The psychological meaning of preservation and utilization attitudes: A study using the natural semantic network technique

Abstract

Environmental attitudes (EA) are a psychological tendency to evaluate the natural environment with some degree of favour or disfavour. Recent studies have quantitatively assessed the dimensionality of the higher order level structure of EA, proposing either a single, generalized higher order factor or two higher order factors, labelled Preservation and Utilization. This article presents a qualitative study addressing whether people are able to distinguish between Preservation and Utilization attitudes. Qualitative data from participants from 16 countries across all six inhabited continents were gathered using the Natural Semantic Network Technique, which involves asking participants to elicit definers for ‘environmental preservation’ and ‘environmental utilization’ and then applying weights that rank the importance of each definer. Although inconclusive, findings indicate that the psychological meaning of Preservation and Utilization attitudes is fairly distinct, providing qualitative support for the two factors model of the higher order structure of EA.