Trait gratitude to nature predicts personal and planetary well-being but also greater climate anxiety

Introduction: Gratitude to nature is an emerging topic of interest in psychology, particularly in terms of benefits for sustainability. However, little research has examined the implications of gratitude to nature for well-being. Because gratitude to nature may fuse the well-being benefits of gratitude and nature connectedness, we hypothesized that trait nature gratitude should predict greater hedonic and eudaimonic well-being, above and beyond relations with general gratitude. We also aimed to replicate past findings that greater nature gratitude predicts greater pro-environmental outcomes. However, we also hypothesized that it may predict greater climate anxiety due to increased worry about the effects of climate change on the natural world. Method: Study 1 (N = 173) measured self-reported gratitude to nature, self-transcendent emotions, self-nature representations, pro-environmental behavior, subjective well-being, and climate anxiety. Study 2 (N = 289) included the same measures (except for subjective well-being) and added a measure of stress, general anxiety, and depression. Study 3 (N = 267) added measures of general trait gratitude and eudaimonic well-being. Results: Across the three studies, we found that greater gratitude to nature was associated with subjective well-being, eudaimonic well-being, more self-transcendent emotions, more sustainable self-nature representations, and greater pro-environmental behavioral intentions, but also greater climate anxiety. Study 3 found that these relations occurred even when controlling for general trait gratitude. Discussion: The current work establishes links between gratitude to nature, the self-concept, sustainability, and well-being, while identifying a novel point of caution regarding climate anxiety that should be considered when developing nature gratitude interventions.