Value Orientations, Gender, and Environmental Concern

TLDR

Environmental quality actions may stem from egoistic, social‑altruistic, or biospheric values, with gender potentially influencing how these orientations relate to behavior, a pattern supported by recent contingent‑valuation studies. The study develops a social‑psychological model to test whether environmentalism constitutes a novel way of thinking. Behavioral intentions are calculated as the weighted sum of value strengths multiplied by beliefs about the consequences of environmental conditions for each valued object. Survey results indicate that beliefs about consequences for each valued object predict political action willingness, while only self‑consequence beliefs predict tax‑payment willingness; women hold stronger self, others, and biosphere consequence beliefs than men, though value orientations do not differ by gender.

Abstract

A social-psychological model is developed to examine the proposition that environmentalism represents a new way of thinking. It presumes that action in support of environmental quality may derive from any of three value orientations: egoistic, social-altruistic, or biospheric, and that gender may be implicated in the relation between these orientations and behavior. Behavioral intentions are modeled as the sum across values of the strength of a value times the strength of beliefs about the consequences of environmental conditions for valued objects. Evidence from a survey of 349 college students shows that beliefs about consequences for each type of valued object independently predict willingness to take political action, but only beliefs about consequences for self reliably predict willingness to pay through taxes. This result is consistent with other recent findings from contingent valuation surveys. Women have stronger beliefs than men about consequences for self, others, and the biosphere, but there is no gender difference in the strength of value orientations.