Nature connection, defined as a subjective sense of oneness with nature, is one psychological variable that promotes pro-environmental behaviour (Mayer & Frantz, 2004; Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2009). This meta-analysis reviews correlational and experimental evidence for this relationship. Results in the correlational analysis show a strong association between nature connection and pro-environmental behaviours (r = .41), which was significant for various operationalizations of nature connection and private sphere and public sphere pro-environmental behaviours. Unlike in the correlational data, there was evidence of publication bias when meta-analyzing experimental studies. By including unpublished studies in the meta-analysis, I corrected for this bias and found a small but significant causal effect of nature connection on proenvironmental behaviour (d = .25). I discuss discrepancies between how nature connection is measured and manipulated, and how future studies can better examine the processes by which nature connection causes pro-environmental behaviour.

No abstract

As awareness of climate change and its consequences increases, many have asked, “Why aren't people taking action?” Some psychologists have provided an answer that we describe as a “psychological barriers explanation” (PBE). The PBE suggests that human nature is limited in ways that create psychological barriers to taking action on climate change. Taking a critical social psychology approach (e.g., Adams, 2014), we offer a critique of the PBE, arguing that locating the causes of inaction at the psychological level promotes a misrepresentation of human nature as static and disconnected from context. Barriers to environmental action certainly exist, and most if not all involve psychological processes. However, locating the barrier itself at the psychological level ignores the complex interplay between psychological tendencies, social relations, and social structures. We consider the ways in which psychological responses to climate change are contingent upon social‐structural context, with particular attention to the ways unequal distributions of power have allowed elites to block climate action, in part by using their power to influence societal beliefs and norms. In conclusion, we suggest that psychologists interested in climate (in)action expand their scope beyond individual consumer behaviors to include psychological questions that challenge existing power relations and raise the possibility of transformative social change.

We build on social identity models of environmental collective action by considering the role of people's access to cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo. We developed a new measure of cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo, and examined its ability to predict environmental activist identification and willingness to engage in environmental activism. In Study 1 (N = 386), we developed the initial scale, and found evidence for its reliability and validity. The ability to imagine cognitive alternatives was associated with other relevant social identity and environmental variables including perceived legitimacy of the current environmental status quo, pro-environmental consumer and activist behavior, and beliefs in anthropogenic climate change. In Study 2 (N = 393), we confirmed the factor structure of the scale and found that it was a strong predictor of environmental activist identification, explaining variance beyond extensive control variables including identification with nature. It also explained additional variance in willingness to engage in activist behavior beyond even environmental activist identification. Our results suggest that the ability to imagine cognitive alternatives to the environmental status quo might have important implications for whether people engage in pro-environmental collection action to mitigate climate-change and other environmental problems.

No abstract