Influence Of Connectedness To Nature Upon College Students' Appreciation Of Body

The connectedness to nature refers to the individual's perceived connection with nature and the degree of belonging to nature.Body appreciation can be defined as the protection of the body by individuals who have a positive attitude towards his own body,i.e.living with the imperfections of his body,respecting his body,showing solicitude for the functions of his body and refusing to accept media information about ideal body.Foreign studies have shown that explicit connectedness to nature has a positive effect upon explicit body appreciation,and explicit self-esteem has a positive effect on explicit body appreciation.However,the internal relationship among the three has not been further discussed.Throughout the existing studies abroad,researchers pay more attention to the relationship between the three aspects of consciousness(explicit attitude),while the theory of dual attitude model emphasizes the importance of implicit attitude research.Due to the mutual independence of implicit and explicit attitude structures,this study explores the influence of connectedness to nature upon body appreciation and the mediating effect of self-esteem from both explicit and implicit levels.The first part of this study explores the effect of explicit connectedness to nature on explicit body appreciation.In this part,438 college students were selected as subjects to investigate the influence of explicit connectedness to nature on explicit body appreciation and the mediating effect of explicit self-esteem by using connectedness to nature scale,body appreciation scale and self-esteem scale.The results show that explicit connectedness to nature has positive predictive effect on explicit body appreciation,and explicit self-esteem plays a part of mediation in the relationship.Then,130 college students were randomly assigned to the nature group(n =65)and the architecture group(n =65)by using the single-factor room design.The subjects in both groups first filled in the state body appreciation scale and state self-esteem scale,then watched the natural environment and the built environment video respectively,and then filled in the state body appreciation scale and state self-esteem scale again.The effect of nature connection priming(virtual nature contact)on state body appreciation and the mediating effect of state self-esteem were investigated.The results showed that compared with the architecture group,the subjects in the nature group had higher leve-ls of state body appreciation and state self-esteem,and state self-esteem played a part of mediation under the influence of nature connection initiation on state body appreciation.The second part discusses the effect of implicit connectedness to nature on implicit body appreciation.In this part,68 college students were selected as subjects to measure their implicit connectedness to nature,implicit self-esteem and implicit body appreciation respectively by using implicit association test,so as to explore the influence of implicit connectedness to nature on implicit body appreciation and whether implicit self-esteem plays a mediating role.The results show that implicit connectedness to nature is a positive predictor of implicit body appreciation,and implicit self-esteem partially mediates the relationship.Then 52 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either the nature group(n =26)or the architecture group(n =26).The subjects in the two groups respectively watched natural environment video and built environment video,and then the level of implicit connectedness to nature,implicit self-esteem and implicit body appreciation was measured.Meanwhile,26 of the 68 subjects in the previous study were selected to compose a non-watching video group.The implicit connectedness to nature,implicit self-esteem and implicit body appreciation of the three groups were analyzed by one-way anova.The results showed that the subjects in the nature group had higher levels of implicit connectedness to nature,implicit self-esteem and implicit body appreciation than those in the architecture group and the non-watching video group.The conclusion of this study is as follows:1.Connectedness to nature has a positive promotion effect on college students' body appreciation at both explicit and implicit level.In the meanwhile,self-esteem has a partial mediating effect on body appreciation.2.Virtual natural contact can not only promote the level of explicit self-esteem and explicit body appreciation,but also promote the level of implicit connectedness to nature,implicit self-esteem and implicit body appreciation.