Applying social psychology to the study of environmental concern and environmental worldviews: contributions from the social representations approach

TLDR

Social psychology has increasingly contributed to environmental research by emphasizing shared aspects of environmental experiences, yet the field still faces challenges such as fragmented theoretical integration, unclear conceptual assumptions, and a reliance on socio‑demographic correlates. The paper aims to apply the social representations approach to study environmental concern and thought, expanding social psychological insights into this area. The authors present social representations theory and illustrate its utility for addressing the identified problems, using recent studies to highlight the importance of contradiction, polyphasia, and linking local and global perspectives. © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Abstract

Abstract Recently some social psychological approaches have intensified their contributions to research in the environmental domain, helping it to focus more consistently on the shared aspects of all environment related experiences. The goal of this paper is that of joining these efforts, exploring the contributions of the social representations approach to research on environmental concern and environmental thought, as another area for applying social psychological knowledge. The paper first sketches how the environmental concern of the publics emerged in the 70s as a problem for the social sciences and proceeds to summarizing the main characteristics of this research, focusing on three problematic areas: (1) incipient theoretical integration among the frameworks dominating research; (2) insufficient reflection about the assumptions and measurement of the concepts employed; (3) a need for new research questions that push studies beyond the analysis of the socio‐demographical correlates of beliefs. Afterwards a presentation of social representations theory will be undertaken and the usefulness of the approach to deal with some aspects of the problematic areas identified will be explored, with examples from recent research, and highlighting the importance of focusing on contradiction, polyphasia, and the articulation of the local and the global. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.