The Effects of Awe-Inspiring Nature Videos on Connectedness to Nature and Proenvironmental Intentions

Connectedness to nature can promote proenvironmental behaviors. Research is mixed on the extent to which mediated nature experiences can increase connectedness to nature. As a self-transcendent emotion, awe might increase one’s feelings of connectedness to nature, ideally with downstream effects on proenvironmental action. Two online experiments (N = 665) were conducted to examine how different mediated representations of nature may elicit greater awe responses, and how those experiences of awe may lead to proenvironmental outcomes. Results indicated that videos containing scenes of vast nature can increase feelings of awe. In both studies, feelings of awe were positively associated with connectedness to nature, which in turn was positively associated with proenvironmental behavioral intentions. These effects were found with videos containing scenes depicting vast nature alone, as well as with those same scenes accompanied by emotionally laden narration. Although depictions of vast nature were associated with greater awe responses than depictions of close-up detailed nature, emotionally laden narration enhanced awe responses to detailed scenes of nature. Findings indicate that awe responses play a vital role in the influence of mediated nature representations nature on proenvironmental outcomes.