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Values, Beliefs, and Proenvironmental Action: Attitude Formation Toward Emergent Attitude Objects 1
Author(s) -
Stern Paul C.,
Kalof Linda,
Dietz Thomas,
Guagnano Gregory A.
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1995.tb02636.x
Subject(s) - psychology , action (physics) , social psychology , construct (python library) , value (mathematics) , attitude , social value orientations , population , function (biology) , sociology , physics , demography , quantum mechanics , machine learning , evolutionary biology , computer science , microeconomics , economics , biology , programming language
Discoveries in environmental science become the raw material for constructing social attitude objects, individual attitudes, and broad public concerns. We explored a model in which individuals construct attitudes to new or emergent attitude objects by referencing personal values and beliefs about the consequences of the objects for their values. We found that a subset of the major clusters identified in value theory is associated with willingness to take proenvironmental action; that a biospheric value orientation cannot yet be discerned in a general population sample; that willingness to take proenvironmental action is a function of both values and beliefs, with values also predicting beliefs; and that gender differences can be attributed to both beliefs and values. Our model has promise for explicating the factors determining public concern with environmental conditions.