Nurturing Green Hearts: The Relationship Between Connectedness to Nature, Well-Being, and Ecocentrism

Research has repeatedly shown that spending time in nature can provide mental and physical health benefits like stress and anxiety reduction. Building on such findings, our study attempts to demonstrate a cyclical human-nature relationship, arguing that high levels of connectedness and interconnectedness to nature promote higher levels of environmental concern and higher life satisfaction levels. A total of 106 U.S college students ranging from ages 18-24 were recruited through flyers, listservs, and snowball sampling. Participants completed our anonymous questionnaire via Qualtrics. The survey is a combination of four well-established scales used in both psychology and environmental psychology research: the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS), the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) Scale, the Satisfaction with Life Scale (SWLS) and the Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) Scale. These scales measure the four key variables in our study: belongingness to nature, environmental values, overall life satisfaction, and how much one chooses to include nature in one's life. In addition, we also gathered participants’ age, gender and major. We hypothesized that participants with stronger connection and interconnectedness with nature will also exhibit higher levels of life satisfaction and environmental concern. Our data analysis proved higher levels of life satisfaction amongst participants that choose to include nature in their lives but no significant correlation between any other variables. Future research can focus on cultivating a connection with nature in the youth to possibly ensure consistent mental health benefits while also exploring the foundation of ecological responsibility within generations. Hence, the title of our study, Nurturing Green Hearts: The Relationship Between Connectedness to Nature, Well-Being, and Ecocentrism.