68%
connection to nature explains over two-thirds of positive awe's effect on pro-environmental intentions
Exact: 68.42%
Connection to nature mediated 68% of the effect of positive awe on pro-environmental behaviour intention (Experiment 2)
In a laboratory experiment, participants exposed to a positive-awe condition (versus a control) reported greater intention to carry out pro-environmental behaviours. Statistically, this occurred largely through a rise in felt connection to nature. The mediated (indirect) effect had a size of 0.26 against a total effect of 0.38, so the connection-to-nature pathway accounted for 68.42% of the total effect of positive awe on those behavioural intentions.
For those shaping ecotourism sites, hospitality settings or nature-adjacent facilities, this suggests that experiences designed to evoke positive awe may work mainly by strengthening people's felt connection to nature. That points to connection to nature as a candidate mechanism through which awe-inducing design or programming could support pro-environmental outcomes, though whether this holds outside a single laboratory sample remains untested.
The finding applies to the specific positive-awe manipulation and pro-environmental-intention measure used in this study, and has not yet been shown to generalise beyond that lab setting.
- Biophilia
- Wilson: innate affiliation with living systems and natural forms
Hospitality
The relative indirect effect explained 68.42% (0.26/0.38) of the relative total effect (Figure 2).
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