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

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Abstract

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.

Introduction

The topic of environmental sustainability may very well become the major social issue of the present century (Wilson, 2001). Current rates of population growth, consumption, and the use of nonrenewable resources are not sustainable (Oskamp, 2000); thus individual, societal, and structural changes on a fairly large scale will have to occur in the near future. Because issues of environmental sustainability are in large part about human choices and actions, psychologists have much to contribute to understanding and formulating how such change might occur.

To date, social psychologists interested in environmental sustainability have applied knowledge from the research literatures on attitudes (Kellert, 1993; Rauwald & Moore, 2002), persuasion (Gonzales, Aronson, & Costanzo, 1988; Davis, 1995), commitment (Pallak, Cook, & Sullivan, 1980; Werner, Turner, Shipman, & Twitchell, 1995), normative influence (Aronson & O’Leary, 1982; Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990), and incentives (Stern et al., 1985; Levitt & Leventhal, 1986). Early research in this field addressed very specific, local environmental issues, such as energy use in the home (Pallak et al., 1980), littering (Cialdini et al., 1990), and the re-use of materials (Burn, 1991; Heckler, 1994; Oskamp et al., 1994). However, more recent efforts have moved away from specific, localized approaches to broader reconceptualizations of our relationship to nature: cultural values (Stern & Dietz, 1994; Stern, 2000), how concern for nature can be increased through empathy (Schultz, 2000), and how our identity is shaped by the natural environment (Clayton & Opotow, 2003).

Although primarily nonempirical, ecologists and ecopsychologists have long theorized about humans’ psychological relationship to the natural world. The importance of feeling connected to nature is an early theme in the writing of both ecologists (Leopold, 1949; Orr, 1994; Berry, 1997; Norberg-Hodge, 2000; Pretty, 2002) and ecopsychologists (cf. Roszak, Gomes, & Kanner, 1995; Roszak, 2001; Fisher, 2002). They have argued that this connection to nature is a key component of fostering ecological behavior. For example, the influential ecologist Leopold (1949) wrote years ago: ‘We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.’ Ecopsychologists (cf. Roszak et al., 1995; Roszak, 2001; Fisher, 2002) have echoed Leopold's statement that feeling a sense of belonging to the broader natural community may be a prerequisite for increasing environmental protection. They argue for fostering ecological behavior through expanding our sense of self, for ‘if the self is expanded to include the natural world, behavior leading to destruction of this world will be experienced as self-destruction’ (Roszak, 1995).

Such an argument is inherently psychological, and also plausible in light of recent empirical work by social psychologists on interpersonal closeness, perspective taking, and altruism. The extent to which one includes another person as part of the self is a core operationalization of relationship closeness (Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991). Further, as relationship closeness increases, so does empathy and willingness to help (Cialdini, Brown, Lewis, Luce, & Neuberg, 1997). Similarly, acts that lead to a greater self–other overlap, such as perspective taking (Davis, Conklin, Smith, & Luce, 1996; Galinsky & Moskowitz, 2000), also increase willingness to help (Coke, Batson, & McDavis, 1978). Among humans, then, expanding one's sense of self does lead to more empathic and altruistic behavior. In the empirical literature, however, this logic has never been extended to the context of the natural world.

Thus, measuring one's affective sense of connectedness to nature is important for empirical progress to be made on these issues. This article presents a scale designed to measure individuals’ experiential sense of oneness with the natural world. We also begin to evaluate whether this sense of feeling connected to nature does in fact lead to ecological behavior. To place our scale in perspective, we will now examine three previous approaches to measuring humans’ fundamental relationship with the natural world.

The new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale (Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000) is a 15-item self-report measure that aims to measure individuals’ ‘primitive beliefs’ concerning their relationship to the natural world. These beliefs, which comprise an individual's worldview, are thought to form the basic core of individuals’ belief systems, the foundational truths about self, the physical world, and social reality (Rokeach, 1968), and are thought to impact more specific attitudes and beliefs about environmental issues. Measuring these core beliefs is clearly important. However, the NEP is not an adequate measure of one's affective, experiential relationship to the natural world, for two reasons. First, it seems to measure cognitive beliefs rather than affective experience. For example, the item ‘We are approaching the limit of the number of people the earth can support’ taps a cognitive belief about environmental sustainability, not an emotional reaction to nature. Second, items such as ‘Humans are severely abusing the environment’ measure beliefs about humans in the aggregate, not the individual's personal relationship to nature.

Connectedness to nature has been discussed more directly by Schultz (2002, p. 67) as ‘the extent to which an individual includes nature within his/her cognitive representation of self’. Schultz has used a single item measure, the inclusion of nature in the self (INS) scale (Schultz, 2001) to operationalize this construct. The INS consists of seven pairs of circles—labeled ‘me’ and ‘nature’—that range from barely touching to almost completely overlapping. Respondents are asked to choose the pair that best represents their sense of connection to the natural world. However, as Schultz, Shriver, Tabanico, and Khazian (2004) note, single item scales cannot be assessed for reliability. Further, to complete the scale participants must have—or form—an abstract representation of their relationship with nature. People may not be able to accurately report their connection to nature at this abstract level.

Schultz, et al., (2004) have also used a modified version of the implicit associations test (IAT, Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) to measure connectedness to nature. The IAT asks participants to categorize two different types of words using two keys on a computer. In this case, participants distinguish between words that suggest ‘me’ (I, mine) and ‘not me’ (it, their). They also distinguish between ‘nature’ words (animals, trees) and ‘built’ words (car, city). Participants perform these two kinds of categorization tasks simultaneously, once while pairing ‘me’ and ‘nature’ together on the same computer key, once while pairing ‘me’ and ‘built’ together on the same key. The extent to which one pairing is easier than the other indicates how implicitly associated ‘me’ is with ‘nature’. This approach has much to recommend it, as it has been used to measure attitudes that have a strong affective component (reaction to insects, see Greenwald et al., 1998; racial attitudes, see Dasgupta & Greenwald, 2001) and does not rely on accurate self-report. However, researchers typically find startlingly low correlations between IAT scores and measures of relevant behaviors (e.g. Schultz et al., 2004), raising questions about what the IAT actually measures (Karpinski & Hilton, 2001). In addition, the computer apparatus needed to take the IAT makes it logistically more difficult to administer than paper and pencil measures.

In this paper, we present the connectedness to nature scale (CNS), a measure designed to tap an individual's affective, experiential connection to nature. The CNS follows from Leopold's contention that people need to feel they are part of the broader natural world if they are to effectively address environmental issues. For Leopold, this meant understanding the extent to which people experientially view themselves as egalitarian members of the broader natural community; feel a sense of kinship with it; view themselves as belonging to the natural world as much as it belongs to them; and view their welfare as related to the welfare of the natural world.

The CNS scale is designed to be different from the empirical work reviewed above in several ways. Unlike the NEP and Schultz's conception of connection to nature, our measure is affective. Unlike the INS, it is a reliable, multi-item scale. And unlike the IAT, it is easy to administer and predicts behavior quite well. In five studies using both community and college samples, we demonstrate the internal consistency, unidimensionality, test–retest reliability, and convergent validity of the scale. We also show its ability to predict lifestyle patterns (Study 1), ecological behavior (Studies 2, 4, and 5), and curriculum decisions among students (Study 3).

Section snippets

Study 1

Study 1 had two aims. First, we wanted to test whether the items that comprise this scale have an internal coherence. Second we sought to establish both convergent and discriminant validity with theoretically related variables. Participants took the CNS, the NEP, and completed a series of questions describing their lifestyle patterns and time spent outdoors. Given our previous reasoning that feeling a sense of connectedness to nature should give rise to greater environmental concern, we

Study 2

Study 1 provides evidence for the internal consistency of the CNS and evidence for the discriminant and convergent validity of the CNS with the NEP. Study 2 not only adds additional evidence for the internal consistency of the CNS, but also extends this work to the critical question of whether the CNS is actually associated with ecological behaviors and identity as an environmentalist.

Study 2 also attempts to place this research within the context of previous work on perspective taking and

Study 3

Study 3 makes a known-group comparison to establish the validity of the CNS and its ability to predict real life decisions. Students enrolled in an introductory environmental studies class were compared to samples of introductory psychology, math, and chemistry students. We hypothesized that environmental studies students, who are motivated to study the connectedness of humans to nature, would score higher on the CNS than students in the other three areas of study.

Study 4

Study 4 seeks to locate the CNS in relation to the more current work in psychology on subjective well-being. The biophilia hypothesis (cf. Wilson, 1984; Kellert & Wilson, 1993) argues that people have a biologically based need to affiliate with and feel connected to the broader natural world. This work emphasizes the psychological benefits associated with being exposed to nature (Kellert & Wilson, 1993).

A similar argument is made in mainstream social psychology for the need to belong to human

Study 5

In Study 5, we compare the CNS to measures used in previous research (Schultz, 2001; Schultz et al., 2004) to measure connectedness to nature. As discussed earlier, Schultz has used the INS to measure connection to nature, as well as a version of the IAT. Because Schultz's conception of connection to nature is cognitive, whereas ours is affective and experiential, we hypothesized only moderate correlations between the CNS and the INS and IAT. In addition, we hypothesized that the CNS would

General discussion

Using both student and community samples, the combined findings from the five studies reported in this article provide strong evidence that the CNS is a reliable and valid scale. Besides the high test–retest consistency, the items comprising the scale repeatedly have been shown to load on a single factor and exhibit high internal consistency. The scale relates to other scales that are conceptually related (NEP, identity as an environmentalist, perspective taking for nature, INS, and IAT), but

Conclusion

There is growing consensus that individuals in the Western world need to change their behavior and consumption patterns in profound ways to create an environmentally sustainable society. And while interventions aimed at specific environmental issues have been shown to be effective, increasingly it is also becoming apparent that the magnitude of the environmental problems we face necessitate a broader intervention aimed at changing our cultural worldview. The CNS is a tool for activists and

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