Abstract

Preliminary findings are promising and suggest that a stronger connection to nature may contribute to the development of pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors while also potentially enhancing well-being and psychological resilience. However, previous research has often been limited to cross-sectional analyses, which do not provide a comprehensive understanding of the dynamics involved in human-nature interactions. To address these methodological gaps, we conducted a two-wave longitudinal study with a six-month interval, involving 261 young adults from Poland. The results of our study demonstrated that connectedness to nature predicts an increase in pro- environmental attitudes (β =.17, p =.002) and behaviors (β =.18, p.05), suggesting that the health benefits of connectedness to nature in this age group may have been overestimated in previous cross-sectional studies. Nevertheless, the significant effects on the development of so-called "pro-environmental orientation" justify the need for further research on connectedness to nature and suggest that interventions in this area may yield benefits for environmental protection.