Model of ecopsychology effect on emotional disturbance (MEEED)

• Main Authors: Ahmad, Noorlila, Abd. Rahman, Siti Fatimah
• Format: Proceeding Paper
• Language: English
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: BF Psychology; BL Religion; H Social Sciences (General); L Education (General)
• Online Access: http://irep.iium.edu.my/108388/1/108388_Model%20of%20ecopsychology%20effect.pdf; http://irep.iium.edu.my/108388/

Emotional disturbances among undergraduate students have proven to physically, emotionally, and mentally affect students’ learning performance. Exposure to nature is among non-clinical treatments or techniques identified to address emotional disturbances. Thus, using the structural equation approach, a cross-sectional study focuses on the causal relationship and mediating effects between four constructs: ecopsychology, restorativeness, spiritual values, and emotional disturbances. A total of 390 undergraduate students of different disciplines were randomly selected from one of the largest public universities in Malaysia and statistically generalized to this sampling frame. The findings indicated that there are significant relationships were found between ecopsychology and restorativeness (β = 0.661, p = < 0.001), ecopsychology and spiritual values (β = .0.671, p < 0.001), and restorativeness and stress, (β = -0.169, p < 0.05). In addition, spiritual values were also significantly related to stress (β = -0.221, p < 0.01), anxiety (β = -0.184 p < 0.05), and depression (β = -0.331 p < 0.000). The bootstrapping test showed that restorativeness was a mediator between ecopsychology and stress (β=-0.124, CI=-0.240, -0.005), while spiritual values were a mediator between ecopsychology and depression (β =-0.227, CI= -0.453, -0.058. The conclusion of the study indicated that restorativeness experienced from exposure to nature and spiritual values are the mediators between ecopsychology and subconstructs of emotional disturbances, namely stress, and depression. Therefore, using ecopsychology as the underlying theory, restorativeness properties of the combination between nature exposure and spirituality may become an essential source of recovery for psychological, physiological, and emotional issues.