Environmental Worldviews: A Point of Common Contact, or Barrier?

Abstract

Increasingly, scientists are reaching out to individuals and entities once considered "users" of scientific knowledge to engage them in the research process due to the increased need for contextualized knowledge. However, these increased interactions make apparent the boundaries that exist between the parties interested in sustainability science. Divergent values and attitudes amongst researchers and between researchers and stakeholders may preclude effective communication and collaboration when individuals screen information due to their perceptions of those who generated the information. The current work contributes to the complexity of environmental communication in the decision making sphere, by considering whether expressions of personal value, such as environmental worldviews, may influence the processing of knowledge and information sharing across interdisciplinary research and researcher-stakeholder boundaries. This work includes a unique opportunity to consider not only empirical data, but interactions and implications within a research community and with the public.

Using Web 2.0 and Social Media Technologies to Foster Proenvironmental Action

“…Clear messages accompanied with aesthetic visuals are likely to capture attention in the midst of the vast amount of information posted online, and thus attract more viewers [20]. In addition, communication efforts should be particularly effective when the message is legitimate, credible, and actionable [165,166], and when the source of communication builds trust and mutual collaboration with their audience [167]. For example, one study suggests that building an online presence or "brand" is very effective in promoting awareness and usage of an environmental program's resources [20].…”

“…For example, one study suggests that building an online presence or "brand" is very effective in promoting awareness and usage of an environmental program's resources [20]. In short, the message, media (e.g., visuals, videos), and messenger (or source) are all central to communication and organization processes in the online sphere [20,166,168].…”

Study Abroad in Support of Higher Education Sustainability: An Application of Service Trade Strategies

“…Based on the perspective that perceptual congruency is the key element of bilateral communications [70,71], this study uses a co-orientation model [71][72][73][74] to measure the perceptual differences between the two individuals involved in the sale of study abroad programs: the service provider (university staff) and the service customer (international student).…”

Human and Social Capital Management Based on Complexity Paradigm: Implications for Various Stakeholders and Sustainable Development

“…To understand connections between different blocks of one's worldview and stakeholders engaged in specific situations – Noblet et al () explored environmental worldviews in context of knowledge creation and information sharing among the researchers, policy makers and citizens – theorists from different disciplines have to work together and utilize a wide range of conceptual issues to identify complex aspects of real systems through different theoretical lenses, to bring in enough interdisciplinarity, especially in policy making processes and projects regarding education, science and overall knowledge production (see Lam et al , ), and to stimulate the creation of a mentality of sustainable human and social capital management based on appropriate worldviews. We see a similar approach in the case of Powell and Osbeck (, p. 262), who explained the use of the worldview concept understood as 'the particular view that makes change meaningful to the " owner" of the process' for policy making and sustainable governance of forest ecosystems in Indonesia, where the 'context is situated at the convergence between a global paradigm shift towards the decentralization of natural resource management and the governance'.…”