Tuesday 16th July
Wednesday 17th July
Thursday 18th July
Friday 19th July
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Attitudes: Methodology Ontology Impact 1 |
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| Convenor | Dr Mark Elliot (University of Manchester) |
What are attitudes? How do we know about them? How should we measure them? How are they related (methodologically and ontologically) to other concepts such values, beliefs and concerns. How are attitudes used in research to explain and describe other phenomena? How is an understanding of attitudes useful for policy makers? These are some of the questions that we hope to cover in this session.
The attitude as an explanatory and descriptive concept has been with us for nearly a century and yet we still know relatively little about what attitudes really are. Originally a subject of psychological investigation they have taken on a research life of their own within quantitative social science. The use of the concept has now spread throughout the Humanities.
Papers will be considered on any topic within the broad heading of "attitude research" including but not limited to:
New approaches to capturing attitudinal data.
Attitude Measurement.
Case based vs. variable based approaches to understanding attitudes.
Attitudes and behaviour change.
Implicit vs. Explicit attitudes.
Substantive research with attitudinal variables as explantories.
Substantive research with attitudinal variables as responses.
APC studies of historical attitude change.
Theoretical work on attitude structure or the relationship between attitudes and other constructs.
This paper analyzes the development of environmental concern by using the three waves of the environmental modules of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). First, we discuss the measurement of environmental concern and construct a ranking of countries according to the new 2010 ISSP results. Second, we analyze the determinants of environmental concern by employing multilevel models that take individual as well as context effects into account. Third, we explore the impact of attitudes on environmental behavior and support of environmental policies. The results show that environmental concern is closely correlated with the wealth of nations. However, environmental concern decreased in OECD as well as non-OECD nations slightly during the last two decades. The decline was lower in countries with improving economic conditions suggesting that economic growth helps to maintain higher levels of environmental concern. Furthermore, attitudes have a stronger impact on support of environmental policies as compared to everyday environmental behavior.
The aim of this study was to observe whether and how levels of environmental concern have changed over time, at both the aggregate and individual levels. In order to investigate social determinants of its longitudinal development, the relationship between environmental concern and socio-economic characteristics is investigated. The dataset analysed is the British National Child Development Study, for the sweeps in 1991, 2000 and 2008.
First, through confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) we estimated a measure of environmental concern for the three time points, after accounting for covariances of the error terms across measurement occasions. Second, through a longitudinal data analysis based on latent growth curve models (LGCM) we estimated the pattern of change for environmental concern across time; finally, socio-demographic characteristics were introduced as covariates for the conditional LGCM, in order to estimate their effects on levels of environmental concern over time.
The main results indicate a non-significant mean change on the levels of our outcome variable from 1991 to 2008 amongst the British population represented by the 1958 birth cohort considered here; however, a significant increment of the individual-level variance from year 2000 to 2008 was found. Thus, the widest fluctuation of individual trajectories is revealed in 2008, when the sample mean of environmental concern drops to its minimum.
Socio-demographic characteristics and political orientation were found to have significant and mostly expected effects on the outcome with some less expected changes over time.
Studies examining the composition of Environmental Concern (EC) have typically taken a deductive approach, often testing the Stern and Dietz' value-belief-norm (VBN) theory with purpose built questionnaires. Stern's own studies suggest that EC is comprised of three factors labeled as: egoistic, altruistic and biospehric concern. Snelgar's (2006) data indicates that a four-factor model may be better.
This paper takes a more inductive approach exploring the composition of EC through secondary data analysis. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis is performed on data drawn from Defra's 2009 Survey of public attitudes and behaviours towards the environment. Three methods of factor retention were used: the commonly used K1 method, scree plot examination and parallel analysis. All three methods suggested the retention of three factors, with some evidence in favour of retaining four factors.
CFA was used to replicate the three and four factor models. Goodness of fit statistics indicate that the three factor model had the best fit to the data. The three-factor structure did not replicate the VBN model. A paradoxical combination of variables loads highly onto the first factor; with high scorers evidencing both extreme concern and lack of concern. Factor 2 reflects a concern for the planet's ability to support a growing human population, and, factor 3 was found to capture concern for plants and animals; mapping directly on to VBAs biospheric value orientation. The differences between these results and previous work, as well as the implications for future research are discussed.