Why are people and organisations acting in a non-friendly way towards the environment? Why there are numerous environmental awareness programmes and campaigns, but their results are not satisfactory?
We think pro-environmental behaviour comes through environmental knowledge or education. However, we are missing the point of environmental attitude which is responsible for environmental behaviour more than environmental knowledge. Yet, there is no discussion of environmental attitude in the world of environmental education, environmental awareness, and environmental activism.
Environmental attitude is a belief and trait of behavioural intention with some degree of favour or disfavour by evaluating the natural environment. Technically, environmental attitude is a psychological variable which can be measured using statistical methods but at the same time it is also a factor guiding people towards any type of behaviour. Environmental attitude is measured using a survey-style questionnaire with self-reported behaviours. In other words, it is a tendency to act which is significantly successful to trace pro-environmental behaviour of people. Therefore, by using environmental attitude we can understand how likely this person is to act on a pro-environmental or anti-environmental manner.
This tendency is highly related to environmental knowledge. Environmental knowledge could be divided into three different types. System knowledge – knowledge of environmental and natural systems (knowing what). Action related knowledge – behavioural options to be environmentally friendly (knowing how). Effectiveness knowledge – relative benefit associated with particular behaviour (knowing which). System knowledge is the focus domain in schools followed by the action related and effectiveness knowledge. Interestingly, action related knowledge is found to be highly influential to environmental attitude which immediately influences pro-environmental behaviour. Hence, focus on knowing how is more important than knowing what for a positive environmental attitude and behaviour.
Environmental attitudes are traits which is a set of environmental values which are types of traits. Initially until the 1980s environmental attitude was considered to be one-dimensional (in a statistical sense). The focus of environmental attitude was only environmental protection. However, in reality environment needs to be protected and at the same time also utilised. Without utilisation of the environment there is no development and sustainable development also recognises the need of balanced preservation and utilisation. Understanding the need of multi-dimensionality in environmental attitude the new constructs were hypothesised and tested. A series of testing and analyses proved that in reality environmental attitude has two-dimensions namely Preservation and Utilisation.
It is interesting to note that the nature of these dimensions is influenced by various factors such as socio-economic status, geography, culture, and education of the people. Recently, a new dimension has also been reported namely Appreciation. Appreciation is usually part of the Preservation dimension but in some cases (what type of cases we do not know precisely yet) it emerges out to be a unique dimension.
Therefore, the nature of environmental attitude constituents of Preservation, Utilisation, and Appreciation. This clearly points out that action related knowledge while being mixed with preservative, utilitarian, and appreciative content towards the environment really helps to improve the pro-environmental behavioural tendency of the people. This contrasts with awareness campaigns and educational contents which focuses on facts and preservation ideas, while using negative examples of environmental exploitation.
For More Details – Explore the References
- Johnson, B., & Manoli, C. C. (2008). Using Bogner and Wiseman’s Model of Ecological Values to measure the impact of an earth education programme on children’s environmental perceptions. Environmental Education Research, 14(2), 115-127. doi:10.1080/13504620801951673
- Roczen, N., Kaiser, F. G., Bogner, F. X., & Wilson, M. (2013). A Competence Model for Environmental Education. Environment and Behavior, 46(8), 972-992. doi:10.1177/0013916513492416
- Regmi, S., Johnson, B., & Dahal, B. M. (2020). Analysing the Environmental Values and Attitudes of Rural Nepalese Children by Validating the 2-MEV Model. Sustainability, 12, 164. doi:10.3390/su12010164