The new environmental paradigm scale: Wildlife and environmental beliefs in British Columbia

Abstract

Societal attitudes toward and values placed on wildlife are in transition. Increasing public and environmental group involvement in decision making has resulted in conflicts with established users of the natural environment. Resolution of such conflicts may be aided by identification of people's environmental values and beliefs. The article examines the new environmental paradigm (NEP) scale, which focuses on and assesses generic environmental dispositions or primitive beliefs. It reports the application of the scale to three sample populations in a study of conflicts between fishing interests and marine mammal protection in British Columbia.Environmentalists and the general public exhibited strong support for the NEP and the ecologically benign world view that it embodies. Commercial fishers, however, displayed a strong rejection of all aspects of the NEP scale. It is suggested that the NEP provides a useful referential framework of environmental beliefs in which to understand attitudes and to attempt resolution of wildlife management conflicts.

Education, Environmental Attitudes and the Design Professions

“…In reference to the NEP scale portion of the survey, the results reinforce earlier findings that special interest groups and environmental organizations score high on the NEP Scale (Edgell and Nowell, 1989). Proving Hypothesis One correct, the results illustrate pro-environmental tendencies within the group.…”

“…A number of studies on specific populations have helped to solidify the original findings that the scale denotes proenvironmental attitudes as well as establishing known-group validity (Pierce et al, 1992). Additional studies have supported predictive validity by illustrating a significant relationship between the NEP scale and a variety of intended behaviors and actual behaviors, both observed and self-reported (Edgell and Nowell, 1989). …”

Image differentiation with corporate environmental responsibility

“…Second, due to its lack of a strong psychological foundation, the scale suffers from a lack of clear definitions on values, attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors. Despite these disadvantages, the NEP scale has showed good internal consistency and previous studies have successfully applied the instrument to very different samples, such as farmers (Albrecht et al 1982) and college students (Schultz & Zelezny 1998) and also in different countries, such as Canada (Edgell & Nowell 1989), Sweden (Widegren 1998) and Baltic States (Gooch 1995). This may suggest that the scale, with some modifications, is useful even within the organizational context.…”

The Structure and Coherence of the New Environmental Paradigm: Reconceptualizing the Dimensionality Debate

“…This tripart factor structure was then somewhat confirmed by Geller and Lasley (1985). Since that time, a number of studies have found that the NEP scale, in both the original and the revised versions, has two or more dimensions (e.g., Bechtel et al, 2006;Corral-Verdugo & Armendariz, 2000;Edgell & Nowell, 1989;Englis & Phillips, 2013;Fleury-Bahi et al, 2015;Furman, 1998;Gooch, 1995;Noe & Snow, 1990;Schuett & Ostergren, 2003;Woodworth et al, 2011).…”

“…As in the case of any multi-item scale, it is critical to make sure that all items measure the same underlying construct, which necessitates examination of a scale's internal consistency and dimensionality. Up to this point, we can see studies demonstrating that the 12-15 items in the original and revised NEP scales load onto two (e.g., Gooch, 1995;Ji, 2004;Noe & Snow, 1990;Nooney et al, 2003;Van Riper & Kyle, 2014), three (e.g., Albrecht et al, 1982;Edgell & Nowell, 1989;Englis & Phillips, 2013;Geller & Lasley, 1985), four (e.g., Erdogan, 2013;Furman, 1998;Khan et al, 2012), and even five or more underlying factors (e.g., Brennan et al, 2014;Woodworth et al, 2011;Wu, 2012). Furthermore, while some studies find factors corresponding to the hypothesized facets as identified in Dunlap and Van Liere (1978) and Dunlap et al (2000) (e.g., Albrecht et al, 1982;Amburgey & Thoman, 2012;Woodworth et al, 2011), most studies do not.…”