Prosociality predicts connectedness with nature and soil

Area of Science:

• Environmental Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Human Ecology

Background:

• Prosocial propensity is typically defined as acting for others' benefit, often narrowly focused on humans.
• Expanding the definition of 'others' to include the natural world is gaining traction.
• Previous research links prosocial propensity to connectedness with nature.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the relationship between prosocial propensity and soil connectedness.
• To examine if altruism, as a measure of prosocial propensity, is associated with soil connectedness.
• To explore these relationships within a sample of Chilean farmers.

Main Methods:

• Utilized altruism as an indicator of prosocial propensity.
• Employed a newly developed Inclusion of Soil in Self measure, adapted from the Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) scale.
• Applied Rasch modeling to score the altruism scale and correlation analyses to assess relationships.

Main Results:

• Rasch modeling confirmed the altruism scale adequately measured a single construct.
• Prosocial propensity showed a significant positive association with connectedness to nature (r=0.22, p<0.01).
• Prosocial propensity also demonstrated a significant positive association with connectedness to soil (r=0.24, p<0.01).

Conclusions:

• Connectedness to nature and soil are positively associated with prosocial propensity.
• Environmentalism can be viewed as an indicator of prosociality.
• Nature and soil connectedness may represent domains where prosocial tendencies are expressed.