Environmental self-identity partially mediates the effects of exposure and connection to nature on urban children's conservation behaviours

As crises of biodiversity loss and climate change have intensified, so too have efforts to promote human behaviours that ameliorate these global stressors. Leveraging people's connectedness with nature is proposed as a means of inspiring pro-nature behaviours at a personal and societal scale. However, it is only recently that studies have begun to characterise the specific mechanistic drivers of connectedness and its behavioural outcomes. A separate body of research shows that self-identities motivate pro-environmental behaviours. Here, we simultaneously investigate the effects of affective connection to nature and environmental self-identity on urban children's conservation behaviours. We also evaluate passive exposure, active learning, and nature-focused activities as predictors of connectedness. Using confirmatory composite analysis and path analysis in tandem, we analyse survey responses from 1037 children and adolescents attending 16 schools throughout Sydney, Australia. In this dataset, connection to nature had a large effect on commitment to conservation behaviours, half of which was mediated by environmental self-identity. Time spent in green and blue spaces had a weak direct effect on connection to nature. Most of its impact was mediated by regular engagement with nature-focused activities (e.g., looking for wild animals), which were the strongest predictors of connectedness alongside frequency of outdoor learning and reading about nature. Greenness of school catchment areas was negatively associated with connectedness, likely because children connect with nature at a finer scale and even indoors, as suggested by the moderate positive effect of household biodiversity on connectedness. Overall, we demonstrate that not all forms of contact with nature are equal when it comes to strengthening the kinds of affective bonds that lead urban children to identify with and act for nature.