Intelligent Measurement and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Public Nature Contact: An Empirical Study Based on 2010~2024 Sina Weibo Data

Chen Airui; Yuan Chaojun; Dong Bo

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250501

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (5) : 1026-1037. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250501

Intelligent Measurement and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Public Nature Contact: An Empirical Study Based on 2010~2024 Sina Weibo Data

Chen Airui¹, Yuan Chaojun¹, Dong Bo^1,2,3

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Abstract

This study aims to develop a structured and scalable method for measuring nature contact in open-language environments and to examine the long-term temporal evolution and regional variation of public nature contact in China. While previous studies have emphasized either physical exposure to nature or subjective experiences in isolated settings, little is known about how nature contact is expressed and can be quantified at scale within digital behavioral data.
To address this issue, a semantic dictionary of nature contact was constructed based on a tripartite conceptual framework that encompasses physical environmental presence, psychological responses, and interactive behaviors. The initial candidate pool was derived from 30 established psychometric instruments, such as the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS), the Nature Relatedness Scale (NR-6), and the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS). In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 active Sina Weibo users to collect contextually embedded and vernacular expressions of nature contact. These data were expanded using a Chinese large language model. A final lexicon of 4,014 nature-related terms was established after semantic screening and expert validation.
To evaluate the validity of the dictionary, two procedures were conducted. First, 200 Weibo posts were randomly sampled and scored independently by four trained raters using a 5-point Likert scale. The dictionary-based scores showed a statistically significant correlation with the human scores (r = .647, p < .001). Second, the dictionary-based scores were found to be highly correlated with objective annual indicators of natural resource abundance. Together, these findings provide robust evidence for the high validity of the nature contact dictionary.
The validated dictionary was applied to a large corpus of Weibo data collected from 1.23 million active users, comprising approximately 60 billion characters from January 1, 2010, to December 31, 2024. The weiboSpider procedure was used to collect original posts from ordinary users with ≤3,000 followers and ≥20 posts. Posts were assigned to 31 provincial-level administrative regions using user location tags.
Two major analyses were conducted. First, the average annual nature contact score was computed for the entire sample, revealing an upward trajectory from 2010 to 2024. Notably, three distinct surges in nature-related expressions were temporally aligned with the 18th, 19th, and 20th National Congresses of the Chinese Communist Party, suggesting a coupling between major environmental policy announcements and collective psychological responses. Second, regional differences were analyzed. Higher scores were found in provinces with rich ecological resources such as Tibet, Guizhou, Yunnan, and Hainan. In contrast, lower scores were recorded in urbanized coastal provinces such as Shanghai and Guangdong, indicating disparities in digital expressions of nature awareness.
The results indicate that the proposed dictionary-based method enables high-resolution, behaviorally grounded measurement of nature contact within digital discourse. The study highlights that public nature contact is not static, but rather evolves alongside national policy discourse and varies across geographical contexts. The findings support the view that nature awareness is socially constructed and context-dependent, reflecting the intertwined relationship between environmental presence and psychological accessibility.
In conclusion, this research offers a conceptually sound, linguistically structured, and computationally scalable tool for measuring nature contact in naturalistic settings. It also contributes novel empirical evidence regarding the temporal growth and spatial distribution of nature contact in China over a 15-year period. The methodology may be extended to other psychological constructs and supports future work on ecological communication, public well-being, and green behavioral interventions in digital societies.

Key words

nature contact / intelligent measurement / Weibo corpus (2010-2024) / temporal dynamics / spatial variation

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Chen Airui, Yuan Chaojun, Dong Bo. Intelligent Measurement and Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Public Nature Contact: An Empirical Study Based on 2010~2024 Sina Weibo Data[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2025, 48(5): 1026-1037 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20250501

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