Students’ Care for Dogs, Environmental Attitudes, and Behaviour

Gregor Torkar,Tina Fabijan,Franz X Bogner

doi:10.3390/su12041317

Gregor Torkar, Tina Fabijan + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041317

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Journal: Sustainability	Publication Date: Feb 11, 2020
Citations: 9	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Ljubljana, University of Bayreuth

Abstract

Does the act of caring for a dog have a substantial connection to the environmental values and behaviours of children? The scientific current literature contains little empirical research regarding the effect of pet ownership on environmental attitudes and behaviours in children. The Two Factor Model of Environmental Values (2-MEV) scale and the General Ecological Behaviour (GEB) scale were applied to measure environmental attitudes/values and ecological behaviours aligned with the Children’s Care for Dogs Questionnaire (CTDQ) to measure individual care for dogs. The subjects were Slovenian adolescents in primary education and lower secondary education. A clear relationship emerged: students that reported a better level of care for their pet dogs tended to engage in more environmentally responsible behaviours. Preservation and utilization attitudes had no significant influence on caring for a dog. Female students tended to report better care for dogs and practiced environmental behaviour more often. Younger students scored higher on the preservation values and practiced environmental behaviour more often. Overall, this study provides an evidence-based framework for educational initiatives that aim to include long-term care for animals. This study proposes a method with which educational programs could achieve the goal of fostering environmental behaviours.

Highlights

Effective change in human behaviour is needed because of the many human activities that have negative impacts on the environment, such as the increasing degradation and fragmentation of habitats, the spread of invasive species, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources, and climate change [1]
The more students report caring for their dogs, the better they are at practicing environmental behaviours
This clear relationship provides a beneficial framework for the development of educational programs and their adjustment to specific target groups

Summary

Introduction

Effective change in human behaviour is needed because of the many human activities that have negative impacts on the environment, such as the increasing degradation and fragmentation of habitats, the spread of invasive species, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources, and climate change [1]. Human survival is directly linked to our relationship with the environment and so, it is essential to establish a sustainable lifestyle based on a balance between individual consumption and the capacity of the natural environment to renew itself [2]. To confront this enormous task, cognitive, social, and motivational processes are needed to influence individual behaviour [3,4,5]. Milfont and Duckitt [11] described environmental attitudes as a psychological tendency that expresses itself as an inclination toward—or concepts related to—the environment. Empirical researchers regard environmental attitudes as unidimensional or multidimensional constructs [12,13], and a value is defined as a series of closely related attitudes [14]

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Conclusion