Measuring “Awareness of Environmental Consequences”: Two Scales and Two Interpretations

Ryan, Anthony M. and Spash, Clive L. (2008): Measuring “Awareness of Environmental Consequences”: Two Scales and Two Interpretations.

Abstract

Moderate or poor reliabilities, worrisome correlation patterns and ambiguous dimensionality raise questions about the awareness of consequences scale being a valid measure of egoistic, social-altruistic and biospheric value orientations. These results may, however, indicate something else. An exploratory analysis performed on three samples collected from the general public provides evidence for a reinterpretation of the scale. We believe the concepts of egoistic, social and biospheric value orientations remain important as a potential explanation of behaviour. However, our results imply that whether people cognitively organise their beliefs in this way when considering adverse environmental consequences requires a different approach from the current awareness of consequences scale. The evidence shows the current scale must be reinterpreted as a measure of concern over the positive and negative consequences of environmental action and inaction.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: environmental beliefs; value orientations; environmental scales; egoistic; altruistic; biospheric; value-belief-norm model; behavioural motivations; plural values; social psychology
• Subjects: A - General Economics and Teaching > A1 - General Economics > A13 - Relation of Economics to Social Values; D - Microeconomics > D0 - General > D01 - Microeconomic Behavior: Underlying Principles; D - Microeconomics > D4 - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design > D46 - Value Theory; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D63 - Equity, Justice, Inequality, and Other Normative Criteria and Measurement; D - Microeconomics > D6 - Welfare Economics > D64 - Altruism ; Philanthropy; D - Microeconomics > D8 - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty > D83 - Search ; Learning ; Information and Knowledge ; Communication ; Belief ; Unawareness; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q51 - Valuation of Environmental Effects; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics > Q57 - Ecological Economics: Ecosystem Services ; Biodiversity Conservation ; Bioeconomics ; Industrial Ecology

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