Can reflecting on meaning and purpose, personal growth, and personal authenticity lead to increased connectedness to nature?
Several of my research studies have hinted at a link between connectedness to nature and eudaimonia (meaning and purpose, authenticity, personal growth). However, most of them only focused on meaning and purpose and I was interested in whether the other elements of eudaimonia could also lead to increased connectedness to nature.
Eudaimonia
Eudaimonia—sometimes translated to “flourishing”—is used to refer to a specific kind of positive experience. It refers to experiences that involve one or more of the following:
- a sense of meaning and purpose in life
- a sense of personal growth or becoming our best self
- a sense of authenticity or being true to ourself
Some common examples of eudaimonic experiences are volunteering at a soup kitchen or visiting war memorials; these are positive experiences in the sense that people feel that they have a positive impact on their lives, but they aren’t necessarily fun, per se. They can be fun, but that isn’t what they are known for.
This is often contrasted with “hedonia” which is consistent with our typical conceptualization of fun and relaxation. For example, sipping mai tais on the beach. Fun, but not known for being loaded with meaning, personal growth, or authenticity.
So I conducted three online experiments in which participants either engaged in hedonic reflection (i.e., focusing on fun), mundane reflection (i.e., focusing on planning), or eudaimonic reflection. Across the three studies, the eudaimonic reflection focused on a different facet of eudaimonia. In Study 1, the eudaimonic condition focused on meaning and purpose, in Study 2, the eudaimonic reflection condition focused on authenticity, and in Study 3, it focused on personal growth.
The results of these three studies provided evidence that reflecting on meaning and growth (eudaimonia) resulted in greater nature connectedness than reflecting on fun (hedonia) or planning (the control). Fun also resulted in greater connectedness compared to planning, but obviously not as much as eudaimonia. Authenticity did not seem to increase nature connectedness.
Overall, these results suggest that eudaimonia might be a better focus for connecting people to nature than “fun”.
You can read the full paper here.
Lengieza, M. L. (2024). Eudaimonic self-expansion: The effects of eudaimonic reflections on nature connectedness. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 102231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102231
You can read about related research here:
Lengieza, M. L., Swim, J. K., & Hunt, C. A. (2021). Effects of post-trip eudaimonic reflections on affect, self-transcendence, and philanthropy. The Service Industries Journal, 41(3-4), 285-306. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642069.2019.1636966
Lengieza, M. L., Hunt, C. A., & Swim, J. K. (2022). Ecotourism, eudaimonia, and sustainability insights. Journal of Ecotourism. 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/14724049.2021.2024215
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