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Measuring “Awareness of Environmental Consequences”: Two Scales and Two Interpretations

Author

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  • Anthony Ryan
  • Clive L Spash

    (CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Australia)

Abstract

Moderate or poor reliabilities, worrisome correlation patterns and ambiguous dimensionality raise questions about the awareness of consequences scale being a valid measure of egoistic, social-altruistic and biospheric value orientations. These results may, however, indicate something else. An exploratory analysis performed on three samples collected from the general public provides evidence for a reinterpretation of the scale. We believe the concepts of egoistic, social and biospheric value orientations remain important as a potential explanation of behaviour. However, our results imply that whether people cognitively organise their beliefs in this way when considering adverse environmental consequences requires a different approach from the current awareness of consequences scale. The evidence shows the current scale must be reinterpreted as a measure of concern over the positive and negative consequences of environmental action and inaction.

Suggested Citation

  • Anthony Ryan & Clive L Spash, 2008. "Measuring “Awareness of Environmental Consequences”: Two Scales and Two Interpretations," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2008-10, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
  • Handle: RePEc:cse:wpaper:2008-10
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    Cited by:

    1. Anthony Ryan & Clive L. Spash & Thomas G Measham, 2021. "Motives Behind Domestic Greywater and Rainwater Collection: Evidence from Australia," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2021_05, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    2. Anthony Ryan & Clive L Spash & Thomas G Measham, 2009. "Household Water Collection in Canberra," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2009-06, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    3. Woo-Hyuk Kim & Kyung-Sook Kim, 2018. "Pro-Environmental Intentions among Food Festival Attendees: An Application of the Value-Belief-Norm Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(11), pages 1-13, October.
    4. Ryan, Anthony M. & Spash, Clive L., 2010. "Measuring Beliefs Supportive of Environmental Action and Inaction: A Reinterpretation of the Awareness of Consequences Scale," MPRA Paper 23900, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Mohammad Tipu Sultan & Farzana Sharmin & Alina Badulescu & Elena Stiubea & Ke Xue, 2020. "Travelers’ Responsible Environmental Behavior towards Sustainable Coastal Tourism: An Empirical Investigation on Social Media User-Generated Content," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, December.
    6. Ryan, Anthony M. & Spash, Clive L., 2010. "Testing Kahneman's Attitudinal WTP Hypothesis," MPRA Paper 22468, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    environmental beliefs; value orientations; environmental scales; egoistic; altruistic; biospheric; value-belief-norm model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D46 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Value Theory
    • D64 - Microeconomics - - Welfare Economics - - - Altruism; Philanthropy; Intergenerational Transfers
    • D83 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty - - - Search; Learning; Information and Knowledge; Communication; Belief; Unawareness

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