Environmental Attitude as a Mediator of the Relationship between Psychological Restoration in Nature and Self-Reported Ecological Behavior

Abstract

Environmental attitude and ecological behavior were investigated in relation to the use of nature for psychological restoration. Specifically, with survey data from 468 German university students, the role of environmental attitude was investigated as a mediator of the restoration-behavior relationship. Assuming that positive experiences in nature can have a broad influence on environmental attitudes, the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, an attitudinal measure with broad scope, was adopted. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated partial mediation by environmental concern. The study helps to consolidate the restoration theme in the growing literature on positive motivations for ecological behavior.

Children’s Restorative Experiences and Self-Reported Environmental Behaviors

“…These findings complement what Kaiser et al (2011) define as "self-interested" use of nature. Similar to previously reported results in adults (Byrka et al, 2010;Hartig et al, 2001;Hartig et al, 2007), children may want to protect those environments from which they obtain psychological benefits. Fascination seems to be the restorative quality with the strongest relationship with environmental attitudes.…”

“…This relation was partially mediated by people's environmental concern. Byrka, Hartig, and Kaiser (2010) have highlighted that attitudes might play an important role in this relation. The link between perceived restoration and self-reported proenvironmental behavior has been previously addressed (Hartig et al, 2001).…”

“…The link between perceived restoration and self-reported proenvironmental behavior has been previously addressed (Hartig et al, 2001). However, attitudes have not been included in the explanatory models used before or, when considered, it has only been by using statistics techniques that are not very powerful, such as regression analyses (Byrka et al, 2010;Hartig et al, 2007). Moreover, restoration, as a whole, has been seen to influence people's environmental attitudes, but little is known about whether (and how) each of the components of restoration affects environmental attitudes.…”

Structural relationships between environmental attitudes, recreation motivations, and environmentally responsible behaviors

“…For example, Byrka, Harting, and Kaiser (2010) reported psychological restoration experiences in nature to be a significant antecedent to environmental attitudes and environmentally responsible behaviors. In our study, previous self-reported educational actions (e.g., subscribing to magazines about the environment) as forms of environmentally responsible behavior were utilized as an aftermath of environmental attitudes and motivations.…”

The Relationship of Social Justice Beliefs to Environmental Attitudes among Students at a Private University

“…However, the intersection of social justice with environmental issues in psychology has been less fully examined. If, as research has suggested, healthy environments help promote positive outcomes such as lowered aggression, increased self-discipline, improved perceptions of health status, and even lower levels of road [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] then it stands to reason that psychologists should address environmental initiatives in the context of social justice.…”