If environmental identity is a product, what is material that it is made of? Clayton discusses that environmental identities come from interactions and socially constructed understandings of oneself and others. Overall, it indeed comes from experience, however since environmental identity is significant, it should have emotional significance and also affect the way people think about themselves. Truly, affective component of environmental identity has been highlighted by a number of studies (Hinds & Sparks, 2008; Milton, 2002; Mayer & Frantz, 2004, etc.).

Moreover, there is a considerable amount of reports that experience of the natural environment has a significant positive effect. In these studies, people report having an emotional uplift after having both direct (resting in woods) and indirect (listening to the recorded sounds of nature) exposure to the environment. Evidence shows that people tend to appreciate and value nature, even speaking from economical point of view: there are higher prices on the apartments with a nicer view, expensive resorts are often situated in remote natural settings. People are also willing to invest their time in nature while working in the garden, planting trees and bushes in the backyard and so on. One of the fascinating facts is that some people have a specific need to experience nature, which cannot be replaced with satisfaction of other needs like food, sex, money, etc. Enjoying nature can relate to aesthetic needs, referring to Maslow's hierarchy. Clayton's meta-analysis of systematic empirical research shows that people tend to prefer natural settings over non-natural scenes when choosing a place to dwell, rest, when asked to imagine a scene, describe a favorite place.

Among listed benefits a restorative function of nature is given high consideration. It has been reported, that natural environment helps to endure stress, raise feeling of safety, increase overall feeling of comfort and happiness (Kuo, Bacaicoa, & Sullivan, 1998). Positive effects are present during collaborative pro-environmental actions (McLean, 1996), which result in organizing communities and increasing socialization.

Looking back at the self-concept, natural environment also proved to enhance sense of self. Thinking about human self in the natural environment in terms of figure-ground shift from gestalt theory is a good way to understand this phenomenon. In modern society, we receive mass of signals from various objects that form an information buzz and draw attention and cognitive resources to process the information. While outdoors, the information buzz weakens, and one's self becomes a figure, while nature forms ground. This way, a person's self becomes much more salient, making it easier to sense and focus on it, which is a probable explanation of the mentioned restorative effects of nature.

While some degree of studies doubts in environmental identity explanatory power, a research by Shultz (2000) clearly showed that combination of self-identity and environmental concern can predict certain environmental attitudes. In his experiment, images of animals being harmed were shown to the students. While control group had no instructions, test group were asked to imagine what did the animals feel, meaning that they would include animal's approximate sensations (based on their own experience) of pain and suffering into their self-identity, in another words, identify themselves with harmed animals. The results showed that test group had a considerable raise of concern related to environmental entities, while control group did not report such changes. This example shows that people react to causes naturally, when it affects their self, or an object that they perceive relatedness to. In this case, environmental identity reveals itself as a motivator.

When nature is perceived closely related to a person, it implies that person has a wider representation of self, internalizing something universal and ubiquitous as a part of them. It reflects the findings on relation of transcendence and universalism to environmental concern in previous sections. While being able to form such vast relation to nature, person acquires experience of being able to be a part of something greater than their self. Historically in various cultures, nature is compared to divine matter, something godlike and universal. While human mind links with such wide matter as nature, does environmental identity imply humans as a part of nature? If it does, having strong bond with nature could mean interconnection of human self within other humans.

Environmental empathy

Modern day society highly values independence and originality as a traits of person. People build their lives according to high goals, counting on personal strength and intellectual reasoning. Sometimes, life full of achievements may set the scene for fighting against whole world in order to become something more. Positioning their selves against something, people divide the whole world, distancing themselves from the parts of world that are considered not a part of them. However, people are not alone here. People are used to stress various differences among themselves, while they forget that they all are a small part of a force called life, and life is a part of even bigger force called nature. In a matter of universal history, every life form is related to each other as a part of one kindred.

While it is hard to foster current universalistic statement right away, people are familiar with sense of other. Reactions to the observed experience of another is a broad definition of empathy. Being empathetic means to feel the same way that another person feels, being able to disposition one's mind into a mind of another. Empathy has a long history of research in science, starting from philosophy of ancient times. As a part of psychological research, empathy has a vast number of definitions, and is divided to several types, like cognitive, emotional and somatic empathy, emphasizing certain components of empathy (Rothschild, 2006).

Mark Davis, however, argues that understanding of empathy requires explicit recognition that both affective and cognitive components are involved in the empathetic response process (Davis, 1983). In a developed IRI (Interpersonal Reactivity Index) scale empathy is treated as a multidimensional rather than unipolar construct. There are four subscales, measuring values, closely related to empathy. While mentioning empathy, it is important to distinguish it from compassion of sympathy. Empathy can be understood as a close interpretation of one's emotional state including negative emotions as well as positive ones.

Empathy occurs when a salient reaction from other is “tried on” or internalized by a person. This requires recognition of a current state of other and motivation to internalize it. It has been noted that empathy can occur unintentionally, as an automatic and context dependent process. On the other hand, empathy can also occur intentionally, when person is motivated to experience mental state of other (Zaki, 2014). In contemporary theory defines empathy as a reflexive process, supporting the idea that specific idea or action are represented through common coding, or overlapping psychological or neural representations.

Davis highlights the transcendent qualities of empathy in his research (2003). When catching the same emotional condition of another person, we make their self and our self less different, making an emotional bridge, formed of overlapping and shared experience. We might argue that experiencing empathy is related with identification with other, projecting their state onto our state.

While empathy is mostly studied as a social phenomenon, there is evidence of its' relatedness to nature. The concept of understanding and sharing of the emotional experience, of the natural world is coined as environmental empathy, or empathy with nature. There is a theoretical distinction between induced and dispositional empathy: while induced empathy is studied in form of emotional reaction to stimuli and may vary depending upon context, dispositional empathy is viewed as a stable personal trait.

Several environmental thinkers already set foot in field of studying induced empathy with nature: typically, their studies involve asking respondents to think of the animals in distress as if they were themselves, shifting focus from self onto the suffering animal and perceiving world from their imaginary perspective. One of the earliest studies in the area were conducted by Shelton and Rogers (1981): people who took the perspective of a suffering whale were involved in their protection measures and interested in global environmentalism, compared to the group that did not take the perspective.

In Schultz's study regarding perspective taking (2007), induced empathy has proved to fulfill a moderator role in human-environment relations. In his earlier studies, Schultz succeeded to induce empathy with natural environment through display of images with harmed animals. When test subjects had instruction to think dispositionally and try harmed animal's sensations on, a significant increase in environmental concern occurred. Schultz explains these results through empathy: when test subjects imagined pain and suffering of an animal, they reported less similarity between humans and animals, and perceived lack of fairness in regard to an animal in pain.

Another study links natural environment and self, using empathy: in a study of anthropomorphic patterns of interpretation, Ulrich Gebhard notes, that children perceive non-human objects as if they were humans (Gebhard, Nevers, & Billmann-Mahecha, 2003). It occurs both with animal representatives of nature and plants, trees are interpreted in terms of children's own body experience (cut branch or torn leaf is compared to cuts on the body). Further study proposes that trees and animals are perceived as a moral objects and they are being moralized through anthropomorphism. Child classifies trees and humans as parts of one category, Gebhard et al. do not name it nature or life, but it could be a proper name for it in this case.

However, the area of dispositional empathy remains rather unexplored. In order to study the phenomenon of environmental concern, it is important to have the complete theory of empathy with nature. Environmentalism in science is a new, yet growing trend, which conquers new grounds at a growing pace. Dispositional empathy with nature has been explored by K.P. Tam (2013) in his work Dispositional empathy with nature, where he provides a systematic understanding of DEN. Based on his theoretical findings, a Dispositional Empathy with Nature scale is constructed and tested across five studies. Current study follows the idea that dispositional empathy with nature is a promising field and uses DENS scale for measurement of empathy with nature of respondents.

Multiple researchers argue that higher environmental concern implies higher environmental identity. People with higher environmental identity have a broader representation of self, counting nature as a part of themselves and themselves as a part nature. Participating in these human-nature relationships, people value nature as a part of themselves and are willing to preserve and protect it. Identifying nature with themselves, people can feel empathy towards living creatures and other objects of natural environment. While environmental identity can induce empathy to nature via broader representation of self, it is possible that broader self includes people as a part of natural environment. Hence, people with higher environmental identity can feel empathy towards humans as a part nature. This assumption is based on a considerable amount of research, noted in the previous parts of the paper. Values such as transcendence, altruism, or a broad representation of self are found to be correlated with environmental concern and environmental identity. Based on this theoretical assumption several hypotheses of the study are formed and described in the following chapter.

Current study

While analyzing the sources, it became clear that the bulk of theoretical and empirical data is highly mixed, having evidence both for and against proposed theories across most cases.

Hence, the problem of the current study lies in controversial data regarding predictors of environmental concern. Russian area of environmental concern study remains untouched and is little known, despite its growing importance. Moreover, the stated problem deteriorates globally partly because researchers use various instrument for measuring data.

In order to solve existing problem of multiple arguments and contradictions in data, it was decided to organize it first.

In order to solve existing problem of multiple research tools, it was decided to use most reliable research instruments at the moment and adapt them of necessity to perform the study on Russian sample.

Therefore, the goals of the current study are:

1. To provide theoretical overview of existing literature regarding predictors of the environmental concern.

2. To adapt and test research methods on Russian sample.

3. To test several hypotheses regarding human - nature relations.

Current research consists of two studies. Study 1 is focused on preliminary test of chosen research instruments in order to check their accuracy and internal consistency. Also it suggests several exploratory hypotheses and research questions emerged during literature analysis.

Historically, environmental attitudes were first believed to depend mostly on social-demographic parameters such as age, gender, residence, social class and even political ideology. Some authors were able to work out a set of typical traits of a person, displaying environmental concern (Samdahl & Robertson, 1989) based on these parameters. There were eight hypotheses in the social-demographic section: age, gender, social class, residence, political ideology, religion, post-materialism (affluence) and culture hypotheses. Each of the listed hypotheses accumulated number of researchers providing data about correlation with environmental concern and disproving the correlation, along with situational findings on the topic (e.g. women being more environmentally concerned vs men).

Age, gender, education, residence, income level hypotheses were most discussed, however, due to the contradictory data it was hard to presume positive or negative correlations of social-demographic parameters to environmental concern level and hence the first research question of the study emerged:

Do social demographic parameters (Age, gender, education, residence, income level) correlate with environmental concern?

At first time of the scientific interest in environmental concern, social-demographic parameters were showing consistent results, however, more studies brought more contradictory data. It was assumed to be connected with personal values as well. Stern and Dietz (1994) introduced the value-basis theory, where concern for the environment is explained through egoistic, altruistic and biospheric concerns. ecological environmental empathy

People with high egoistic values perceive a threat to themselves from environmental damage, altruistic values lead to environmental concern based on threats to other people and biospheric environmental concerned are based on a value of all living things. Across studies three types of concern were linked to various models, including Thompson & Barton motives scale (1994) and Schwartz's value orientations.

I decided to investigate whether any of Schwartz's values are related with overall environmental concern, measured by Dunlap NEP Scale and proposed the following research question:

Do personal values correlate with environmental concern?

While social-demographic and personal values approaches tend to treat nature as something external and foreign to us, the identity approach introduces a broader link between human self and natural environment. Environmental identity resembles archetypical or even Darwinist approach, explicitly showing that mankind may have left the cradle of wilderness, but remains its child on the inside. While social identities are based on social experiences, environmental identities are formed on experiences with natural environment. Identity approach considers environmental concern as a significant part of one's self - a product of phenomenal nature. Susan Clayton (2003) defines environmental identity as an assortment of beliefs about the self and a motivator of particular ways of interacting with the world, meaning that identity can be a product and a force.

It follows that environmental concern can be perceived as a concern for one's transcendental self. Multiple studies cover the restorative effect of exposure to natural environment (Kuo, Bacaicoa, & Sullivan, 1998; McLean, 2011), outlining the health benefits for human psychology. While appreciating nature as a resource, people value nature as a part of themselves and are willing to preserve and protect it in return. Based on Clayton, Dunlap and Mayer studies, I estimated positive correlation between environmental identity and environmental concern:

People with higher environmental identity will have higher environmental concern.

Exploring the idea of transcendence of human consciousness and its interdependence with nature, Schultz (2000) experimented with concept of empathy with nature. In his study, natural environment and self are linked via process of internalization of the observable or imaginary nature which serves as a mediator in human-nature relations. While empathy is mostly studied as a social phenomenon (e.g. Davis, 1983; Rothschild, 2006), the effects of dispositional empathy with nature were salient in Schultz's studies. However, empathy with nature appeared as young and yet not developed phenomenon, despite its promising theoretical potential. Based on the described transcendence of empathy, I assumed that people with higher empathy would be abler to empathize with other life forms, and formed a hypothesis:

People with higher environmental identity will have higher empathy with people.

Overall, Study 1 hypotheses are:

H1: People with higher environmental identity will have higher environmental concern.

H2: People with higher environmental identity will have higher empathy with people.

Study 1 research questions are:

RQ1: Do social demographic parameters (Age, gender, education, residence, income level) correlate with environmental concern?

RQ2: Do personal values correlate with environmental concern?

Study 2 continues testing of research instruments chosen from Study 1. It introduces further hypotheses about the nature of human-nature relationship along with research questions based on Study 1 results and literature analysis.

Using the most promising results from pre-test, I narrowed down three major constructs in the scope of the current study: Environmental Identity, Empathy and Environmental Concern. Current research goal is to find out the relations between environmental identity, empathy towards nature and environmental concern.

On the basis of previous literature overview, first details of theoretical model started to emerge. It was decided to move away from social-demographic and personal values approaches (in sense of explaining the environmental concern) and treat it as a part of personality, a complex psychological phenomenon, not so reliant on social-demographic or sets of typical values.

Instead, concept of environmental empathy gathered larger portion of attention. It seemed logical that a person with developed identity towards nature tries to internalize it in terms of feelings and emotional experience. Based on Schultz's study, respondents observing pictures of suffering animals reported feeling the pain and suffering vividly, as if they were these animals. Also, measured levels of environmental concern were affected. It is assumed that emotional experience, felt by respondents who identify themselves with nature is an important part of understanding the need of environmental care.

Environmental empathy positively correlates with environmental concern.

It is also interesting to compare empathy towards nature with empathy towards people and its' influence on environmental concern. Based on future studies of P. Schultz (Schultz et al., 2000), and his idea about mediating human-nature relations, I came up with assumption that it should be closely connected with environmental identity and biological environmental concern in the tri-partite model of environmental concern by Stern and Dietz (1994).

Environmental empathy positively correlates with biological type of environmental concern.

However, experiments of Schultz were focused on inducing the dispositional empathy of respondents in particular moment of time (while observing suffering animals), while it remains unclear how these constructs reveal themselves when treated as stable traits of personality in everyday situations. People with strong identity with nature feel themselves as a part of unified life force. Perhaps, their worldview ceases to divide humans from plants and animals, making concept of social empathy in some sense similar to empathy towards nature in large. It is also interesting to compare levels of empathy towards people and empathy towards nature in order to see if there is any connection. Based on these assumptions, I formed the research question:

Does environmental empathy correlate with levels of social empathy?

Since the nature of social empathy and environmental empathy have a chance to be interrelated, I decided to reproduce the former research question regarding social empathy on higher number of respondents:

Does social empathy correlate with environmental concern?

Following the thought of Stern and Dietz, people tend to care about nature due to three types of reasons: egoistic, altruistic and biospheric. I decided to use the General Awareness of Consequences scale (GAC) in order to assess respondents' scores based on their motives regarding environmental concern. Since strong social empathy results in higher care for the in-group, it was assumed that people with higher levels of social empathy will have stronger altruistic environmental concern.

Social empathy positively correlates with altruistic environmental concern.

Overall, Study 2 hypotheses are:

H1: Environmental empathy positively correlates with environmental concern.

H2: Environmental empathy positively correlates with biospheric environmental concern.

H3: Social empathy positively correlates with altruistic environmental concern.

Study 2 research questions are:

RQ1: Does environmental empathy correlate with social empathy?

RQ2: Does social empathy correlate with environmental concern?



Chapter 2: Method

Study 1

A pre-test study with 22 participants has been conducted. The aim of the pre-test was to try several research instruments and perform exploratory analysis for the main study. Six measures were picked and introduced as a self-administered questionnaire. It was also important to verify the translated instruments in the pre-test. In order to introduce questionnaire in Russian, several methods were translated (NEP, EID, Short SVS) using Behling & Law Guidelines (2000).

Methods and procedure

Social-demographic parameters age, gender, education, residence, income level were gathered in a block of single-answer questions: “State your gender, … level of education, … income level, … residence, … political orientation”.

Personal values were measured using Schwartz Value Survey (SVS). While original version of the scale uses 57 values, the shortened version consists of 10 broad values, placed on 9-point Likert scale, representing the ones that are tested with 57 items in the original scale. The shortened version has been tested empirically and proved its validity and internal consistency (Lindeman, Verkasalo, 2005).

Janoff-Bulman's Moral Motives Model (MMM) has been added in order to measure respondents' value orientations. It consists of 32-item checklist of assumptions, positioned on 6-point Likert scale. The instrument uses eight subscales describing value orientations: self-worth, luck, justice, benevolence of people, benevolence of world, self-control, control and a random scale. The point of adding MMM was to acquire data about individuals' benevolence toward the world and people, however, we may find valuable results on the other scales as well. Just like other introduced measures, MMM has been tested on large samples for its psychometric properties and is a recommended tool in both clinical and research settings (Elklit, Shevlin, Solomon, Dekel, 2007).

A short version of a revised NEP (New Environmental Paradigm) scale has been chosen for measuring environmental concern. It includes fifteen items, eight from which represent statements align the respondent as a supporter of a new environmental paradigm, which stands for a new, more environmental-oriented world view, while other seven if agreed to associate them as a part of dominant social paradigm (DSP), reflecting anthropocentric position and orientation to nature in an instrumental way. The strength of agreement to items is measured using Likert scale (strongly agree, agree, unsure, disagree, strongly disagree). Used from before 2000 to the present day, it became a rather classical research instrument dealing with environmental concern measurements, being accepted extensively accepted as a measure of environmental world views. In the paper, presenting a revised NEP scale, authors state that internal consistency is one of the strongest sides of the scale (Dunlap, Van Liere, 2005).

Two instruments have been chosen to measure environmental identity: environment identity (EID) scale, developed by Susan Clayton and connectedness to nature (CNS) scale, developed by Stephan Mayer. The former endorses the environmental identity concept, defining it as a way in which people form their self-concept, based on a sense of connection to a non-human environment, resulting in beliefs that nature is an important part of self. It consists of 24 statements (including reversed items), representing various areas and situations of human-nature relationships. Respondent is asked to mentalize the statements and answer how well does the statement reflect their position regarding their lifestyle (Strongly disagree, disagree, agree, strongly agree). EID is a well-known scale which proved high levels of reliability in previous research (Olivos, Aragones, 2011). Also, it has some relation to NEP measurements of environmental concern, which seems to be rather good for overall methods validity.

Connectedness to nature scale measures affective individual experience of connection with nature. Its main difference from NEP scale that it focuses on measuring affective component of environmental identity. This method is usually compared to implicit associations test (IAT) which was used in Schultz's studies of connectedness to nature. Authors state that CNS has a list of benefits compared to IAT, such as it is easier to administer and it uses a reliable multi-item scale. It includes 14 items, Likert-scale (agree-disagree from 1-5). Using scale to measure connectedness with nature along with ecological attitudes and environmental identity seems pertinent for forming a rich picture of person-nature relations.

The listed research instruments form a 6-method self-reported questionnaire (apart from social-demographic block), which was administered using online survey service (1ka.si) via Internet. Gathered data was unloaded in SPSS (ver.22) and analyzed using non-parametric tests. Results are presented in the following part.

Results and Discussion

Table 1. Demographic characteristics of the sample

Respondents	N	Mean	SD
Male	10	23.63	5.88
Female	12	24.38	5.33
All	22	24.04	5.48

All methods, including translated methods showed good internal consistency, except for Schwartz short value survey. Schwartz's short value survey showed low internal consistency (.54), probably because of the translation flaws. Main limitation of the study was the sample size, overall including 22 respondents.

Table 2. Reliability of the scales
Scale	Cronbach`s alpha
NEP Scale	.76
EID Clayton	.91
CNS Mayer	.70
IRI Davis	.73
SVS Schwartz	.54
MMM Janoff-Bulman	.85



Table 3. Demographic characteristics and Environmental Concern (N=22)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Environmental Concern	?
2. Age	.25	?
3. Sex	.36	.19	?
4. Education	-.09	.20	.28	?
5. Income	-.06	.48*	.04	.37	?
6. Residence	-.12	.04	.15	.36	.16	?
7. Political orientation	-.14	-.27	.12	.33	-.06	-.47	?

There was a significant correlation between age and income level, however, there were no significant associations found between age, gender, residence, political ideology and NEP (p>0,05), meaning that environmental concern is not associated with social-demographic parameters. Next come the results on Schwartz value survey and Moral Motives scale.

Table 4. Personal Values and Environmental Concern (N=22)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11
1. Environmental Concern	?
2. SVS Power	-.34	?
3. SVS Achievement	-.26	.60**	?
4. SVS Stimulation	-.14	.39	.50*	?
5. SVS Pleasure	-.43*	.36	.51*	.47*	?
6. SVS Independence	-.44*	.28	.49*	.42	.05	?
7. SVS Universalism	.01	-.20	-.18	-.07	.00	.16	?
8. SVS Benevolence	-.25	-.32	-.07	.09	.12	.27	.16	?
9. SVS Tradition	.14	-.14	-.21	-.26	-.52	.13	.14	.07	?
10. SVS Obedience	.15	-.09	-.06	-.26	.01	-.09	-.30	.07	.31	?
11. SVS Security	-.16	.24	.24	.24	.24	.32	-.10	.14	.36	.53*	?
Table 5. Moral Motives and Environmental Concern (N=22)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Environmental Concern	?
2. MMM Helping Fairness	-.12	?
3. MMM Not Harming	.09	.48*	?
4. MMM Social Justice	.33	.38	.61**	?
5. MMM Social Order	-.18	.33	.41	.38	?
6. MMM Self - Reliance	-.43*	.35	-.01	-.15	.33	?
7. MMM Self - Restraint	.10	.48*	-.11	.31	.53*	.66*	?

Correlation analysis indicated significant negative associations between NEP and Pleasure (r_s = -.43, p < 0.05), Independence (r_s = -.44, p < 0.05) (Schwartz) and Self-reliance (r_s = -.43, p < 0.05) (Janoff-Bulman) moral motives. It seems that environmentally concerned people tend to focus less on hedonism. An unexpected finding was negative association between Independence, Self-reliance and NEP, possibly meaning that environmentally concerned people seek more support among others rather than keeping to themselves, leading to the hypothesis about stronger social empathy of people, who display more environmental concern.

Table 6. Environmental Identity, Connectedness to Nature and Environmental Concern
Variables	1	2	3
1. Environmental Concern	?
2. Environmental Identity	.56**	?
3. Connectedness to Nature	.34	.72**	?

There was a significant positive correlation between NEP and EID (r_s = .56, p < 0.01), meaning that environmental identity is connected with environmental concern (H1). Generally, this proves Clayton and Schultz results on the topic. However, there was no significant correlation (p > 0.05) between CNS and NEP.

It is also interesting that there was a correlation between Mayer's CNS and reluctance to harm moral motive (r_s = .46, p < 0.05) (Janoff-Bulman).



Table 7. Environmental Identity, Connectedness to Nature and Social Empathy
Variables	1	2	3
1. Social Empathy	?
2. Environmental Identity	-.02	?
3. Connectedness to Nature	.04	.72**	?

No significant correlation was found between IRI and EID or CNS (p > 0.05), meaning that empathy with people and environmental identity are not connected, disproving the hypothesis 2.

Summary

Pre-testing showed good results for several scales, including translated methods (New Environmental Paradigm, Environmental Identity Scale, Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Other methods did not provide satisfying results on internal consistency (Schwartz Value Survey, Connectedness to Nature). The approved methods were chosen for the main study.

Along as testing methods, pre-test yielded insight on exploratory hypotheses and research questions:

Hypothesis 1 confirmed: environmental identity is connected with environmental concern.

Hypothesis 2 disproved: empathy with people and environmental identity are not connected

Main Study

Participants

A total number of 200 respondents participated in the study, most of the respondents were women (80%). Majority of subjects are students from Russian universities.

Methods and procedure

Five methods formed the base of the questionnaire, apart from social-demographic block and nature competence block. It was suggested to introduce short set of questions about the experience with nature. There were 7 questions total, asking about the residence (rural, suburban or city), time spent in natural environments, presence of house animals or plants, etc. It was important to assess nature experience of respondents in order to gather contextually related data.

In order to measure respondents' environmental concern orientation, General Awareness of Consequences scale was administered. The scale is based on tripartite model of environmental concern, introduced by Stern and Dietz (1994). GAC scale consists of 9 items, placed on 5-point Likert scale, and has 3 subscales: egoistic, altruistic and biospheric values.

Environmental concern was measured with a NEP Scale, which was the same version from the pre-test.

General Awareness of Consequences scale (GAC) was used in order to differentiate three value orientations of the attitude towards the environment: the altruistic, egoistic, and the biospheric value. It consists of 10 items, placed on 5-point Likert scale and has 3 subscales for each type of environmental concern.

Pre-test showed Environmental Identity scale as more suiting scale to be used with NEP, so only Clayton's EID Scale was used, excluding Mayer's Connectedness to Nature scale.

Davis's IRI was used to measure social empathy. In order to shorten the questionnaire, only two (Perspective-taking and Empathetic Concern) of four subscales were used. Apart from shortening the method, no additional changes were made.

In order to measure empathy with nature, Dispositional Empathy with Nature scale was used (DENS) (Stern, et al. 1995). It is based on Davis IRI scale and also collects data using two subscales: Perspective-taking and Empathetic Concern.

The listed research instruments form a 5-method self-reported questionnaire (apart from social-demographic and experience with nature block), which was administered using online survey service (1ka.si) via Internet. Gathered data will be unloaded and analyzed in SPSS (ver.22)

Chapter 3: Results

As displayed in Table 1, there is a significant skew towards female participants, resulting in only 16% male sample. Table 2 shows that the majority of participants were university undergraduates, people with and without higher education. It was expected, since the questionnaire was distributed via social media and placed in some universities' social media.

Table 8. Sex and age
Sex	N	Percent	Age, Mean
Male	32	16%	21.8
Female	168	84%	22.7

The distribution across the education level is presented in Table 9.

Table 9. Education
Education degree	N	Percent
No higher education	37	18,5%
Incomplete higher	108	54%
Completed higher	55	27,5%

It was also interesting to check the frequency of exposure to natural environment in order to be sure the sample does have some degree of experience with nature and not completely skewed towards any extreme (strictly pro-environmental or lacking nature experience). It was asked in form of multiple choice questions. The results are provided in Table 10.

Table 10. Frequency of exposure to natural environment
Education degree	N	Percent
Almost every day	19	9.5%
3 times a week	24	12%
Once a week	69	34.5%
Once a month	36	18%
Less than once a month	52	26%

The results on possession of pets and/or house plants is provided in the table below.

Table 11. Possession of house plants and/or pets
Possession	N	Percent
Yes	152	76%
No	48	24%

The results on membership in pro-environmental organization and “green” activities are in the tables below. It seems that current sample is overall not very active on pro-environmentalism, but some of the respondents have pro-environmental activity experience.

Table 12. Enlisted in pro-environmental organization
N of organizations	N	Percent
No	182	91%
Member of one	15	7.5%
Member of several	3	1.5%

Table 13. Participation in pro-environmental activities
Possession	N	Percent
Yes	178	89%
No	22	11%

Table 14. Reliability of the scales
Scale	Cronbach`s alpha
GAC Scale	.74
NEP Scale	.75
EID Scale	.88
IRI Scale	.73
DENS Scale	.92

Overall, reliability tests showed good internal consistency, including translated methods. Oddly, Davis's IRI Scale translation showed lower internal consistency than some author translated methods (NEP, EID, DENS). However, there were several poor results on subscales (Table 15) of some methods. NEP Fragility of Nature Balance and Rejection of Exemptionalism had lowest scores (.76; .55).

Table 15. Reliability of the Subscales
Subscale	Cronbach`s alpha
GAC Egoistic concern	.83
GAC Altruistic concern	.71
GAC Biological concern	.70
NEP Growth	.70
NEP Antianthropocentrism	.72
NEP Fragility of Nature's Balance	.69
NEP Rejection of Exemptionalism	.56
NEP Possibility of Ecocrisis	.71
IRI Empathetic Concern	.72
IRI Perspective - Taking	.67
DENS Empathetic Concern	.86
DENS Perspective - Taking	.86

After internal consistency, data was grouped and passed through series of non-parametric tests.

Table 16. Spearman correlation table (all instruments)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. Environmental Concern	?
2. Egoist	.34**	?
3. Altruist	.31**	.53**	?
4. Biospheric	.42**	.31**	.46**	?
5. Environmental Identity	.42**	.35**	.19**	.16*	?
6. Empathy to people	.26**	.27**	.27**	.31**	.29**	?
7. Empathy to Nature	.40**	.20**	.18*	.34**	.58**	.38**	?
M	3.59	4.32	4.15	3.65	2.56	2.74	2.56
SD	.42	.57	.57	.57	.52	.33	.69

All scales show significant correlation between each other, there is one lesser correlation between Empathy to Nature and Altruistic environmental concern. In order to display results in more detail, further correlation between listed methods' subscales is provided below.

Table 17. Environmental concern type and Environmental concern scale (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
1. GAC Egoistic Concern	?
2. GAC Altruistic Concern	.52**	?
3. GAC Biospheric concern	.31**	.45**	?
4. NEP Limits to Growth	.14*	.18**	.26**	?
5. NEP Antianthropocentrism	.21**	.19**	.23**	.23**	?
6. NEP Fragility of Nature's Balance	.30**	.24**	.34**	.37**	.20**	?
7. NEP Rejection of Exemptionalism	.09	-.01	.12	.13	.39**	.17*	?
8. NEP Possibility of Ecocrisis	.40**	.40**	.52**	.34**	.46**	.58**	.16*	?

NEP correlates with GAC in every scale except Rejection of Exemptionalism, which has low alpha score. There is however little difference between Biospherical or any other concern type, which is expected based on the fact that both methods measure environmental concern. One single subscale of the NEP does not display correlation, however, it was presumed that low internal consistency could be the cause of such results.

Table 18. Environmental Identity and Environmental Concern (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. EID Environmental Identity	?
2. NEP Limits to Growth	.15*	?
3. NEP Antianthropocentrism	.34**	.23**	?
4. NEP Fragility of Nature's Balance	.24**	.37**	.20**	?
5. NEP Rejection of Exemptionalism	.15*	.13	.39**	.17*	?
6. NEP Possibility of Ecocrisis	38**	.34**	.46**	.58**	.16*	?



EID Correlates with all NEP subscales, proving previous findings of Clayton. Environmental identity is connected with environmental concern, meaning that people who feel themselves as a part of nature are more concerned about environment.

Next come the results of Spearman two-tail correlational analysis between DENS and NEP:

Table 19. Environmental Empathy and Environmental concern (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. DENS Empathetic Concern	?
2. DENS Perspective Taking	.69**	?
3. NEP Limits to Growth	.23**	.23**	?
4. NEP Antianthropocentrism	.29**	.22**	.23**	?
5. NEP Fragility of Nature's Balance	.21**	.11	.37**	.20**	?
6. NEP Rejection of Exemptionalism	.02	-.03	.13	.39**	.17*	?
7. NEP Possibility of Ecocrisis	.28**	.23**	.34**	.46**	.58**	.16*	?

Tables show that there is a positive correlation between NEP and DENS scales, supporting hypothesis 1 and linking levels of empathy towards nature to overall Environmental Concern. It means that people who empathize with nature tend to show concern for the environment and value it. There was no significant correlation with Rejection of Exemptionalism scale, probably due to its' low internal consistency. Also, Perspective Taking did not correlate with another NEP scale, Fragility of Nature's Balance, however we are clear to approve H2 based on correlations with overall NEP and DENS.

Table 20. Social Empathy and Environmental Concern (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5	6	7
1. IRI Empathetic Concern	?
2. IRI Perspective Taking	.46**	?
3. NEP Limits to Growth	.15*	-.02	?
4. NEP Antianthropocentrism	.29**	.19**	.23**	?
5. NEP Fragility of Nature's Balance	.11	.02	.37**	.20**	?
6. NEP Rejection of Exemptionalism	.06	.06	.13	.39**	.17*	?
7. NEP Possibility of Ecocrisis	.26**	.22**	.34**	.46**	.58**	.16*	?

Spearman's two-tail correlational analysis indicated a moderate correlation between empathy towards people and environmental concern (see all methods table), however, there were also no significant correlation between social empathy and Fragility of Nature's Balance and Rejection of Exemptionalism, which have lowest alpha scores. Also, perspective-taking subscale did not correlate with Limits to Growth subscale. It could mean that people showing empathy towards others tend to show more concern about environment.

Table 21. Environmental Identity and Environmental Concern Type (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4
1. EID Environmental Identity	?
3. GAC Egoistic Concern	.32**	?
4. GAC Altruistic Concern	.16*	.52**	?
5. GAC Biospheric concern	.12	.31**	.45**	?

There is a significant correlation between environmental identity and egoistic concern (p<.01) and altruistic concern (p<0.05). It means that people with stronger environmental identity tend to care about nature based on their altruistic and/or egoistic motives. It seemed rather possible that people with higher environmental identity would care about nature based on the nature perspective, however, there is no correlation between environmental identity and biospheric concern, which is a surprising result.

Next comes the correlation results between Empathy towards Nature and type of Environmental Concern:



Table 22. Environmental Empathy and Environmental Concern Type (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5
1. DENS Empathetic Concern	?
2. DENS Perspective Taking	.69**	?
3. GAC Egoistic Concern	.10	.14*	?
4. GAC Altruistic Concern	.14*	.15*	.52**	?
5. GAC Biospheric concern	.25**	.28**	.31**	.45**	?

Environmental empathy correlates with Altruistic and Biospheric type of experimental concern, which supports H1. Apart from that, it shows only tendency with Egoistic concern at best. It means that people, empathizing with nature tend to care about nature because of their concern about other people (altruism) and / or nature itself (biospheric). Lack of correlation with egoistic concern type supports the idea that people with higher empathy with nature are less concerned about ecological wellness based on their self-perspective.

Table 23. Social Empathy and Environmental Concern Type (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4	5
1. IRI Empathetic Concern	?
2. IRI Perspective Taking	.46**	?
3. GAC Egoistic Concern	.32**	.17*	?
4. GAC Altruistic Concern	.27*	.20**	.52**	?
5. GAC Biospheric concern	.27**	.27**	.31**	.45**	?

Social empathy correlates with every one of three environmental concern types. The strongest correlation was with biospheric concern, which could imply that people with higher empathy towards people tend to care about environment based on nature perspective. However, it is also hard to attribute one particular concern type to social empathy, since they are all significantly correlated.

Technically, hypothesis #3 is approved here, however, at this point it cannot be distinguished which type of environmental concern is stronger and requires additional analysis which is provided further.

Table 24. Environmental empathy and Environmental Identity (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3
1. EID Environmental Identity	?
2. DENS Empathetic Concern	.49**	?
3. DENS Perspective Taking	.45*	.69*	?

Results indicate significant correlation between environmental identity and environmental empathy, moreover, scores on empathetic concern scale correlate with EID higher and at strongly significant level (p<.01). It means that people with higher empathy towards nature tend to have higher environmental identity.

Table 25. Environmental Identity and Social Empathy (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3
1. EID Environmental Identity	?
2. IRI Empathetic Concern	.26**	?
3. IRI Perspective Taking	.25*	.46*	?

Table shows the results on correlational analysis between social empathy and environmental identity. There is a significant correlation on both subscales of the IRI, meaning that people with higher environmental identity tend to be more sensitive to other people emotions, which sounds reasonable because from nature perspective social borders loosen up and humans appear as a more unified part of greater life force.

Table 26. Social Empathy and Environmental Empathy (N=200)
Variables	1	2	3	4
1. IRI Empathetic Concern	?
2. IRI Perspective Taking	.46**	?
3. DENS Empathetic Concern	.28**	.21*	?
4. DENS Perspective Taking	.25*	.26**	.69**	?



There has been significant correlation between social empathy and environmental empathy, answering the RQ1 and overall meaning that people showing higher empathy to people also experience it towards objects of nature. It is indeed interesting, but there could be a cautious explanation: both methods measure general ability to experience empathy. With common form of questions and idea behind it, it could mean that people tend to empathize with people and objects of nature, because of their generally higher empathy.

Linear Regression results:

Environmental Concern model:

Multiple regression analysis was used to test if levels of environmental identity, type of the environmental concern, social- or nature-related empathy significantly predicted participants' ratings of environmental concern.

The results of the regression indicated the two predictors explained 42,2% of the variance (R² =.42, F(3,196) = 47.78, p < .001).

It was found that biological type of concern significantly predicted environmental concern (в = .27, p<.001), as did level of environmental identity (в = .29, p<.001).

However, egoistic concern did not predict environmental concern (в = .06, p=.221) as well as altruistic concern type (в = .01, p=.18). Empathy, both social (в = .02, p=.32) and nature (в = .06, p=.13) were not significant enough to predict environmental concern. The final predictive model was:

Environmental concern = 1,654 + (.27*Biological Concern) + (.29*Environmental Identity)

Environmental Identity model:

Multiple regression analysis was used to test if levels of empathy, environmental concern and environmental concern type predicted levels of Environmental Identity.

The results of the regression indicated the three predictors explained 46,1% of the variance (R² =.46, F(3,196) = 55,98, p < .001).

It was found that egoistic type of concern significantly predicted environmental identity (в =.19, p<.001), as did level of environmental concern (в =.28, p<.001) and empathy to nature (в =.32, p<.001).

Two other types of environmental concern were not significant to predict environmental identity: altruistic concern (в =.05, p=.45), biospheric concern (в =-.12, p=.06) as well as social empathy (в =-.01, p=.63).

The final predictive model was:

Environmental Identity = -0,114 + (.28*Environmental Concern) + (.19*Egoistic concern) + (.32*Environmental Empathy)

Environmental Empathy model:

Multiple regression analysis was used to test if levels of empathy, environmental identity, environmental concern and environmental concern type predicted levels of empathy towards nature.

The results of the regression indicated the three predictors explained 43,6% of the variance (R² =.43, F(3,196) = 50,525, p < .001).

It was found that biospheric type of concern significantly predicted empathy to nature (в =.23, p<.001), as did level of environmental identity (в =.64, p<.001) and social empathy (в =.41, p<.001).

Two other types of environmental concern were not significant to predict environmental identity: altruistic concern (в =-.09, p=.23), egoistic concern (в =-.07, p=.33) as well as environmental concern (в =.17, p=.12).

The final predictive model was:

Empathy to Nature = -1,177 + (.22*Biospheric Concern) + (.64*Nature Identity) + (.41*Social Empathy)

Social Empathy model:

Multiple regression analysis was used to test if levels of environmental empathy, environmental concern and environmental concern type predicted levels of social empathy.

The results of the regression indicated the two predictors explained 17,2% of the variance (R² =.17, F(2,196) = 20,492, p < .001).

It was found that altruistic type of concern significantly predicted social empathy (в =.09, p<.01), as did level of environmental empathy (в =.16, p<.001).

Two other types of environmental concern were not significant to predict social empathy: egoistic concern (в =.05, p=.28), biospheric concern (в =.05, p=.22). Environmental concern did not appear as a predictor of social empathy (в =.05, p=.34).

The final predictive model was:

Social Empathy = 1,937 + (.09*Altruistic Concern) + (.16*Environmental Empathy)