Religion, Urbanization, and Affluence are Antecedents of Ecospirituality Across Cultures

The idea that humanity and nature are spiritually connected—ecospirituality—is a core aspect of cultural and religious worldviews around the world. Sociocultural factors, like religion, urbanization, and affluence, are hypothesized to shape people’s spiritual connections with nature, yet there are no systematic cross-cultural surveys of ecospirituality that can speak to this hypothesis. Study 1 used a sample of religious people from 15 countries spanning the 5 world religions (N = 11,186) to assess how these sociocultural factors relate to ecospirituality. Study 2 assessed the same factors in a sample of religious and non-religious Americans (N = 3,329). The overall pattern of results suggested that greater religiosity, urbanization, and affluence contribute to greater ecospirituality across cultural and religious contexts. Some differences in the pattern of results were found in the sample of Americans, suggesting that psychological surveys on this topic conducted in the United States may not generalize across cultures. This research contributes to our understanding of how sociocultural factors that are rapidly changing in many parts of the world may shape people’s connections with the natural environment.