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Fostering nature connection may promote psychological well-being and enhance proenvironmental attitudes. However, there is limited understanding of what factors influence a person's nature connection. Using survey responses from 1,000 residents of a large Australian city, we describe the relationship between nature connection and nature experiences at different stages in life, that is, past nature experiences that occurred during childhood, and current, everyday nature experiences. Both past childhood nature experiences and duration of current nature experiences significantly predicted nature connection. The positive relationship between duration of current nature experiences and nature connection was not significantly moderated by past childhood nature experiences. Hence, current nature experiences are associated with high levels of nature connection, even among those lacking childhood nature experiences. This research empirically demonstrates the positive relationship between nature connection and nature experiences, and suggests that it may be equally important to promote nature experiences at any life stage if increasing nature connection is the goal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A sizable minority of people doubt that climate change is primarily caused by human activity (“attribution skeptics”). Consequently, it is important to examine the psychological drivers of pro-environmental intentions among attribution skeptics and the extent to which they are more or less influenced by traditional climate change messages. Study 1 (N = 4,345) examined the psychological correlates of motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviors among people at various points of the spectrum of belief in anthropogenic climate change. As expected, motivation to engage in pro-environmental behaviors is related to risk perceptions and concern about the consequences of climate change. Interestingly, however, these links were stronger the more participants reported being skeptical that climate change is anthropogenic. This suggests that climate change interventions might be especially successful in changing pro-environmental motivation among attribution skeptics, a prediction supported by an experimental intervention (Study 2; N = 600). Theoretical and applied implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research has not addressed the possibility that people may face conflicting norms of pro-environmental behavior from their multiple in-groups. Across two studies, the authors test competing hypotheses: People may be demotivated by norm conflict, or conversely, norm conflict may motivate people to action. The results of both studies suggest a clearly motivating effect of conflict. Norm conflict was associated with decreased water usage (i.e., increased water conservation) in Study 1, and increased pro-environmental behavior intentions in Study 2. The effects of conflict were partially mediated by perceived effectiveness in Study 2. Although these initial findings indicate that conflict motivates rather than hinders behavioral engagement, future research should investigate whether the nature of the influence of norm conflict depends on factors such as issue importance. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]