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The authors hypothesize that environmental values derive from a sense of connectivity with nature. Connectivity describes a perception of sameness between the self, others, and the natural world. The experience of connectivity involves dissolution of boundaries and a sense of a shared or common essence between the self, nature, and others. Connectivity with nature differs theoretically and operationally from other explanations of environmental values, including cultural bias, postmaterialism, and social altruism. The authors describe their development of a sociometric scale to operationalize connectivity with nature. Based on data from a mail survey of Pennsylvania landowners, the authors use multiple regression analyses to determine the extent to which connectivity with nature predicts and explains environmental concern and behavior in the presence of standard sociodemographic variables. Survey respondents reported a high level of connectivity with nature, and connectivity retained a significant and positive relationship to environmental concern and environmental behavior in multiple regression models. Implications of these findings are advanced.

Successful conservation in the United States relies on collective stewardship by millions of private landowners, challenging those agencies and nongovernment organizations tasked with engagement and outreach. Perennially limited resources compound this challenge, highlighting a deep need for efficient social marketing. In the following research, we test the efficacy of two social marketing strategies—microtargeting and normative appeals—through a randomized controlled trial of an integrated social marketing campaign targeting riparian landowners in the Pennsylvania portion of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. We used a microtargeting algorithm to predict landowners' likelihood of responding to a conservation outreach campaign to create treatment groups of high-likelihood prospects versus random prospects (i.e., no microtargeting). A normative appeal was also included as an experimental factor in the campaign communicating that forested riparian buffer investments were common among similar landowners. Among microtargeted landowners, we observed a 66% increase in response to a riparian restoration survey compared to the control group. Additionally, we found a significant influence of a normative message among random (nonmicrotargeted) prospects, increasing response by 23% over the control group. We conclude conservation outcomes may be more efficiently achieved by deploying these marketing techniques on a wider scale to a variety of conservation challenges.