Thoughts of nature, thoughts of god: The effects of exposure to nature on religiosity

Recent studies have suggested that exposure to nature leads to higher levels of reported religiosity. The goal of my thesis was to conceptually replicate these findings and more importantly expand on previous findings by investigating personality factors that may make individuals more or less likely to respond to exposure to nature. Specifically, I looked at risk aversion and self-monitoring. Participants were prompted to imagine themselves walking through a forest (experimental group) or a city (control group). The students were asked to describe what they are seeing, hearing, smelling, and feeling during their walks in a series of open-ended questions. Students then completed a series of questionnaires measuring self-monitoring, risk aversion, and religiosity. I predict participants who engage in nature visualization will report overall higher levels of religiosity than the control group regardless of personality variables. High-self-monitoring females in the nature manipulation will report the highest levels of religiosity and the nature manipulation will have a smaller effect on low-self-monitors. Individuals reporting higher levels of risk aversion will report higher levels of religiosity compared to those with lower risk aversion. Anticipated results should suggest a complex relationship between personality variables and the effect of exposure to nature on religiosity.