New Ecological Paradigm, Leisure Motivation, and Wellness Satisfaction: A Comparative Analysis of Recreational Use of Urban Parks Pre- and Post-Covid-19 Pandemic

While the COVID-19 pandemic has altered every aspect of our daily lives unprecedentedly, it has also created an opportunity for us to rethink the relationship between humans and the environment. However, few studies, if any, have examined the change of people’s attitudes toward the environment pre- and post- pandemic and how such change affected leisure motivations which further influenced wellness satisfaction and quality of life. To fill this research gap, this paper, for the first time, investigated the interrelationships among these variables based on data collected in 2019 and 2021 (pre- and post-pandemic) in Haikou, China. Results indicate that respondents in the 2021 sample differed significantly from their counterparts in the 2019 sample in their attitudes toward the environment measured by the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP). The post-pandemic respondents with the belief of “humans with nature” were more likely to utilize urban green areas for being “close to nature” than pre-pandemic respondents in 2019. In addition, stronger belief in “humans over nature” led to stronger desire for “social interactions” in 2021 than in 2019, implying a close relationship between people’s perception of humankind’s ability to control nature post pandemic and their desire to interact with people in urban green areas.