Exploring the Relationship Between Connectedness With Nature, Environmental Identity, and Environmental Self-Identity: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

• Main Authors: Audra Balundė, Lina Jovarauskaitė, Mykolas Simas Poškus
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2019-04-01
• Series: SAGE Open
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1177/2158244019841925

A meta-analysis was carried out to investigate the relationship between connectedness with nature, environmental identity, and environmental self-identity. Through meta-analyzing these relationships, we are able to assess the true estimate of their magnitude. The results revealed a strong correlation between measures of connectedness with nature and environmental identity ( r = .75 [0.67, 0.83], k = 11) as well as environmental self-identity ( r = .57 [.31, .84], k = 5). Further moderation analysis indicated that the relationship between connectedness with nature and environmental identity is different for graphical and questionnaire instruments used for assessing connectedness with nature; the aggregated correlation for graphical instruments ( r = .62 [.56, .67], k = 9) was significantly lower than for questionnaires ( r = .82 [.74, .91], k = 9). We suggest revisiting the various instruments assessing human–nature relatedness to maximize unique variance among them.