Chapter 3 - Environmental Attitudes, Appraisals, Assessments

Question 0

Components of environmental attitudes

Answer 0

Attitudes, in general, are usually said to have 3 components - cognitive, affective, and conative

Question 1

What is environmental attitude?

Answer 1

An individual’s concern for the physical environment as something that is worthy of protection, understanding, or enhancement

Question 2

Cognitive components

Answer 2

Includes what an individual knows or thinks about an environment

Question 3

Affective component

Answer 3

Includes one’s emotions and feelings about an environment

Question 4

Conative component

Answer 4

Refers to one’s behavioural intentions toward an environment

Question 5

Preservation attitudes

Answer 5

Preservation attitudes are connected to pro-environmental behaviour

Question 6

Utilization attitudes

Answer 6

Connected to economic liberalism, which relies on the idea that resources exist to be used and developed.

Question 7

Theory of planned behaviour

Answer 7

If a person is to act in an environmentally friendly manner, several factors must precede it. The person first must have had the interaction to act in that way. It requires 3 things … a positive attitude toward the act, the belief that this is the normal or usual way to act, and the belief that one has sufficient control over the situation to be able to engage in the pro-environmental action.

Question 8

What is a descriptive norm?

Answer 8

What people think is the usual thing to do

Question 9

Values-belief-norm (VBN) model

Answer 9

The chain leading to pro-environmental behaviour begins with a person’s values. The more biospheric, the more altruistic, and the less egotistic are one’s general values,

Question 10

New ecological paradigm

Answer 10

A worldwide that envisions the planet as a delicate, threatened, and interconnected system

Question 11

What are the 4 actions that can be taken under VBN?

Answer 11

1. Environmental activism
2. Public non-activist behaviours - writing letters or attending meetings
3. Private behaviours - recycling and choosing public transport
4. Actions within an organization - starting a recycling program at work

Question 12

The Maloney-Ward Ecology Inventory

Answer 12

Contains 45 items arranged in 4 subscales:

1. Affect - relates to the affective component of attitudes
2. Knowledge - to the cognitive development
3. Verbal Commitment - measures what respondent say they will do for conservation
4. Actual Commitment - asks them to report what they have actually done

Question 13

Weigel Environmental Concern Scale

Answer 13

16 item scale without separate subscale

Question 14

The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP)

Answer 14

15 item measure of agreement with a general “planet Earth” perspective

Question 15

Environmental worry scale

Answer 15

• Shifts from concern to pessimism to worry - it was developed to to assess worker anxiety about the effects of their exposure to organic solvents

Question 16

Generalized environmental ethic

Answer 16

Persons who have pro-environment attitudes in more than one domain

Question 17

Gender based concerns about the environment

Answer 17

• Women usually report more concern for the environment - but they don’t necessarily do more about it

Question 18

What is “age effect”?

Answer 18

As people get older they are less interested in the environment

Question 19

What is the cohort effect?

Answer 19

This is not necessarily people of the same age … but by events that had more of an impact on one age group than another

Question 20

What is era effect?

Answer 20

The times are changing; that the overall political-social climate is growing more conservative, so that everyone is less concerned about the environment than they used to be.

Question 21

Ecocentrism

Answer 21

The belief that nature deserves protection without regard for human costs and benefits