Engaging with Natural Beauty May Be Related to Well-Being Because It Connects People to Nature: Evidence from Three Cultures

Connecting with nature has been described by some as an important psychological need. Indeed, research shows that a strong connection to nature predicts flourishing across a wide range of well-being indices. Engaging with natural beauty may be one route by which people satisfy this presumed need to connect with nature. Based on this reasoning, the purpose of the current research was to investigate whether nature connectedness mediates the relationship between engagement with natural beauty (i.e., the tendency to notice and be moved by beauty in nature) and well-being in three different cultures. Four cross-sectional surveys involving Canadian, Japanese, and Russian undergraduate students were conducted (N = 1,390). Engagement with natural beauty and nature connectedness were positively associated with a variety of well-being measures. Moreover, we found relatively consistent support for the indirect effect of nature connectedness in explaining the relationship between engagement with natural beauty and well-being. This finding replicated across five different measures and indices of well-being, two different measures of nature connectedness, and three different cultures. Overall, this research suggests that engaging with natural beauty may have an impact on well-being by promoting a stronger subjective connection with nature.