ABSTRACT-Despite a long tradition of effectiveness in laboratory tests

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Summary. Human survival is directly tied to ourWe are all a part of nature. We are born in nature; our bodies are formed of nature; we live by the rules of nature. As individuals, we are citizens of the natural world; as societies, we are bound by the resources of our environment; as a species, our survival depends on an ecological balance with nature. Yet as individuals, societies, and a species, we spend our lives trying to escape from nature. We separate ourselves from the natural environment with clothes, cars, houses, and shopping malls. We build roads and cities to make for a more comfortable lifestyle. Indeed, we live our lives as though the natural

Recent research has examined the relationship between values and attitudes about environmental issues. Findings from these studies have found values of self-transcendence (positively) and self-enhancement (negatively) to predict general concern for environmental problems. Other recent findings have differentiated between environmental attitudes based on concern for self (egoistic), concern for other people (social-altruistic), and concern for plants and animals (biospheric).This article reports the results from a study of the relationship between values and environmental attitudes in six countries: Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, India, New Zealand, and Russia. Results show strong support for the cross-cultural generalizability of the relationship between values and attitudes and on the structure of environmental concern. In addition, analyses of the relationship between values and environmental behavior show evidence for norm activation only for self-transcendence; results for self-enhancement show a consistently negative relationship.

Previous research has suggested that attitudes about environmental issues are rooted in the degree to which people believe that they are part of the natural environment. Researchers have distinguished between egoistic concerns, which focus on self, and biospheric concerns, which focus on all living things. In the current paper, we argue that the type of concerns a person develops about environmental issues is associated with the extent to which the individual believes that s/he is part of nature. We argue that this connection is implicit, and exists outside of conscious awareness. Two studies are reported on the relationship between implicit connections with nature and explicit environmental concerns, and on the cognitive strategies associated with egoistic and biospheric attitudes. Study 1 reports the results from a modified Implicit Association Test (IAT) designed to measure the degree to which people associate themselves with nature. Results showed a moderate positive relationship between biospheric concerns and implicit connections with nature, and a negative relationship between implicit connections with nature and egoistic concerns. Study 2 replicated this basic effect, and also examined the test-retest (immediate, 1 week, and 4 weeks) reliability of the explicit and implicit measures. Results are interpreted within a broad model of environmental inclusion.