Outdoor recreation and environmental concern: A reexamination of the Dunlap‐Heffernan thesis∗

Abstract

The hypothesis proposed by Dunlap and Heffernan (1975) that involvement in outdoor recreational activities leads to greater concern with the natural environment is reassessed in this article. In contrast to earlier research, the findings suggest that recreationally active respondents do not differ greatly from inactives in levels of environmental concern. Tests of a multivariate model that included not only the recreational activity measure but also several other sociopersonal variables suggested by earlier research to be important predictors of environmental concern (including socioeconomic status, age, and place of residence) also proved disappointing. Not only were the total explained variances small, but the recreational activity variable proved to be one of the least powerful predictor variables in the model. The conclusions question the suggestion voiced by Dunlap and Heffernan (1975) that outdoor recreationalists may constitute a valuable constituency for efforts to stimulate public support for environmental reforms and recommend the exploitation of attitudinal differences among various socioeconomic status levels as a more fruitful alternative.