEB, the present study's goal was to better understand a previously unexplained connection between CN and engagement with natural beauty (ENB) in predicting PEB. Unsurprisingly, the Connectedness to Nature Scale, Engagement with Beauty Scale-Revised, and Pro-Environmental Behavior Scale were correlated with each other; however, our hypothesis that ENB would moderate the relationship between CN and PEB was not supported. The possibility that CN would mediate the relationship between ENB and PEB was explored and confirmed. Thus, an intervention aimed at increasing individual's ENB could motivate individuals to engage in PEB because of an increased sense of connection to the natural world, implicating nature identity (CN) as a potentially crucial intervening variable for translating ENB into proenvironmental behavior. Key Words: Proenvironmental behavior—Connectedness to nature—Engagement with natural beauty—Nature identity.