Understanding the Acceptance of Nature-Preservation-Related Restrictions as the Result of the Compensatory Effects of Environmental Attitude and Behavioral Costs

Abstract

Personal costs that accompany nature-preservation-related restrictions hurt their acceptance, irrespective of whether individuals care about environmental protection or not (i.e., irrespective of people’s environmental attitude). Analogically, people’s environmental attitude unconditionally determines their acceptance of nature-preservation-related restrictions, irrespective of the costs. This view stands in contrast to the typical NIMBY (not-in-my-back-yard) research in which people’s environmental attitude is expected to moderate the costs that arise from proximate exposure to nature-preservation efforts. In our quasi-experiment involving community samples of 598 Polish residents living at different distances from a nature preserve, we corroborated that the proximity and, thus, the palpable costs that come with nature-preservation efforts diminished people’s acceptance of nature-preservation-related restrictions. Over and above this NIMBY effect, environmental attitude determined people’s acceptance even beyond income and education. Predictably, environmental attitude is even able to compensate for the costs involved when people live in close proximity to a nature preserve.