Concepts and measures related to connection to nature: Similarities and differences Kim-Pong Tam * Division of Social Science, Rm 3383, Academic Building, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Clear Water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong article info Article history: Available online 9 February 2013 Keywords: Connection to nature Environmental behavior Subjective well-being Contact with nature Personality abstract In recent years, environmental psychologists have shown interest in the notion of connection to nature, and considered it to have an important role in helping mitigate the environmental crisis. Together they have developed a number of concepts and measures related to this notion. However, the convergence or divergence of these concepts and measures has rarely been examined. The present research thus aims to empirically examine their similarities and differences. Using one undergraduate Hong Kong Chinese sample (N ¼ 322) and one diverse American sample (N ¼ 185), it demonstrates that these measures can be considered as markers of a common construct: They were strongly inter-correlated, converged to a single factor, shared highly similar correlations with various criterion variables, and did not show much unique predictive power when their common factor was controlled for. Nevertheless, there is also evi- dence of divergence: Some measures had stronger correlations with the criterion variables than did others, and had unique, though small, incremental predictive power. These findings bear important implications for the theoretical understanding of connection to nature. On the one hand, recognizing the commonalities among the various concepts and measures allows one to integrate existing research findings. On the other hand, identifying the distinctiveness of some concepts and measures reveals that certain ways of conceptualizing connection to nature (e.g., a multidimensional framework) are prom- ising. Directions for future research are suggested accordingly. Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction “We cannot urge each other to care about the environment unless we have, at our deepest levels, experienced a funda- mental redefinition of our human identity.a sense of our pri- mal at-one-ment with the created world.” (Tacey, 2000) The idea that reconnecting humans to nature may help mitigate the environmental crisis can be found in theories from a wide range of scholarly disciplines. This idea has also caught attention from environmental psychologists. In recent years, a number of concepts related to the connection between humans and the natural world have been introduced, and various individual difference measures corresponding to these concepts have been developed. Despite their apparent similarity, these concepts and measures were often studied in isolation; their convergence, or divergence, has rarely been empirically examined. The present research thus aims to provide this needed investigation. 2. The notion of connection to nature The biophilia hypothesis (Kellert & Wilson, 1993) states that humans are biologically predisposed to be attracted to nature and to depend on nature. Accordingly, humans have an instinctive need to affiliate with nature. Unfortunately, the inevitable dominance of urban life may cost modern people an intimate relationship with nature (Barlett, 2008; Vining, Merrick, & Price, 2008). For instance, as Evans and McCoy (1998) estimated, people nowadays spend 90% of their time in buildings. Accordingly, when considering how to combat the environmental crisis, the need to reconnect human beings to nature has often been proposed. For instance, Leopold (1949), the renowned ecologist, once wrote: “We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect” (p. viii). Connection to nature is also a core theme in ecopsychology. Roszak (1995) argued that one way to heal the fundamental ali- enation between humans and nature is to expand people’s identity to encompass the reciprocity between themselves and nature. This inclusive sense of self is termed as “ecological self” in the field of deep ecology (Bragg, 1996). Anthropological works also point to the * Tel.: þ852 23587828. E-mail addresses: kevintam@ust.hk, poonto@gmail.com. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Psychology journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jep 0272-4944/$ e see front matter Ó 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2013.01.004 Journal of Environmental Psychology 34 (2013) 64e78