Exposure and connectedness to natural environments: An examination of the measurement invariance of the Nature Exposure Scale (NES) and Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups

• Main Authors: Viren Swami, Mathew P. White, Martin Voracek, Ulrich S. Tran, Toivo Aavik, Hamed Abdollahpour Ranjbar, Sulaiman Olanrewaju Adebayo, Reza Afhami, Oli Ahmed, Annie Aime, Marwan Akel, Hussam Al Halbusi, George Alexias, Khawla F. Ali, Nursel Alp-Dal, Anas B. Alsalhani, Sara Alvarez-Solas, Ana Carolina Soares Amaral, Sonny Andrianto, Trefor Aspden, Marios Argyrides, John Jamir Benzon R. Aruta, Stephen Atkin, Olusola Ayandele, Migle Baceviciene, Radvan Bahbouh, Andrea Ballesio, David Barron, Ashleigh Bellard, SoleySesselja ´ Bender, Kerime Derya Beydaǧ, Gorana Birovljevi´c, Marie-Eve ` Blackburn, Teresita Borja-Alvarez, Joanna Borowiec, Miroslava Bozog´ anov ˇ a, Solfrid Bratland-Sanda, MatthewH.E.M. Browning, Anna Brytek-Matera, Marina Burakova, Yeliz Çakır-Koçak, Pablo Camacho, Vittorio Emanuele Camilleri, Valentina Cazzato, Silvia Cerea, Apitchaya Chaiwutikornwanich, Trawin Chaleeraktrakoon, Tim Chambers, Qing-Wei Chen, Xin Chen, Chin-Lung Chien, Phatthanakit Chobthamkit, Bovornpot Choompunuch, Emilio J. Compte, Jennifer Corrigan, Getrude Cosmas Ah Gang, Richard G. Cowden, Kamila Czepczor-Bernat, Marcin Czub, Wanderson Roberto da Silva, Mahboubeh Dadfar, Simon E. Dalley, Lionel Dany, Jesus Alfonso D. Datu, Pedro Henrique Berbert de Carvalho, Gabriel Lins de Holanda Coelho, Avila Odia S. De Jesus, Sonia Harzallah Debbabi, Sandesh Dhakal, Francesca Di Bernardo, Donka D. Dimitrova, Jacinthe Dion, Barnaby Dixson, Stacey M. Donofrio, Marius Drysch, Hongfei Du, Angel M. Dzhambov, Claire El-Jor, Violeta Enea, Mehmet Eskin, Farinaz Farbod, Lorleen Farrugia, Leonie Fian, Maryanne L. Fisher, Michał Folwarczny, David A. Frederick, Matthew Fuller-Tyszkiewicz, Adrian Furnham, Antonio Alías García, Shulamit Geller, Marta Ghisi, Alireza Ghorbani, Maria Angeles Gomez Martinez, Sarah Gradidge, Sylvie Graf, Caterina Grano, Gyongyv ¨ ´er Gyene, Souheil Hallit, Motasem Hamdan, Jonathan E. Handelzalts, PaulH.P. Hanel, Steven R. Hawks, Issa Hekmati, Mai Helmy, Tetiana Hill, Farah Hina, Geraldine Holenweger, Martina Hˇrebíˇckov´ a, Olasupo Augustine Ijabadeniyi, Asma Imam, Bas¸ak ˙ Ince, Natalia Irrazabal, Rasa Jankauskiene, Ding-Yu Jiang, Micaela Jim´enez-Borja, Veronica ´ Jim´enez-Borja, Evan M. Johnson, Veljko Jovanovi´c, Marija Jovi´c, Marko Jovi´c, Alessandra Costa Pereira Junqueira, Lisa-Marie Kahle, Adam Kantanista, Ahmet Karakiraz, Ays¸e Nur Karkin, Erich Kasten, Salam Khatib, Nuannut Khieowan, Patricia Joseph Kimong, Litza Kiropoulos, Joshua Knittel, Neena Kohli, Mirjam Koprivnik, Aituar Kospakov, Magdalena Krol-Zieli ´ nska, Isabel Krug, Garry Kuan, Yee Cheng Kueh, Omar Kujan, Miljana Kuki´c, Sanjay Kumar, Vipul Kumar, Nishtha Lamba, Mary Anne Lauri, Maria Fernanda Laus, Liza April LeBlanc, Hyejoo J. Lee, Małgorzata Lipowska, Mariusz Lipowski, Caterina Lombardo, Andrea Lukacs, Christophe Maïano, Sadia Malik, Mandar Manjary, Lidia Marquez ´ Baldo, Martha Martinez-Banf, Karlijn Massar, Camilla Matera, Olivia McAnirlin, Mois´es Roberto Mebarak, Anwar Mechri, Juliana Fernandes Filgueiras Meireles, Norbert Mesko, Jacqueline Mills, Maya Miyairi, Ritu Modi, Adriana Modrzejewska, Justyna Modrzejewska, Kate E. Mulgrew, Taryn A. Myers, Hikari Namatame, Mohammad Zakaria Nassani, Amanda Nerini, F´elix Neto, Joana Neto, Angela Nogueira Neves, Siu-Kuen Ng, Devi Nithiya, Jiaqing O, Sahar Obeid, Camila Oda-Montecinos, Peter Olamakinde Olapegba, Tosin Tunrayo Olonisakin, Salma Samir Omar, Brynja Orlygsd ¨ ottir, Emrah Ozsoy, Tobias Otterbring, Sabine Pahl, Maria Serena Panasiti, Yonguk Park, Muhammad Mainuddin Patwary, Tatiana Petho, Nadezhda Petrova, Jakob Pietschnig, Sadaf Pourmahmoud, Vishnunarayan Girishan Prabhu, Vita Poˇstuvan, Pavol Prokop, Virginia L. Ramseyer Winter, Magdalena Razmus, Taotao Ru, Mirjana Rupar, Reza N. Sahlan, Mohammad Salah Hassan, Anđela Salov, Saphal Sapkota, Jacob Owusu Sarfo, Yoko Sawamiya, Katrin Schaefer, Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck, Veya Seekis, Kerim Selvi, Mehdi Sharif, Anita Shrivastava, Rumana Ferdousi Siddique, Valdimar Sigurdsson, Vineta Silkane, Ana Simuni ˇ ´c, Govind Singh, Alena Sleza´ˇckova, Christine Sundgot-Borgen, Gill Ten Hoor, Passagorn Tevichapong, Arun Tipandjan, Jennifer Todd, Constantinos Togas, Fernando Tonini, Juan Camilo Tovar-Castro, Lise Katrine Jepsen Trangsrud, Pankaj Tripathi, Otilia Tudorel, Tracy L. Tylka, Anar Uyzbayeva, Zahir Vally, Edmunds Vanags, Luis Diego Vega, Aitor Vicente-Arruebarrena, Jose Vidal-Mollon, Roosevelt Vilar, Hyxia Villegas, Mona Vintila, Christoph Wallner, Simon Whitebridge, Sonja Windhager, Kah Yan Wong, Eric Kenson Yau, Yuko Yamamiya, Victoria Wai Lan Yeung, Marcelo Callegari Zanetti, Magdalena Zawisza, Nadine Zeeni, Martina Zvaríkova, Stefan Stieger
• Format: Article
• Language: English; English
• Published: ResearchGate 2024
• Subjects: BF712-724.85 Developmental psychology - Including infant psychology, child psychology, adolescence, adulthood; QA273-280 Probabilities. Mathematical statistics
• Online Access: https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41974/1/ABSTRACT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41974/4/FULL%20TEXT.pdf; https://eprints.ums.edu.my/id/eprint/41974/; https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102432
• Institution: Universiti Malaysia Sabah

Detachment from nature is contributing to the environmental crisis and reversing this trend requires detailed monitoring and targeted interventions to reconnect people to nature. Most tools measuring nature exposure and attachment were developed in high-income countries and little is known about their robustness across national and linguistic groups. Therefore, we used data from the Body Image in Nature Survey to assess measurement invariance of the Nature Exposure Scale (NES) and the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) across 65 nations, 40 languages, gender identities, and age groups (N = 56,968). While multi-group confirmatory factor analysis (MG-CFA) of the NES supported full scalar invariance across gender identities and age groups, only partial scalar invariance was supported across national and linguistic groups. MG-CFA of the CNS also supported full scalar invariance across gender identities and age groups, but only partial scalar invariance of a 7-item version of the CNS across national and linguistic groups. Nation-level associations between NES and CNS scores were negli gible, likely reflecting a lack of conceptual clarity over what the NES is measuring. Individual-level associations between both measures and sociodemographic variables were weak. Findings suggest that the CNS-7 may be a useful tool to measure nature connectedness globally, but measures other than the NES may be needed to capture nature exposure cross-culturally.