Environmental Attitudes as Predictors of Policy Support across Three Countries

Abstract

Stephen Kellert’s typology of attitudes and Dunlap and Van Liere’s New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale represent two different approaches to environmental attitudes. Both approaches were used to predict policy support for environmental protection among college students in Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, and the United States. Results showed country and gender differences in the strength of environmental attitudes. Trinidadians showed the strongest proenvironmental attitudes on the NEP, and both Trinidadians and Dominicans showed stronger proenvironmental attitudes than Americans as indicated by both the NEP and the moralistic/aesthetic items derived from Kellert’s typology. The different attitude measures were differentially predictive of policy support in the three countries. Overall, the best predictors of support for environmentally protective policies were the NEP and Kellert’s Utilitarian factor. These results support the notion that combining the Kellert approach with Dunlap and Van Liere’s NEP does increase the predictability of environmental policy support.