Anthropocentric Values Research Articles

Exploring ecocentrism and anthropocentrism beliefs of Gen Z: An Indonesian context

This study delved into ecological awareness among Generation Z using the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale to discern ecocentric and anthropocentric environmental beliefs. The data was collected from 545 students across state and private universities with categorization based on gender, age group, year level, study program and area of residence employing a quantitative research approach. A five-point Likert-type NEP scale comprising 15 items was administered through Google Forms ensuring representation from each study program. Statistical analysis conducted using SPSS for Windows 23.0 employed independent sample T-tests to evaluate differences in Gen Z's ecological awareness. The results revealed significant disparities in Gen Z's awareness across dimensions including reality, growth limits, anti-anthropocentrism, the fragility of nature's balance and the possibility of an eco-crisis with variations observed based on study programs. Furthermore, age groups influenced awareness of the limits of growth and the possibility of an eco-crisis while gender played a role in awareness of the problem of the limits of growth. Gen Z's ecological orientations depicted differences in ecocentric beliefs by year level and anthropocentric values varied based on area of residence. These findings offer valuable insights into students' alignment with ecological principles and environmental awareness. This research contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable practices and environmental education by enhancing our understanding of how individuals particularly university students, perceive and respond to ecological and environmental challenges.

Community forestry in the Czech Republic – A historical throwback or a step forward?

The rising level of complexity and uncertainty in environmental governance highlights the interplay between governmental and non-governmental actors producing various forms of sustainable forest management, including community-based forestry, in which the relevance of small-scale private forest owners follows. In urban peripheries, community forestry principles shape small-scale private forest owners' activities. On an analytical level of small-scale private forest owners in Mladá Boleslav urban area, this paper uses the assumptions of the pluralist theory of democracy and resource mobilization theory in the context of community-based forestry to investigate the perceptions of the mobilization of material, human, and socio-organizational resources. It is in line with the policy objectives in the State Conception of Forest Policy 2035 issued by the Ministry of Agriculture of the Czech Republic. Its methodology is based on qualitative semi-structured interviews to gain in-depth results. The results showed that most small-scale private forest owners in urban areas perceived resource mobilization as a potentially beneficial mechanism for reaching a consensus and collective action. However, a functioning model for forest communities in urban areas is missing in the Czech Republic. This situation stems from the historical experience with socialism and the country's short tradition with a market economy. It implies historical prejudices and anthropocentric values among small-scale private forest owners. Lacking confidence in public policy processes and placing emphasis on interpersonal trust were also noticed during the research. The results open future avenues for discussion about the pathways for implementing community-based forestry models in urban areas in the Czech Republic.

Determination of Environmental Ethics Approaches of Urban and Regional Planning Students

Urban planners who are environmentally conscious and aware will take action to take responsibility, inform, and control. Raising environmental awareness is essential in urban planning education to understand environmental problems. Therefore, it is necessary to educate urban planning students on environmental ethics. This study investigates the environmental attitudes and behaviors of urban and regional planning students, who will shape the environment in the future within the context of the value-belief-norm theory. Moreover, to find clues that will shape environmental education in the course curriculum. The study included 226 students from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning in the Faculty of Architecture of Yıldız Technical University (YTU) and Amasya University (AU). Questionnaire data has been evaluated using principal components analysis, correlation analysis, T-test, and ANOVA analysis. According to the study findings, urban planning students have adopted biocentric, ecocentric, and anthropocentric value orientations. The study has found that students with ecocentric value orientation tend to show more pro-environmental behavior. The study concludes that the student’s characteristics also affect how they show pro-environmental behavior and evaluate environmental policies. In conclusion, focusing on ecocentric approaches in urban planning education can positively affect adopting pro-environmental behavior and policies. Additionally, study findings show that students with relatively better economic conditions are more inclined to have a biocentric value orientation. Based on the literature and these study findings, pro-environmental behavior is not a single-dimensional structure caused only by individuals' personal and professional characteristics. People's environmental attitudes and behaviors are shaped by their upbringing, school, friends, and culture. It shows that pro-environmental behavior has a multi-dimensional complex structure, and a conceptual framework can provide guidance to explain these kinds of behavior.

Multi-Scalar Drivers of Residential Vegetation Changes in Metropolitan Phoenix, Arizona.

In the arid southwestern U.S., urban greening strategies have been promoted to alleviate ecosystem disservices associated with lawns, including the adoption of xeric yards with desert-adapted floras and gravel groundcover and wildlife-friendly yards with complex vegetation structure and composition. Scant studies have investigated the extent of different vegetation changes in urban greening practices and the complexity of associated human drivers. We addressed this gap by analyzing survey data from two survey periods (2017 and 2021) to answer the following questions: to what extent have residents from metropolitan Phoenix made different vegetation changes in their yards over the last decade, and how do multi-scalar human drivers affect different vegetation changes? We found a sustainable trajectory for residential vegetation changes in Phoenix since mid-2010s, with declining additions of grass and increases in trees and desert plants across residential neighborhoods. Esthetics was an influential driver of both tree planting and native gardening. Additionally, tree planting was associated with anthropocentric values (i.e., low-maintenance needs), while desert plant additions reflected the appreciation of nature (i.e., attitudes towards the desert) and environmental concerns (i.e., supporting wildlife). Institutions such as local government programs might shape residents' vegetation choices, as tree planting differed among municipalities. We also found counterintuitive influences of residential tenure controls on landscaping decisions. Specifically, renters were more likely to add yard trees compared to homeowners. Our results inform landscape sustainability by identifying potential pathways to residential yard changes that offer a multitude of services while being appreciated and maintained by residents.

INCLUSIVE EDUCATION: ADAPTATION TO PERSONAL NEEDS IN THE CONTEXT OF ANTHROPOCENTRIC VALUES

This scientific article is devoted to the study of the problem of inclusive education in the context of modern anthropocentric values. The author analyzes the implementation of the tools of inclusive education in the process of adaptation to the needs of the individual in the condi­tions of anthropocentrism, focused on the recognition and protection of the rights and dignity of each individual. The article examines the main principles of inclusive education aimed at implementing an environment that promotes the development of diverse talents and ensuring access to education for all. The article emphasizes the need to take into account the individual needs of students with different characteristics, including physical, mental and social character­istics. An analysis of the terminological content of anthropocentrism and inclusiveness as political and legal phenomena is carried out. The article examines the impact of anthropocentric values on inclusive education. The challenges of adapting education to the individual needs of the individual are analyzed. The conceptual aspects of inclusive education are highlighted and the role of the individual in the educational process is outlined. The article is aimed at raising awareness of the importance of inclusive education and its role in the formation of a harmonious society, where each individual has the opportunity to re­veal his potential and make his own contribution to the development of society. The relevance of the study also lies in the growing need of modern society for a developed system of inclusive education, which would take into account the individual needs of each student. In the changing anthropocentric context, where the emphasis is on the protection and recognition of the rights of each individual, inclusive education becomes a key factor in the formation of a harmonious society. This article makes an important contribution to the understanding and development of inclusive education by offering specific recommendations for adapting educational systems to the needs of diverse students, which is critically important in the context of the ever-growing diversity of student audiences and the desire to create an inclusive society.

Reducing inequalities among species through an arts-based inquiry in early childhood teacher education

This article is based on a study in outdoor arts-based education with Norwegian early childhood teacher students. Their teachers of drama and art & crafts (also the researchers and authors of this article) facilitated the specific arts-based learning environments and posed the following question: Which qualities of arts-based learning environments can challenge students to seek toward reduction of inequalities between themselves and more-than-human others? Four narratives were constructed from four of the students’ visual, verbal and audio presentations of their experiences from the outdoor places they engaged with. The students described their processes of connecting to the more-than-human inhabitants of those places, and more-less explicitly expressed changes in their attitudes toward the inhabitants and materials encountered at the places. The narratives, and their analysis, make visible how the students’ arts-based engagements challenged their anthropocentric values and could potentially lead to reduction of inequalities between themselves and the more-than-humans they met at the places. The discussions at the end of the article focus on the first part of the research question and sum up four qualities of the arts-based environments that were present in the four narratives. These qualities are imagination, self-initiated actions, emphatic connections, and time for aesthetic engagement. Cover photo: "Student D" (anonymous".

Understanding behavioral intention of landowners to promote wildlife richness and biodiversity in the Southern Great Plains

Ranchers have been conducting traditional management practices such as mono-species grazing and limited burning that focus on stocking rate maximization. This has resulted in negative environmental consequences such as woody plant encroachment, land use change, and species diversity loss. Recently, there has been a growing appreciation for alternative range management that simultaneously promotes biodiversity and agricultural productivity through fire and grazing interactions. The purpose of the study was to investigate the influence of landowner values, attitudes, and norms on their behavioral intention to adopt best management practices (BMPs) that enhance wildlife abundance in the southern Great Plains. The required data was generated through a mail survey following the Tailored Design method. We utilized the structural equation path model to construct two latent variables for norms and attitudes and analyzed the relationship of the latent variables with value orientations and behavioral intentions. The study results indicated that the attitudes had a significant positive relationship with biocentric (β = 0.15, p-value<0.05) and a negative relationship with anthropocentric (β = −0.259, p-value<0.05) value orientations, however, the relationship of value orientations was statistically insignificant with norms. Further, the results indicated that both norms (β = 0.404, p-value<0.05) and attitudes (β = 0.508, p-value<0.05) had a positive and statistically significant relation with ranchers’ intentions to increase wildlife abundance on their land. Study results emphasize the need for innovative communication and non-traditional outreach methods to educate rangeland owners on the importance of patch-burn grazing and other best management practices.

Tradisi Go Ge Cap Lak (Bakar Tongkang) Dalam Tinjauan Sosiologi Ekonomi Islam

Introduction: Go Ge Cap Lak, according to the Chinese community, has the meaning of expressing gratitude to Kie Ong Ya (the god of the sea) who has given protection to their ancestors when sailing the ocean so that they can reach the Rokan Hilir region. In the course of its history, Go Ge Cap Lak in addition to having theological value also has a very thick anthropocentric value that makes the tradition as one of the religious tourism in the region. Not only the ethnic Chinese community benefited but also Muslims who lived in the local area. This tradition has become an annual event with a considerable economic impact. However, what if this tradition is seen in the study of Islamic economic sociology Research Methods: This research is included in the type of field research with qualitative descriptive data analysis methods. Primary data sources come from data mining in the field and supporting sites such as disbudpora, while secondary data sources come from previous research Results: The tradition has an economic impact on the surrounding Muslim community. This expediency is in line with the orientation of fulfilling life or in the language of religion in order to maintain life. Conclusion: Go Ge Cap Lak also has economic value. The Ministry of Tourism and Creative Industries includes Go Ge Cap Lak as one of the annual activities that are always held in Bagansiapiapi. This activity also made the economy of the Bagansiapiapi Muslim community rise and develop.

Antecedents of environmental values and pro-environmental behavior intentions: A self-determination theory approach

There is undeniable scientific evidence for anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) environmental degradation. However, there is no leading theory in environmental psychology that explains how human behavior contributes to such degradation. Accordingly, the present research sought to apply the framework of self-determination theory to examine antecedents of environmental values and pro-environmental behavior intentions. In two cross-sectional studies and one longitudinal study (Ns = 293, 187, and 275, respectively), a conceptual model was tested in which there are indirect effects of intrinsic and extrinsic aspirations on pro-environmental behavior intentions through ecocentric and anthropocentric values. In general, this conceptual model was supported, although the findings suggested that anthropocentric (relative to ecocentric) values offer a more robust explanation of the association between aspirations and pro-environmental behavior intentions. The discussion focuses on the theoretical and practical implications of this research, especially regarding the importance of framing governmental policies and educational programs around intrinsic (rather than extrinsic) aspirations.

Wild Things: Animal Rights in EU Conservation Law

The concept of animal rights is highly topical in animal legal scholarship. There is much debate on whether or not animals can and do hold rights, although there does seem to be consensus that animals currently do not have such legal rights that would grant them any foundational protection in the way that human rights do for humans. This article challenges that assumption through a discussion on the legal rights of wild animals under the European Union (EU) Habitats Directive. The article establishes a theoretical framework on animal rights and analyses the Habitats Directive according to the rights framework. It subsequently argues that preliminary fundamental legal rights for certain wild animals can be found in EU conservation law. However, through a discussion on the scope and objective of the Habitats Directive, the article finds that the legal rights that are found are not grounded in the interests of the animals themselves. Instead, the preliminary fundamental animal rights are a by-product of the anthropocentric value of biodiversity and do not support a rights-based approach to animal rights. The article concludes with a discussion on the interpretation that follows from these findings and how an instrument such as the Habitats Directive could implement rights-based wild animal rights.

Identifying typologies of synthetic energy justice: Eco-centric and anthropocentric perspectives

Since the concept of energy justice emerged, studies have conceptually, but rarely empirically, explored energy justice. In addition, studies on energy justice have mainly focused on anthropocentric values toward energy justice. This study aims to categorize Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries’ energy justice using synthetic energy justice via two aspects: eco-centrism and anthropocentrism. Each aspect of energy justice is sub-divided into distributive, substantive, and procedural justices. Using a fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis methodology via a statistical program, we suggest typologies of 35 OECD countries for each aspect. Eight types of energy justice for each aspect are extracted, and four types of synthetic energy justice groups are identified among OECD countries. Austria, Iceland, and Luxembourg show the best performance in synthetic energy justice, but do not reach a complete contestable status from an eco-centric perspective. This study provides practical policy implications for OECD countries to self-evaluate each country's macroscopic policy direction in the energy sector, and to ultimately pursue synthetic energy justice with a balanced perspective for our environment and us.

Ecocentrism and Biosphere Life Extension

The biosphere represents the global sum of all ecosystems. According to a prominent view in environmental ethics, ecocentrism, these ecosystems matter for their own sake, and not only because they contribute to human ends. As such, some ecocentrists are critical of the modern industrial civilization, and a few even argue that an irreversible collapse of the modern industrial civilization would be a good thing. However, taking a longer view and considering the eventual destruction of the biosphere by astronomical processes, we argue that humans, a species with considerable technological know-how and industrial capacity could intervene to extend the lifespan of Earth’s biosphere, perhaps by several billion years. We argue that human civilization, despite its flaws and harmful impacts on many ecosystems, is the biosphere’s best hope of avoiding premature destruction. We argue that proponents of ecocentrism, even those who wholly disregard anthropocentric values, have a strong moral reason preserve the modern industrial civilization, for as long as needed to ensure biosphere survival.

What If the Black Forest Owned Itself? A Constitutional Property Law Perspective on Rights of Nature

AbstractOwnership has been a key tool in the exploitation of nature for centuries. However, ownership could also shield natural entities from extraction and pollution if it were vested in them, rather than in humans or corporations. Through a case study of German constitutional property law, this article examines the normative content of this constitutional right. It argues that in owning themselves, natural entities would have numerous tools to fend off human interference with their self-determination. Constitutional property law would require any harmful activity affecting the natural entity to be based upon legislation and necessary to achieve a public purpose. The natural entity would enjoy broader access to justice. Courts would also often award appropriate remedies; where the natural entity would be awarded only compensation, this would be unsatisfactory because money cannot replace nature. The article finds that constitutional property law offers the potential for further protection from human interference, which has not been realized because of anthropocentric value judgments prevalent in German legal doctrine. Ecocentric approaches to ownership and invalidity as a standard remedy would play an important role in unlocking the full potential of ownership for environmental protection.

Beyond the ecocentric: Diverse values and attitudes influence engagement in pro‐environmental behaviours

Abstract Changing human behaviour and social systems are key to reversing the global biodiversity crisis. Pro‐environmental behaviour is guided by values and connection with nature, but because they have mostly been studied separately, the interplay between values and nature connection in influencing pro‐environmental behaviour remains unclear. In particular, it is uncertain whether people who hold anthropocentric values have a less positive connection with nature than those who hold ecocentric values, and whether nature protection behaviours differ between people with different values or strengths of connection to nature. We used a stratified survey of 2100 respondents across Australia to measure orientation towards nature. We created segments based on individual values and connection with nature and characterised each segment based on demographics, nature‐exposure, pro‐environmental behaviours, support for environmental policies and political alignment. We discovered that a quarter of respondents had anthropocentric values alongside a strong connection with nature. Moreover, of those with a strong connection with nature, people with anthropocentric values more frequently undertook certain pro‐environmental behaviours than those with ecocentric values. Our findings indicate that the strong expression of pro‐environmental behaviour is not limited to people with ecocentric values. Rather, people with different values and strengths of connection to nature engage in different types of impactful nature protection behaviours, challenging stereotypes about those with anthropocentric values. These results further suggest that behavioural intervention strategies could be tailored to reach sectors of society with various combinations of values and strengths of connection to nature, thus maximising the expression of pro‐environmental behaviour across the entire population. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Becoming musical performance artists – Challenging organisational norms and traditional Municipal Arts School structures

Music educational researchers in the Nordic countries have pointed out how municipal arts schools are organised based on, and tend to reproduce, anthropocentric values and approaches, and that such unequal norms and structures are to be challenged. Taking a border-crossing musical comedy project as a starting point, the specific aim of the current study is to illuminate how, and on what levels, organisational norms and traditional structures can be challenged, and what possibilities and new challenges that occur in a project taking place beyond the Anthropocene. To be able to grasp the aspects of becoming within the project and how that is related to aspects of organisation, we created a research entanglement based on post-human theory. Hence, situations seen as webs of relations were created, including the actors: humans with intellectual disabilities, musical performance students, educators, artists, researchers, and varied digital communication tools. Observations, video recordings, collaborative writing, qualitative surveys, and interviews produced material for analysis. Actor-network theory was applied aiming to describe how the constantly performed intra-active networks were constituted, as well as how the actors influenced each other. The results identify significant actors and trajectories in Sammankonst, that in turn challenge anthropocentric organisational structures of municipal arts schools.

Anthropocentric, biospheric and egobiocentric environmental values and green product purchase intention: The mediating effect of environmental identity

AbstractThis study investigates how the relationship between environmental values (anthropocentric, biospheric and egobiocentric) and green product purchase intention is mediated by environmental identity. Asurvey conducted online involving 564 Australians informs the findings. Data analysis is performed using AMOS, a structural equation modelling package. Out of the three environmental values, egobiocentric values have the strongest influence on environmental identity followed by anthropocentric values, whilst biospheric values do not affect environmental identity. Whilst environmental identity fully mediates the relationship between anthropocentric and egobiocentric values and green product purchase intention, it does not mediate the relationship between biospheric values and green product purchase intention. Biospheric values have a direct relationship with green product purchase intention. The study provides valuable insights on developing green marketing strategies by revealing that unlike individuals with anthropocentric and egobiocentric values, individuals with biospheric values cannot be promoted to purchase green products as a form of environmental identity expression.

Earth-Man Relationship in Islam and Hinduism

The relationship between man and earth has been both sacred and tender since time immemorial. This bond is based on the guiding principles enshrined and practiced deftly in all religious scriptures. Islam and Hinduism are unique as having a deep sense of respect and consideration for Earth and its natural resources. Fazlun Majeed Khālid and Ranchor Prime being the contemporary scholars of Islam and Hinduism respectively, attempted to bring religious understandings of earth and the place of human beings on it into the discourse of the present ecological crisis. They shifted the global vision of the earth-man relationship to a religious understanding of ‘self and surrounding'. They tried to solve the current ecological crisis that our planet is facing after the advent of scientific knowledge and technological development in a purely eco-theological dimension. Khālid tries to address these issues from an Islamic understanding of nature while Prime attempts to deal with the ecological crisis from the Hindu faith. Both scholars criticized the anthropocentric value approach of the West and present the Cosmo-centric value approach as an alternative ethical approach to protecting our home planet Earth and its resources. This article presents a comparative analysis of their eco-theological thoughts to sustain an earth-man relationship in the 21st century. Keywords: Earth-man Relationship, Sustainability, Ecological Crisis, Secular Worldview, Anthropocentric, Cosmo-centric, Comparative Analysis.

Aesthetic Animism

I argue that the main existing accounts of the relationship between the beauty of environmental entities and their moral standing are mistaken in important ways. Beauty does not, as has been suggested by optimists, confer intrinsic moral standing. Nor is it the case, as has been suggested by pessimists, that beauty at best provides an anthropocentric source of moral standing that is commensurate with other sources of pleasure. I present arguments and evidence that show that the appreciation of beauty tends to cause a transformational state of mind that is more valuable than mere pleasure, but that leads us to falsely represent beautiful entities as being sentient and, in turn, as having intrinsic moral standing. To this extent, beauty is not, then, a source of intrinsic moral standing; it’s a source of a more important anthropocentric value than has hitherto been acknowledged.

Experimental Writing as Autoethnography: Thalia Field’s Decentered Stories of Personhood

In Personhood (2021), Thalia Field explores the double-sided nature of narrative vis-à-vis human-nonhuman relationships. On the one hand, the author demonstrates how stories can be used to highlight the devastating consequences of failing to acknowledge otherthan- human ways of being in the world; on the other hand, she also suggests that ideas about human specialness grow out of and feed back into the desire for consoling tales, and in particular narratives that reaffirm anthropocentric value hierarchies. To negotiate this dialectic, Field decenters stories, in three, interconnected senses of that term: by engaging in textual play to resituate narratives in wider discourse ecologies; by using such recontextualized stories to extend the scope of personhood beyond the human; and by leveraging these strategies, in turn, for what can be called “storywork,” in which the writer works with, on, and through narratives to probe the broader cultural implications of different ways of telling.

Understanding young people’s perception toward forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change in a post-conflict developing country

Understanding the perceptions of young people is a critical issue in the formulation and implementation of climate change mitigation strategies. Based on cognitive hierarchy theory, the present study aims to investigate the factors that motivate or hinder young people’s perception of forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change in post-conflict Somalia. This study hypothesized a model in which climate change knowledge, risk perception and forest value orientations (anthropocentric/biocentric) influence attitude toward forestation and attitude, in turn, predicts behavioral intentions. We randomly surveyed students from three universities in three different regions of Somalia and collected 434 structured survey questionnaires. Using structural equation modeling, the results showed that climate change knowledge is a significant predictor of behavioral intention but not attitude toward forestation. The results also revealed that young people’s perception toward forestation as a strategy to mitigate climate change is significantly influenced by biocentric value orientation both directly and indirectly through attitude toward forestation. Contrary to previous studies, our results indicate that attitude partially mediates the relationship between biocentric value orientation and behavioral intentions and fully mediates the relationship between anthropocentric value orientation, risk perception and behavioral intentions, while it did not show any mediation results between climate change knowledge and behavioral intention. We found that the young people’s climate action or inaction is mainly shaped by climate change knowledge, biocentric value orientation, and attitude toward forestation. Finally, climate change mitigation efforts should avoid relying solely on attitude for behavioral decision-making formation and instead incorporate other factors into a more comprehensive framework.