In March 2021, SUN lab team’s scientific merit fund was replenished with an article “Catholic religious identity, prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors, and connectedness to nature in Chile” which was published in a highly rated journal indexed in the Scopus and WoS databases (SJR Q1) GAIA – Ecological Perspectives for Science and Society.
The authors team was represented by an international group of scientists from Germany, Chile and Russia. One of the scholars was the Head of Agrarian Technological Institute (RUDN University) E.A. Dovletyarova who joined the research in collaboration with Neaman A.A., professor of Institute of Agrarian Engineering at Southern University of Chili.
The study itself was devoted to the examination of patterns between Catholic religious self-identification, pro-social and pro-ecological behavior, as well as human interaction with nature. In the paper, scholars obtained data from two studies capturing different sample populations in Chile. The objective of the first study was to explore the interconnection of the Catholic religious identity, prosocial and pro-environmental behaviors. The objective of the second study was to explore the interconnection of the Catholic religious identity, pro-environmental behavior and connectedness to nature. The research was conducted with participation of students from Catholic university and members of the general public. As for results, it showed that Catholic self-identification was positively correlated with pro-social behavior, which in turn was positively correlated with pro-ecological behavior. However, the research team did not find a direct link between Catholic self-identification and pro-ecological behavior. Likewise, Catholics scored significantly lower on the nature attachment scale than non-religious people. Finally, the surveys revealed that connectedness to nature positively correlated with pro-environmental behavior.
The study and its results published in GAIA are part of the constant exciting work of the SUN lab team based on collaboration with the foreign academic colleagues. Each international project or research gives our team a priceless scientific experience and broadens our academic perspective.