THE STRUCTURE OF ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERN: CONCERN FOR SELF, OTHER PEOPLE, AND THE BIOSPHERE

By P. W. Schultz. 2001

1,911 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Four studies are reported on the structure of environmental attitudes. Based on Stern & Dietz' (1994) value-basis theory for environmental attitudes, we predicted that concerns for environmental issues would form three correlated factors. The first study presents the results from a confirmatory factor analysis of the proposed three-factor model among a sample of 1010 U.S. college students. The second study presents the results from a telephone survey of 1005 U.S. respondents. The third study examines the relationship between the three identified types of environmental concerns, existing measures of environmental attitudes, empathy, and social-value orientation. The final study presents the results from a multi-group confirmatory factor analysis examining the factor structure of environmental concerns among college students in ten countries. Additional analyses are provided on the relationship between values and environmental concerns. Taken together, the results provide strong evidence for the distinction between egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric environmental concerns.

Subfields: Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/00e9e2352d283c31bfbb6559ac9736d1d442a3a0

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Citations in the corpus

Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern (2017, background): “…but people (and therefore cultures) may prioritize these values differently (Steg & De Groot, 2012); and lastly, (c) these value scales have been reliably validated in a series of cross-cultural studies (De Groot & Steg, 2007, 2008, 2010; Schultz, 2001; Steg et al., 2011; Stern & Dietz, 1994).”
The Malicious Effects of Existential Threat on Motivation to Protect the Natural Environment and the Role of Environmental Identity as a Moderator (2012, methodology): “Furthermore, we tested our hypotheses that biospheric but not egoistic and altruistic environmental concern (Schultz, 2001) would be decreased under conditions of mortality salience and this effect should only be present in people low on environmental identity (Clayton, 2003).”
Second-hand clothing shopping among college students: the role of psychographic characteristics (2015, background): “Flea markets as a part of second-order marketing system (Sherry, 1990) have been investigated during the past several decades. Conducting telephone interviews to understand shopper profiles at a specific second-hand outlet (i.e. Goodwill), Yavas and Riecken (1981) found some differences among non-sh”
Exploring inner and outer worlds: A quantitative study of worldviews, environmental attitudes, and sustainable lifestyles (2014, background): “lifestyle is suggestively substantiated (see e.g. Corral Verdugo, 2012; DeYoung,1993; Schultz, 2001).”
The Distinction between Humans and Nature: Human Perceptions of Connectedness to Nature and Elements of the Natural and Unnatural (2008, background): “Schultz examined the type of concern people have for the environment and discovered three different types of concern: egoistic, altruistic, and biospheric, which he has shown empirically to be three distinct types of environmental orientations (Schultz 2001).”
Connectedness as a Core Conservation Concern: An Interdisciplinary Review of Theory and a Call for Practice (2014, background): “However, the divergence found between measures shows that they are not identical and, specifically, highlight that measures which are multidimensional (e.g., EIS, NRS) and which can tap into cognitive and affective dimensions of CWN (e.g., NRS, LCN, and possibly INS and CNS) will perform better [7].”
Nature contact, nature connectedness and associations with health, wellbeing and pro-environmental behaviours (2020, methodology): “These include the Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale (Schultz, 2001), the Connectedness to Nature Scale (CNS, Mayer & Frantz, 2004) and the Nature Relatedness Scale (Nisbett, Zelensky & Murphy, 2009) and it is recognised as having strong links to related concepts such as Environmental Identity (Clayt”
NIMBY or not? Exploring the relevance of location and the politics of voiced opinions in renewable energy siting controversies (2007, background): “Although even the word ‘selfish’ ought to be defined in context, at least it is consistent with terminology (‘concern for the self’ or ‘egoistic’) used by psychologists who try to measure different attitudes (e.g. Schultz, 2001).”
Exploring potential mechanisms involved in the relationship between eudaimonic wellbeing and nature connection (2017, neutral): “…for measuring an individual’s level of nature connection, with the most commonly used scales being the single item ‘Inclusion of Nature in Self Scale’ (Schultz, 2001), the more recent ‘Nature Relatedness Scale’ (Nisbet, Zelenski, & Murphy, 2011) and the Mayer and Frantz (2004) ‘Connection to…”