Measuring Human Relationships With Nature : Polish Adaptation of the Multidimensional AIMES Connection to Nature Scale

Kurzfassung/Abstract

‘Return to nature’ has become a buzzword in both scientific and public discourse. The growing interest in this phenomenon calls for the development of reliable tools for scientific research, for example the adaptation of various connectivity to nature (CN) scales developed by researchers from other cultural circles and other countries. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Polish version of the AIMES scale for multidimensional assessment of CN as conceptualized by Ives et al. (2018). Validation studies were conducted using a survey administered on Prolific, an online platform, with a sample of 516 Poles (56% of them women) aged 18-66. The Polish version of AIMES showed high internal consistency (α = .92). Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the scale structure consists of a unified second-order factor with five first-order factors: attachment, identity, materialism, experiential, and spiritual. Relevance analysis showed significant positive associations of CN with perception of nature and silence, pro- environmental attitude and behaviour, psychological well-being, gratitude/awe, forgiveness, spirituality, extraversion, conscientiousness, and agreeableness, and a marginal positive association with openness to experience. The results strengthen the psychometric qualities of the AIMES scale, indicating its applicability to the study of CN in Polish contexts.