The psychological meaning of preservation and utilization attitudes: A study using the natural semantic network technique

Abstract

Environmental attitudes (EA) are a psychological tendency to evaluate the natural environment with some degree of favour or disfavour. Recent studies have quantitatively assessed the dimensionality of the higher order level structure of EA, proposing either a single, generalized higher order factor or two higher order factors, labelled Preservation and Utilization. This article presents a qualitative study addressing whether people are able to distinguish between Preservation and Utilization attitudes. Qualitative data from participants from 16 countries across all six inhabited continents were gathered using the Natural Semantic Network Technique, which involves asking participants to elicit definers for 'environmental preservation' and 'environmental utilization' and then applying weights that rank the importance of each definer. Although inconclusive, findings indicate that the psychological meaning of Preservation and Utilization attitudes is fairly distinct, providing qualitative support for the two factors model of the higher order structure of EA.

Exploring the Role of Future Perspective in Predicting Turkish University Students’ Beliefs About Global Climate Change

“…nar 36 happened. As Milfont (2010) stated, as a general, people typically perceive climate change as a distant threat, one that is not relevant to them personally, where they live, and not in the present time but some time in future.…”

The Psychology of Environmental Attitudes: Conceptual and Empirical Insights from New Zealand

“…In an attempt to provide evidence that individuals see these broad environmental attitude dimensions as qualitatively distinct, I conducted a study with 80 participants from 16 countries across all six inhabited continents (Milfont, 2010). To gather information on the psychological meaning of both ''environmental preservation'' and ''environmental utilization,'' participants were asked to list the first five words that came to their minds when presented with the two stimuli phrase words.…”

“…Following other scholars-including the work by Norman Blaikie (1992) in the Australian context (see also Stern & Dietz, 1994;Wiseman & Bogner, 2003)-my colleagues and I have developed a program of research to provide a more systematic approach to the study of environmental attitudes (Milfont, 2009b(Milfont, , 2010Milfont & Duckitt, 2004, 2010. This work has focused on advancements in conceptual, theoretical, and measurement aspects of environmental attitudes.…”

Social Representations of the Environment in Press Media

“…It has been since the Industrial Revolution, however, that peoples' interactions with the environment have come to be characterized by the search for socioeconomic gains. Since that time, the indiscriminate use of nature and its elements has provoked reactions, such as global warming, the shortage of and pollution of water, floods and a wide variety of types of natural manifestations whose origins lie in human activity (Milfont, 2010).…”