Landscape extraordinariness and visitors' psychological restoration in national park settings: a chain mediation model of awe, construal level, and connectedness to nature

IntroductionThe psychological restorative potential of ordinary green spaces is well documented, yet the mechanisms linking extraordinary natural landscapes to restoration remain underexplored. This study conceptualizes landscape extraordinariness as a continuous subjective perceptual construct and proposes a chain mediation model, grounded in the Cognitive-Affective Personality System framework, to examine the roles of awe, construal level, and connectedness to nature in visitors' psychological restorative benefits in national park settings.MethodsStructured questionnaires were administered to 457 visitors at Sanjiangyuan National Park and Qinghai Lake National Park (candidate area), China. Confirmatory factor analysis assessed measurement quality, and structural equation modeling with bootstrap resampling using 5,000 samples and 95% bias-corrected confidence intervals tested the hypothesized relationships.ResultsLandscape extraordinariness was positively associated with awe, connectedness to nature, and psychological restorative benefits, but was not directly associated with construal level. Awe was positively associated with higher construal level and stronger connectedness to nature, while connectedness to nature was positively associated with psychological restorative benefits. Bootstrap analyses supported the proposed chain mediation model, with significant indirect associations involving awe and connectedness to nature and an additional contribution of construal level within the longer sequential process. Overall, the findings supported partial mediation.DiscussionThese findings clarify the affective-cognitive mechanisms associated with psychological restoration in extraordinary landscapes and underscore the role of awe in linking extraordinary landscape perception with higher-level construal. The results extend extraordinary nature research to authentic national park contexts and provide practical implications for visitor experience design and nature-based wellbeing interventions.