Abstract
Parents exert a strong influence on several adjustment outcomes. However, little is known about their influence on adolescents’ connectedness with the environment. This study examined the relationships between parenting styles, empathy and connectedness with the environment. The two-dimensional socialization model was used with four resulting styles: Indulgent, authoritative, neglectful and authoritarian. The sample comprised 797 adolescents (52.7% girls) from six public secondary schools who were aged between 12 and 16 years (M = 13.94, SD = 1.28). The results showed significant relationships between parental socialization styles, empathy and connectedness with nature. It was also observed that adolescents from indulgent and authoritative families showed higher levels of empathy and connectedness with the environment than adolescents raised by authoritarian and neglectful parents, with males from such families consistently presenting the lowest levels of empathy and connectedness, which was not the case among women. Additionally, women, regardless of the parental style in which they had been educated, showed greater cognitive and emotional empathy with the natural environment, while adolescents raised in indulgent and authoritative families displayed higher levels of empathy and connectedness than those with authoritarian and neglectful parents. These results suggest that indulgent and authoritative styles are stronger enablers of empathy and connectedness with nature.
Highlights
Today’s serious environmental problems, such as the pollution of the seas, the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, the destruction of forests, climate change, and the scarcity of energy and water are limiting the ability of human and non-human living beings inhabiting this planet to survive and constitute one of the greatest challenges facing the world’s population today [1,2]
Much research has been carried out in recent decades with the aim of answering the environmental problems that affect us and promoting a change of mentality regarding the relations between human beings and nature—having a regard to such environmental education is crucial in order to transmit the principles of sustainable development [6,7,8,9,10,11]
The first observation was that the parental socialization styles mainly affected connectedness and empathy—cognitive and emotional—with socialization styles mainly affected connectedness and empathy—cognitive and emotional—with nature, confirming the first hypothesis in which it was stated that styles of parental socialization nature, confirming the first hypothesis in which it was stated that styles of parental socialization will be significantly related to empathy and connectedness with nature
Summary
Today’s serious environmental problems, such as the pollution of the seas, the depletion of the ozone layer, global warming, the destruction of forests, climate change, and the scarcity of energy and water are limiting the ability of human and non-human living beings inhabiting this planet to survive and constitute one of the greatest challenges facing the world’s population today [1,2] This dramatic situation has been affecting citizens, albeit very slowly, in the form of greater commitment and respect for the environment and more pro-environmental and sustainable behavioural changes [3,4,5]. Public Health 2019, 16, 2461; doi:10.3390/ijerph16142461 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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