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Undergraduate Independent Study Nature is often overlooked in the health field, and more specifically the physical therapy field. There is evidence that contact with nature has healing effects both psychologically and physically. When it comes to physical therapy, incorporating nature into the regime may provide added benefits. Perhaps it is time that physical therapy consider a research agenda to explore the link. Once benefits are clearly established and outcomes assessed, the field should then consider the best ways to incorporate nature into practices.

People differ in the extent to which they identify with humans beyond their ingroup and with non-human living things. We refer to the former as the Connectedness to Humanity (CH) and to the latter as the Connectedness to Nature (CN). In a sample of 324 undergraduate students, CH and CN were operationalized using the Identification with All Humanity Scale (McFarland, Webb, & Brown, 2012) and the Connectedness to Nature Scale (Mayer & Frantz, 2004), respectively. These variables correlated moderately with each other (r = .44) and shared Openness to Experience and Honesty-Humility as their primary personality correlates. CN was found to play an important role in mediating the relationships between the two personality variables and some specific pro-environmental/pro-animal attitudes and ecological behaviors.

This study investigates three issues concerned with psychological restoration in children, specifically whether children perceive the difference between the restorative value of a natural and a built environment; whether the perception of restorativeness affects children’s attentional performance; how children feel to be connected with Nature. To this aim, 48 children age 9-11 years participated in a within-subjects study; children filled in the Perceived Restorativeness Scale-children (environmental preference included) and the Connectedness to Nature Scalechildren, and performed the Continuous Performance Test in three different conditions: 1-in the classroom after the practice of Mindful Silence; 2-in the school playground after the school break; 3-in an alpine wood after a walk. In addition to the self-report assessments and the measurement of attentional performance, the children’s physiological condition was assessed by measuring some basic physiological parameters. From results it emerges that though children’s connection to Nature doesn’t vary among conditions, they can discriminate among environments with different degree of restorativeness (assessments were made on setting characteristics and activities), and the perception of restorativeness keeps pace with the performance at the attention test and the preference evaluation. Results are in agreement with Kaplan’s Attention Restoration Theory (1995) and the fascination/meditation hypothesis (Kaplan, 2001).

Esta dissertação tem como objetivos verificar as propriedades psicométricas da Escala de Atitudes Ambientais para Crianças (EAAC; adaptada de Leeming, Dwyer, Porter & Bracker, 1995) e da Escala Infantil de Satisfação com o Ambiente (EISA; criada pelo Grupo de Pesquisa em Psicologia Comunitária); verificar a associação entre bem-estar pessoal (mensurado através da Personal Wellbeing Index) e variáveis ambientais e analisar as atitudes ambientais das crianças da amostra. Foram realizados três estudos, com 1746 crianças (53,5% meninas) com idades entre 8 e 13 anos (M = 10.17; DP = 1.492) residentes de Porto Alegre (54.9%) e do interior do Rio Grande do Sul (45.1%). Os resultados do primeiro estudo indicaram que os instrumentos analisados, EAAC e EISA, apresentam bons índices de ajuste para a amostra pesquisada quando da realização na análise fatorial (exploratória e confirmatória). Com relação ao segundo estudo, as análises de regressão multivariadas indicaram que o PWI é explicado pelos itens da EAAC em 11.5% e pelos itens da EISA em 14.4%. Estão associoados ao bem-estar pessoal: a satisfação com o ambiente residencial e escolar, as atitudes ambientais que envolvem a família, o contato com a natureza e o contato com animais. O terceiro estudo buscou verificar se existem diferenças entre grupos para as atitudes ambientais e os resultados indicaram que as crianças que estudam em escolas públicas, assim como as crianças que vivem em cidades do interior e as crianças mais novas, tendem a desenvolver mais atitudes favoráveis ao ambiente. Em uma etapa qualitativa do terceiro estudo, as crianças mencionaram preocupar-se com a crise ambiental e apresentaram atitudes ambientais voltadas a ações cotidianas e de ativismo. This dissertation aims to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Children’s Environmental Attitudes Scale (EACC; adjusted from Leeming, Dwyer, Porter & Bracker, 1995) and of the Children’s Environment Satisfaction Scale (EISA; developed by the Grupo de Pesquisa em Psicologia Comunitária); to verify the association between personal wellbeing (measured by the Personal Wellbeing Index School Children) and environmental variables; and to analyze the environmental attitudes of the children in the sample. There were conducted three studies with 1746 children (53.5% girls) aged between 8 and 13 years old (M = 10.17; SE = 1.492) residents on Porto Alegre (54%) and on inner cities of Rio Grande do Sul State (45.1%). The results of the first study indicated that EAAC and EISA scales had good overall fit rates when exploratory and confirmatory factorial analyses were performed. In the second study, multivariate regression analysis showed that the Personal Wellbeing Index is predicted in 11.5% by the EACC items and in 14.4% by the EISA. The personal wellbeing is associated to: satisfaction with school and residence environment; family environmental attitudes; contact with animals and contact with nature. The third study aimed to check if there are differences of environmental attitudes between the groups. Outcomes indicated that children of public schools, children of inner cities and younger children tend to develop more favorable environmental attitudes. During the qualitative stage of the third study, children mentioned that they worry about the environmental crisis and presented environmental attitudes related to daily actions and activism behaviors.

The application of stated preference non-market valuation approaches in settings where there are strong cultural differences in environmental perspectives potentially misrepresent strengths of preferences for different groups. This paper reports on a study that measured strength of affiliation with traditional Māori identity, strength of connection with nature, and monetary measures of value derived from a choice experiment. The relationships between these three measures are explored to test the alignment of Māori identity with connection to nature, and to test the dependence of monetary valuation on cultural identity and connection with nature. The tests are applied in the context of a case study addressing water management in the Waikato Region.

"Transformation of the Khorezm region of Uzbekistan from forested to agricultural landscapes resulted in the formation of hundreds of lakes, the dynamics of which are largely controlled by inputs from irrigation runoff waters. The importance of the ecological and socio-cultural dimensions of one of these lakes, Shurkul, is discussed in order to understand the connection between humans and their environment. Landscape is used as a boundary concept, and we combine quantitative methods of the natural sciences with qualitative methods of the social sciences to assess these dimensions of the lake landscape. In the ecological dimension, Shurkul performs a wide range of ecosystem services from wildlife habitat and foodweb support to the provision of fish, fodder, building material and grazing ground. In the socio-cultural dimension, the lake is part of local ecological knowledge, functions as a prestige object and recreational site, and is rooted in religious beliefs of the population as a symbol of God???s benevolence. The Shurkul landscape may thus create a feeling of environmental connectedness and the desire to act in favor of the natural environment, which could be made use of in environmental education programs."

The authors acknowledge and are thankful for the support provided to CENSE by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) through the strategic project UIDB/04085/2020. Salomé’s work has also been supported by FCT through the scholarship UI/BD/150893/2021. A call for human-nature reconnection echoes among scholars to move consumers towards pro-environmental consumption. When addressing products that are deeply entangled with unconscious human desires and addictive behaviour and that are also part of one of the most toxic industries—such as fashionables—the need for consumer awareness is key. Studies both on connectedness to nature and moral emotions like guilt have consistently shown linkages with pro-environmental behaviour. However, deeper scrutiny regarding this pro-environmental behaviour is needed to grasp these variables’ sphere of action. This research aims to explore the first linkages between connectedness and pro-environmental consumption. We present findings from a literature review on the impact of connectedness in consumption, particularly fashionables, following an integrative approach of a semi-systematic keyword search and snowball sampling. We present a first indication of possible drivers for connectedness and their impact on pro-environmental choices publishersversion published