The new environmental paradigm scale: Reassessing the operationalization of contemporary environmentalism |
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Authors: | Jennifer Bernstein Brian W Szuster |
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Institution: | 1. University of Southern California Dana and David Dornsife College of Letters Arts and Sciences, Spatial Sciences Institute, Los Angeles, California, USA;2. Department of Geography, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA |
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Abstract: | Researchers have long aimed to quantify environmental attitudes, subsequently incorporating them into more comprehensive models of values, attitudes, and behaviors. However, many metrics, notably the New Environmental Paradigm scale, conflate a situated, incomplete set of environmental attitudes with pro-environmental worldviews generally. Further, the measurement of environmental worldviews is often used instrumentally to engender pro-environmental behaviors, proving problematic both theoretically and pragmatically. Three dimensions are suggested to better explain the diversity of contemporary environmentalism—view of technology, view of societal response, and view of nature. This article argues that any multi-item scale will be limited in its ability to capture a dynamic concept like environmentalism, but when used appropriately quantitative scales can engender individual and community empowerment; therefore, reassessment rather than rejection is the appropriate way forward. |
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Keywords: | environmental attitudes environmentalism new ecological paradigm scale new environmental paradigm scale |
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