Self-Transcendent Positive Emotions as a Potential Mechanism Underpinning the Effects of Meaningful Psychedelic Experiences on Connectedness to Nature

Research with serotonergic psychedelics has increasingly reported increases in people’s sense of connection with the natural world, but the psychological mechanisms that might explain this effect remain unclear. Earlier work has emphasised acute features of psychedelic states—such as mystical-type experiences and ego-dissolution—as predictors of durable psychological change. Separately, a family of emotions often elicited by psychedelics, termed self‑transcendent positive emotions (STPE; e.g. awe, gratitude, compassion, love), have been shown in experimental and correlational studies to broaden attention away from the self and to promote social and prosocial outcomes; recent preliminary evidence also links some STPE (notably awe) to increased connectedness to nature even when those emotions are not elicited by nature itself. Newton and colleagues set out to test whether STPE could help explain why meaningful psychedelic experiences are followed by greater connectedness to nature. The study aimed to examine both acute STPE experienced during a recalled meaningful psychedelic episode and changes in dispositional tendencies to experience those emotions thereafter, and to compare effects on cognitive versus emotional facets of nature connectedness. An exploratory mediation model was proposed in which acute STPE would predict changes in connectedness to nature indirectly via changes in dispositional STPE following the psychedelic experience.

The investigators used an online retrospective survey administered via Qualtrics between June and September 2020. Recruitment occurred through social media and online psychedelic forums. Eligible participants were adults (18+) fluent in English who reported having taken at least one dose of a serotonergic psychedelic (LSD, DMT, ayahuasca, mescaline, or psilocybin) that produced a subjectively meaningful experience. Of 653 visitors to the study page, after exclusions for incomplete surveys, failed attention checks (n = 7), and uniform responding on the Connectedness to Nature Scale, the final analysed sample comprised 236 participants. Participants were first asked to recall a single particularly meaningful psychedelic experience. Measures referring to that episode (‘‘during’’) were completed first. They were then asked to respond to the same dispositional emotion and connectedness measures as they believed they were before the selected experience (‘‘pre’’) and finally how they perceived themselves at the current point in life (‘‘post’’). This ordering was intended to reduce priming about pre/post change. Data collection included demographic and lifetime psychedelic-use questions, and participants could optionally enter a raffle; the study received institutional ethics approval. Key instruments were: the Ego-Dissolution Inventory (EDI; eight items rated 0–100) to index ego‑dissolution during the experience; the MEQ30 (30 items, 0–5 Likert) for mystical-type experience; and a 9-item STPE measure (awe, admiration, gratitude, feeling moved, love, compassion, inspiration, respect, humility) rated 0–100 to capture acute self‑transcendent emotions, averaged to form total STPE during the experience. Dispositional versions of the same nine STPE items were administered for pre and post assessments and change scores computed. Emotional connectedness to nature was measured using the 14-item Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS) administered pre and post and converted to a change score; four poorly performing CNS items (items 4, 12, 13, 14) were removed prior to analysis. Cognitive connectedness was assessed with the single-item Inclusion of Nature in Self (INS) scale (1–7), with pre/post change computed. Analyses included internal reliability (Cronbach's alpha), data screening in SPSS v25, paired-samples t-tests for pre/post differences, Pearson correlations, and mediation testing using PROCESS (Model 4) with 5,000 bootstrap samples and 95% confidence intervals. Because mystical experience and ego‑dissolution were highly correlated (r = 0.68), mystical experience was omitted from the mediation models and ego‑dissolution was included as a covariate in selected models.

The analysed sample comprised 236 participants. Reliability for the STPE measures was high: Cronbach's alpha of 0.85 for STPE during the experience and 0.89 for STPE change scores. Several CNS items exhibited poor item‑total correlations and four items were removed before analyses. Inspection of item distributions revealed pronounced ceiling effects for some acute STPE: more than half of participants selected the maximum score of 100 for awe (n = 176), and large numbers also endorsed maximum scores for gratitude (n = 158), love (n = 148), and feeling moved (n = 138). Paired-samples t-tests indicated that, on average, participants reported significant increases from before to after the meaningful psychedelic experience on both measures of connectedness to nature and on all individual STPE. Pearson correlations showed that mystical experience, ego‑dissolution (ED), and total STPE during the psychedelic experience were positively associated with change scores on the CNS and with INS change. At the level of individual emotions, awe and feeling moved during the experience were significantly correlated with change in the CNS (emotional connectedness), whereas love, feeling moved, respect, and compassion during the experience were significantly correlated with change in the INS (cognitive connectedness). Most STPE experienced during the episode (except inspiration) correlated significantly with increases in dispositional STPE, and change scores for individual STPE were significantly correlated with changes in both CNS and INS. Exploratory mediation analyses tested whether acute STPE (during) influenced changes in connectedness to nature indirectly via changes in dispositional STPE. PROCESS mediation using total averaged STPE variables (to limit multiple comparisons) produced four significant indirect effects: acute STPE during the psychedelic experience predicted change in connectedness to nature through increases in dispositional STPE. These indirect effects remained significant when ego‑dissolution was included as a covariate, suggesting unique predictive power for STPE above and beyond ED. However, none of the total effects in the mediation models reached significance, and no direct effects of STPE during on change scores were observed once mediators and covariates were accounted for. For the INS (cognitive connectedness) there was a reported total effect of STPE during the experience on change scores that did not remain significant when controlling for ED.

Newton and colleagues interpret the results as preliminary evidence that self‑transcendent positive emotions experienced during meaningful psychedelic episodes may contribute to enduring increases in connectedness to nature by increasing people's dispositional tendency to experience those emotions. The study found positive correlations between acute STPE, changes in dispositional STPE, and changes in both cognitive and emotional components of nature connectedness; mediation analyses suggested indirect pathways from acute STPE to connectedness via dispositional change. The indirect effects persisted when controlling for ego‑dissolution, which the authors take as an indication that STPE may have predictive value beyond ED, although the two phenomena may still be interrelated. A notable and somewhat unexpected pattern was that acute STPE correlated more broadly with change in cognitive connectedness (INS) than with emotional connectedness (CNS), whereas awe in particular was associated with emotional connectedness—consistent with prior work implicating awe in bonding with nature. The authors discuss potential mechanisms including ‘‘phenomenal transparency’’—the idea that STPE redirect attention away from self‑representations and increase perceived unity with others and nature—and the related concept of the ‘‘small self’’ that overlaps with ego‑dissolution. The authors acknowledge important limitations that constrain causal inference: the retrospective cross‑sectional design, uncontrolled dose/purity and setting of substances, reliance on participants' recall of pre‑experience states, selective recruitment of individuals who had meaningful experiences, and possible expectancy or self‑selection bias. Measurement issues were also highlighted: ceiling effects for some STPE items and concerns about the CNS's sensitivity to emotional versus cognitive facets. Cross‑sectional mediation is further limited because temporal sequencing cannot be confirmed and bidirectional relationships (for example, that pre‑existing connectedness could increase propensity to experience STPE) remain possible. In terms of implications, the authors suggest that understanding how psychedelics influence STPE and connectedness to nature could have downstream relevance for pro‑environmental behaviour and for therapeutic mechanisms of psychedelics more broadly, since increases in dispositional positive emotions have been linked to improvements in wellbeing. They recommend future research using prospective longitudinal designs and randomised controlled trials to clarify temporal ordering, to refine measurement of intense STPE in psychedelic contexts, and to examine contextual moderators such as natural versus built settings.

This study provides first‑step evidence that self‑transcendent positive emotions experienced during meaningful psychedelic episodes predict increases in dispositional STPE and are indirectly associated with greater connectedness to nature. Total STPE during the experience was associated with changes in cognitive connectedness, and mediation analyses indicated indirect effects on both cognitive and emotional connectedness via changes in dispositional STPE. The authors describe these findings as preliminary support for a role of STPE as a mechanism linking psychedelic experiences to enduring feelings of connection with the natural world and call for prospective and experimental work to confirm and extend these observations.