Household Natural Resource Dependence Moderates the Association Between Nature Connectedness and Subjective Well-Being Among Tibetan Adolescents

It has been understudied whether and how sociocultural contexts moderate the relationship between nature connectedness and adolescents’ subjective well-being. This study addresses the gap by examining the moderating role of household natural resource dependence (HNRD). We conducted a survey in Tibet, China ( N = 8766) and found that the association between nature connectedness and subjective well-being was weaker among adolescents with high (than low) HNRD. Mediated moderation analyses showed that higher HNRD predicted stronger gratitude to nature, which, in turn, predicted a weaker association between nature connectedness and subjective well-being. The findings were consistent across both subjective and objective measures of HNRD and different indicators of subjective well-being (i.e., happiness, life satisfaction, and psychological richness). These findings shed light on the importance of investigating the role of sociocultural contexts in shaping the relationship between nature connectedness and subjective well-being among adolescents.