Researchers continue to explore ways to understand and promote pro-environmental behavior (PEB) amongst various populations. Despite this shared goal, much debate exists on the operationalization and the dimensionality of PEB and how it is measured. This piecemeal approach to measurement has limited the ability to draw conclusions across studies. We address limitations associated with previous measures of PEB by developing a multi-dimensional scale that is validated across both a general population of individuals residing in the United States as well as a group of individuals associated with a pro-environmental organization. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and reliability estimation were conducted for the developed measure across these two populations. Measurement invariance testing was also utilized to assess the psychometric stability of the scale across the two groups. Results indicated an 11 item scale was best fitting with two sub-scales: private and public behaviors. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented disruption to daily life for large swaths of individuals and resulted in potentially widespread implications for individuals' health and wellbeing. This study utilized an online survey of avid outdoor recreationists to understand the psychosocial factors influencing recreationist behaviors during the COVID-19 pandemic across rural, urban cluster, and urban communities in the United States. Confirmatory factor analyses indicate that the five studied psychosocial factors–perceived risk, social norms, recommendations from authority, health benefits, and lifestyle adjustments–exist as unique constructs influencing individuals' outdoor recreation behaviors. Repeated measures analyses suggest individuals rated seeking benefits to their general health as most important when making outdoor recreation decisions, followed by recommendations from authority, then perceptions of risk, with lifestyle adjustments and social norms rated as least important. Lastly, analysis across community types indicated individuals across the rural-urban gradient weighed perceptions of risk and recommendations from authority differently when making outdoor recreation decisions. Managerial implications and future directions for research are discussed.

Outdoor leisure experiences may represent an understudied yet effective pathway to promote connectedness to nature for urban park visitors. In contrast to outdoor recreation, this critical essay argues outdoor leisure more heavily emphasizes eudaimonic sentiments and intrinsic motivation in comparison with the goal-oriented and hedonic nature of outdoor recreation. It is further argued that two specific social psychological constructs, awe and solitude, may be especially useful in promoting leisure experiences in urban outdoor spaces. Relevant philosophical and social psychological literature is reviewed and synthesized to outline how land managers and environmental educators may facilitate experiences of awe and solitude to better promote contexts for experiencing outdoor leisure in urban parks. Specifically, reviewed literature suggests that utilizing the recreation opportunity spectrum framework and co-creative processes may be an effective path forward in better supporting urban park environments that are conducive to awe, solitude, and leisure. The review and synthesis of this research may ultimately guide environmental educators, land managers, and researchers in ways to more effectively support connectedness to nature via outdoor leisure experiences as an outcome for visitors to outdoor urban spaces.

The continued demand for outdoor recreation during the COVID-19 pandemic presents a challenge to park and protected area managers. Numerous strategies have been suggested to reduce the risk of transmission among outdoor recreationists; however, evaluations of acceptability of these strategies and their impacts on perceptions of visitor density have not been empirically examined. The purpose of this study is to examine how varying levels of protective face mask use influence acceptability of visitor density among avid outdoor recreationists. A visually based online survey distributed through the Leave No Trace email list and a resulting linear mixed model reveal a significant interaction between visitor density and levels of mask use, indicating that outdoor recreationists have different acceptable thresholds for visitor density under different levels of mask use. These findings provide park and protected area managers with the ability to make more informed policy recommendations and align messaging to visitors regarding COVID-related protective measures.