Spirituality mediates the relationship between engagement with nature and psychological wellbeing

By Ilias Kamitsis, A. Francis. 2013

260 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Engagement with nature, through both direct sensory exposure and a sense of connectedness, has been shown to have a positive effect on psychological health; although the mechanisms mediating these effects remain obscure. Spirituality, which has been posited within ecopsychology frameworks to be experienced in and through a sense of relationship with nature, may be one such mediating variable. The aim of the present study was to determine the extent to which engaging with nature, through both exposure and connectedness, influences psychological health, and the role of spirituality in this relationship. 132 females and 58 males with a mean age of 36.8 years (SD = 13.1 years) completed surveys comprising (1) the Nature Exposure Scale, (2) the Connectedness to Nature Scale, (3) the Mysticism Scale, and (4) the psychological health subscale of the WHOQOL-BREF. Nature exposure and connectedness to nature were positively associated with psychological wellbeing and greater reported spirituality. Furthermore, through the implementation of a hierarchical regression and mediation analysis, positive relationships between both nature exposure and connectedness to nature with psychological wellbeing, were significantly mediated by spirituality. It is concluded that spirituality can be an important aspect of one's experience of nature and, as a consequence, the positive effects derived from it.

Subfields: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/eed2f920df83dfa9529b0866c0187062726d050f

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In Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

In Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

In Social Psychology

Citations in the corpus

Joy and Calm: How an Evolutionary Functional Model of Affect Regulation Informs Positive Emotions in Nature (2016, background): “Further, it has been shown that spirituality (Kamitsis and Francis 2013) and engagement with natural beauty (Zhang et al.”
Exploring connections among nature, biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human health and well-being: Opportunities to enhance health and biodiversity conservation ☆ (2015, background): “…references Psychological Positive effect on mental processes and behavior Psychological well-being (Catanzaro and Ekanem, 2004; Curtin, 2009; Kamitsis and Francis, 2013; Kaplan, 2001; Maller et al., 2006; Moore et al., 2006; Nisbet et al., 2011; Sugiyama et al., 2008; Pretty, 2004)…”
Predictors of Nature Connection Among Urban Residents: Assessing the Role of Childhood and Adult Nature Experiences (2018, background): “In addition, some research has identified associations between spirituality and nature connection (Kamitsis & Francis, 2013; Trigwell et al., 2014).”
Exploring potential mechanisms involved in the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and nature connection (2017, unknown): “This extends similar work by Kamitsis and Francis (2013) who also proposed spirituality as a potential mediator explaining how nature connection links to psychological wellbeing, and is complemented by recent work identifying associations between spirituality and nature connection among Pacific…”
Linkages between ecosystem services and human wellbeing: A Nexus Webs approach (2018, background): “Further, Kamitsis and Francis (2013) found that 312 connectedness to and engagement with nature predicted greater subjective wellbeing, and that this 313 was significantly mediated by spirituality.”
The mediating role of place attachment between nature connectedness and human well-being: perspectives from Japan (2019, background): “2015) like spirituality (Kamitsis and Francis 2013), mindfulness (Howell et al.”
Engagement with natural beauty moderates the positive relation between connectedness with nature and psychological well-being (2014, background): “More recently, in two separate studies, researchers demonstrated that mindfulness and spirituality mediated the relation between connectedness to nature and well-being (Howell & Passmore, 2013; Kamitsis & Francis, 2013).”