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    Nature Connection, Mindfulness, and Wellbeing: A Network Analysis
    (LIDSEN Publishing Inc., 2023-11-06) Capizzi R; Kempton HM; Conboy LA
    Relationships between nature connection, mindfulness and wellbeing have been observed through nature based therapeutic interventions, where mindfulness and nature appear to reciprocally influence each other in relation to wellbeing and is potentially consistent with attention restoration theory. However, previous studies have relied on examining nature based interventions rather than the role of nature connection in everyday lives. This investigation explored the relationship between nature connection, mindfulness, and wellbeing within a general population sample in Auckland, New Zealand during the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants (n = 472) completed a survey questionnaire measuring nature connectedness (CNS), hedonic and eudemonic wellbeing (PANAS and MLQ), stress (PSS), and mindfulness (FFMQ). Given mindfulness consists of interrelated practices and the relationship between mindfulness and nature connection is thought to be reciprocal, an EBIC GLASSO network was constructed to investigate the pathways between nature connection, mindfulness, and wellbeing. The FFMQ subscale of Observing was central to the network in terms of closeness and betweenness and had a strong correlation with CNS where it bridged CNS and wellbeing scales. This study demonstrates that individuals in their daily lives show relationships between nature connection, mindfulness, and wellbeing, and indicates that the Observing aspect of mindfulness might be useful for harnessing nature connection and wellbeing effects.
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    Exploring 'nature' conceptualisations and 'connections' : a case study in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Management, Massey University, Aotearoa New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2022) Fehnker-Heather, Lissy
    Human actions and activities, particularly in urban Western countries, are degrading ‘nature’ at an unprecedented rate. As a result, the global environmental scientific community stress the urgent need to shift behavioural actions to more sustainable ones, for example actions that are respectful toward ‘nature’ and other species. To shift actions, it is crucial to understand what underpins them. As it is largely suggested that beliefs about ‘nature’ inform subsequent actions toward ‘nature’, the interest for environmental managers should be understanding what underpins these beliefs to initiate change. Research exploring the beliefs that people hold about ‘nature’ is growing but is still scarce in environmental management as most research is initiated from the psychological discipline. This means that the findings from such studies struggle to make their way into environmental management and therefore the implications are not translated into practical outcomes which are relevant to environmental managers active in the field. Consequently, the research in this thesis explored four facets of beliefs relating to ‘nature’ to contribute to environmental management literature and aimed to situate the findings into environmental management outcomes. The four research areas investigated were conceptualisations of ‘nature’, conceptualisations of ‘connections to ‘nature’’, what the self-perceived pathways or barriers to ‘connections to ‘nature’’ are, and how respondents view themselves in relation to ‘nature’ along with examining whether this influences their pro-‘nature’ beliefs. These avenues of research were investigated with between 960 and 997 respondents from Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand via a cross-sectional, qualitative online survey and interviews. The findings suggested that most of the respondents conceptualise ‘nature’ as being something that neither humans nor human activities are a part and similarly mostly view ‘nature’ as separate from themselves. The research further uncovered that common associations of ‘nature’ are related to flora and fauna, and that there are several ways in which ‘connections to ‘nature’’ are conceptualised, but most commonly, they are perceived as being cognitive, affective, or experiential connections. The research has shown that respondents commonly perceive modern societal factors as a barrier to their connection to ‘nature’ but on the contrary perceive exposure to ‘nature’ as being a key pathway to their connections. Lastly, the findings highlighted that interconnectedness with ‘nature’ correlated with higher pro-‘nature’ beliefs across the respondent group. The research and its findings make an important contribution to the limited environmental management empirical research on ‘nature’ conceptualisations and ‘connections’ available internationally. This research also provides empirical insights into the population of Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland, which can be used to provide practical interventions and initiatives to facilitate stronger connections and relationships to ‘nature’. These can be implemented in practice, policy/strategy, and planning. Recommendations are made to assist with this.
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    Imagining ecologies : traditions of ecopoetry in Aotearoa New Zealand : a thesis submitted to Massey University in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Massey University of Palmerston North
    (Massey University, 2019) Newman, Janet Elizabeth
    New Zealand ecopoetry tells the stories of connection with and separation from the land. From the late nineteenth century until the present, opposing and changing notions of ecological loss and belonging have underlain New Zealand’s long lineage of ecopoetry in English. Yet, from a critical perspective, such a tradition is essentially invisible. Scholars have tended to fragment New Zealand ecopoetry according to themes and time periods. But taken as a whole, the tradition not only provides local stories of human relationships with nature transformed by colonialism, it challenges some established conceptions of ecopoetry. Discussions within the relatively new field of post-colonial ecocriticism revealthe importance of local writing. Scholars have emphasized that particular national histories especially in places of settler colonialism have “contributed to the hybridization and creolization of plants, peoples, and place in ways that profoundly denaturalize absolute ontological claims,” (DeLoughrey 2014 325). This approach recognises that rather than a global framework of ecological change, experiences differ according to specific locations and across different timeframes. With this approach in mind, the critical component of this thesis investigates the field of ecopoetry and maps New Zealand’s ecopoetic lineage. It reports on close readings and analysis of contemporary ecopoetry by three New Zealand poets: Brian Turner (b. 1944), Robert Sullivan (b. 1967) and Airini Beautrais (b. 1982). It finds that New Zealand ecopoetry portrays particular tensions about understandings of nature and the human relationship with it. These tensions challenge in specific ways some of the homogenizing, Eurocentric conceptions that prevail in foundational work carried out in the field of ecopoetry since the 1990s. The creative component is a collection of original ecopoems entitled Anti-Pastoral. These poems reflect on my own connection to land through farming over four generations of European settlement in New Zealand. Some poems focus on the degrading effects on people and animals of relatively recent shifts towards large-scale intensive farming. In the critical component I ask: How do we define and depict New Zealand’s long tradition of ecopoetry? How does that tradition speak back to and challenge existing definitions of ecopoetry and of ecology? In the creative component, I ask: How do I, a Pākehā poet and farmer, join that tradition?
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    Exploring the effects of outdoor activities and connectedness with nature on cognitive styles and creativity : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Psychology at Massey University, Wellington, New Zealand
    (Massey University, 2017) Leong, Lai Yin Carmen
    The natural environment’s potential to improve education, work, and lifestyles is receiving increasing attention by policy makers and practitioners. Psychological research has demonstrated that stress reduction, attention restoration, and increased creativity can result from exposure to nature. Such evidence notwithstanding, the precise psychological mechanisms explaining these effects remain unclear. This thesis provides a systematic examination of how contact with nature might affect humans. Four studies were conducted. Study 1 reports two meta-analyses (N = 10701, k = 100) involving: (i) 66 studies using preand post-test designs, and (ii) 32 experimental studies that include a control group. Although outdoor activities have been found overall to affect personal and social outcomes positively, there has been limited research into the effects on cognitive variables of exposure to outdoor environments. To address this gap in the literature, I aim to investigate whether contact with nature (in two dimensions–the psychological attachment to nature and the physical exposure to it) is associated with processes related to creativity (i.e., cognitive styles and divergent thinking creativity). Study 2 (N = 138) tests the relationship between connectedness with nature and cognitive styles and reports a significant positive association between connectedness with nature and both innovative and holistic thinking styles. Building on this finding, Study 3 (N = 185) not only replicates the results of Study 2 by controlling for wellbeing processes, but includes a new creativity test to examine the link between connectedness with nature and creative processes (connectedness with nature is found to be positively linked with divergent-thinking creativity). As these three studies employ cross-sectional data where causality cannot be inferred, the last study involves an experimental design. Study 4 (N = 93) manipulates active versus passive engagement with nature and examines the mediating impact of connectedness with nature on the link between outdoor activities and divergentthinking creativity. Some theoretical explanations as to how nature might affect our creativity are proposed. Potential limitations and suggestions for future research are discussed. The findings are intended to provide supporting evidence for the relationship between nature and creativity, and hopefully inform educational pedagogy and lifestyle choices likely to enhance creativity.
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    Natural sounds : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2004) Liu, Shiquan Michael
    Natural sounds, as one of the most important resources of nature, have attracted attention from many researchers. Although, psychological approaches, acoustical approaches and psychoacoustical approaches have been employed on the research of natural sounds, not many analytical investigations have been conducted on specific natural sounds except for the biological natural sounds. The aim of this study is to present the properties and reveal the generation mechanisms of the selected natural sounds. This thesis concentrated on studying the characteristics of various specific natural sounds by acoustical approach. Field recording has been mainly adopted for the collection of sound samples. For the selected samples, computational analyses were conducted to investigate the attributes of the sounds. Sound signatures including waveform, frequency spectrum and sonogram were displayed to visualize the analyzed signals. The generation mechanisms were reviewed and discussed to reveal the variables that contribute to the sound characteristics. Sound samples including cavity wind sound, aeolian sound, wind sound through vegetation, thunder clap, thunder rumble, thunder crack, plunging breaker sound, spilling breaker sound, rock wave sound, boiling mud pot sound, geyser eruption sound, fumaroles eruption sound and different bubble sounds were selected and analyzed to reveal their properties.