By Michael L. Lengieza & Rosemary Aviste
This Plain Language Summary is published in advance of the paper discussed. Please check back soon for a link to the full paper.
Feeling connected to nature is recognised as important for ensuring sustainability. In fact, it is now emphasised as a key target by a number of global sustainability frameworks (e.g., the IPBES Transformative Change Assessment). Our emotions play a key role in shaping how connected to nature we feel. Here, we investigated how nostalgia—the ‘bittersweet emotion’—for nature impacts feelings of nature connectedness. Across three studies using samples from the UK and US, we found that nature-based nostalgia is positively associated with higher nature connectedness.
In Study 1, participants reflected on a past nature experience. We measured their feelings of nostalgia—along with other emotions—before and after the reflection, as well as their feelings of nature connectedness. The study found that reflecting on the experience predicted an increase in nostalgia and that this increased nostalgia predicted an ensuing increase nature connectedness. In Study 2, participants reflected on nostalgia directly (or reflected on something mundane in the randomly assigned control condition). Like Study 1, we measured nature connectedness before the reflection, and after. Results showed that when participants reflected on nostalgia, nature connectedness increased; in contrast, when they reflected on mundane things in the control, nature connectedness hardly increased at all. In Study 3, participants reflected on nostalgia again. This time, we measured their nature connectedness before and after their reflection, and we also measured their sense of being authentic to themselves, their feelings of personal growth, and sense of meaning in their lives before and after the reflection. The analyses showed that reflecting on the experience predicted a collective increase in feelings of authenticity, growth, and meaning (combined). In turn, that increased nostalgia predicted an ensuing increase nature connectedness, suggesting that the reason nostalgic reflection predicts increased nature connectedness is precisely because it makes us feel more authentic, more capable of growth, and like life is more meaningful. Together, the findings suggest that nature-based nostalgia might be a valuable way forward in repairing the growing disconnection between people and nature.
