Environmental perceptions, attitudes and priorities: cross‐cultural implications for public policy

Abstract

Presents the findings of a cross‐cultural analysis of perceived risks of environmental, technological, and societal problems. An international sample of 295 undergraduate and graduate students at three US universities and the National Taiwan University was surveyed. The study was designed to test two hypotheses: first, that today’s university students have grown numb to threat warnings and second, that differences in cultural and political contexts result in variation in the way societies perceive environmental issues and social concerns. Analysis of variance tests identified a number of significant differences in the way US and Asian university students perceive environmental risks, despite the many similarities in the university‐student cultures of both regions.