The use (and abuse) of the new environmental paradigm scale over the last 30 years: A meta-analysis

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Abstract

This paper reports a meta-analysis of studies using the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale over the last 30 years. A review of 69 studies from 36 countries (including 58,279 participants from 139 samples) shows that there is considerable variation in the way the NEP Scale is used, particularly with regards to the number of items used and the number of points on the Likert scale employed. Results from weighted regression analyses reveals that variations in sample type and scale length have a significant effect on NEP scores. In particular, environmentalist and white-collar samples scored significantly higher on the NEP Scale than nationally or regionally representative samples, while blue-collar samples scored significantly lower; and participants scored higher on 6-item versions of the scale than on the revised 15-item version, and lower on versions of the scale containing 5, 7, 8 or 10 items. Implications of this research for the comparability of previous studies using the NEP Scale are discussed and guidelines for future research are presented.

Introduction

More than 50 years ago commentators and natural scientists began to systematically investigate ways in which human behavior were damaging the natural environment (e.g., Carson, 1962, Osborn, 1948). Their work was soon followed by social scientists who hoped to understand more about how humans relate to the environment, and thus uncover techniques that could be used to encourage people to live in a more sustainable manner (for a review, see Gardner & Stern, 2002). However, although social scientists have made many significant discoveries, it is still clear that humanity is not living in balance with our natural limits. In fact, recent research shows that humans are consuming the Earth's resources at increasingly unsustainable rates (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). As a consequence of this maladaptive behavior we are also facing ever more serious environmental issues, such as climate change (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2007).

Given this situation, it is crucial that social scientists gain a better understanding of why people treat the environment as they do. An important step towards achieving this goal is to measure peoples' environmental attitudes in a valid and reliable fashion. Environmental attitudes (EA) are a psychological tendency expressed by evaluating the natural environment with some degree of favour or disfavour, and are a crucial construct in the field of environmental psychology, discussed in more than half of all publications in this area (Milfont, 2007a). However, it has frequently been noted that much of the previous research on EA has been conducted in an unsystematic way (Heberlein, 1981, Stern, 1992), with researchers generating new measures of EA for almost every study they conducted. As a result, in their 2002 review Dunlap and Jones estimated that at least several hundred measures of EA have been developed since the 1960s. Analysts agree that this “anarchy of measurement” (Stern, 1992, p. 279) has been a key factor contributing to the noncumulative and atheoretical nature of much research on EA (Milfont & Duckitt, 2004b). The proliferation of measures has also made it difficult for researchers who are not familiar with the field to choose an appropriate standard measure of EA to use when designing a new study, thus compounding the problem.

However, although many researchers have noted the detrimental effect on research in this field of using numerous measures of EA, less attention has been paid to the question of whether researchers are using standardized measures of EA consistently. It is also not known whether an inconsistent use of standardized EA measures may constitute a problem for the field. Research into psychometrics suggests that an inconsistent use of scales may well be problematic. For example, it is known that even a small change in the wording of one item can have a substantial effect on how people respond to a scale (Robinson, Shaver, & Wrightsman, 1991). Changes in the response format (e.g., variation in the number of points on a Likert scale offered to participants) are also known to effect responses (Aiken, 1987, Krosnick, 1999). Finally, the context in which items are presented (i.e., the items or text that come before or after them) can also have a considerable effect on the way people respond to scales (Schwarz, 1999). Therefore, it seems likely that if there is variation across studies in the way that standardized measures of EA are used this might decrease the comparability of the studies' results, leading to the same problem of noncumulative research noted above.

When trying to measure the effect of such variation in scale use it is important to control for other factors that might also affect results. For example, recent research has found that sampling fluctuation (e.g., sample size, sample composition) has a significant influence on the internal structure of the values domain (Fischer et al., in press, Fontaine et al., 2008). It is thus important to determine whether changes in results across studies are caused by variations in scale use rather than by variations in sample composition or other factors that might affect responding. A meta-analysis provides an ideal method to examine this possibility as it summarizes many aspects of several studies in a quantitative form (Rosenthal & DiMatteo, 2001). This article therefore takes a meta-analytic approach to investigate how the use of the most widely-used EA measure, the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale, may have affected the results obtained by researchers using the scale. By investigating the use of one scale in detail, this article will highlight some of the more problematic aspects of how EA is currently measured. Some recommendations to researchers as to how the NEP Scale can be best used to avoid such problems in the future are also provided.

Section snippets

The NEP Scale

Despite the large number of EA measures available, reviewers agree that only three have been widely used (Dunlap and Jones, 2003, Fransson and Gärling, 1999). These are the Ecology Scale (Maloney and Ward, 1973, Maloney et al., 1975), the Environmental Concern Scale (Weigel & Weigel, 1978), and the NEP Scale (Dunlap and Liere, 1978, Dunlap et al., 2000). These three scales examine multiple phenomena or expressions of concern, such as beliefs, attitudes, intentions and behavior. These scales

The present study

It has now been 30 years since the NEP Scale was first published, and the scale has been widely used ever since. As an indication, a search on the ISI Web of Science database in 2008 showed that the 1978 paper had been cited 379 times, and the 2000 paper had already been cited 135 times. However, no previous study has attempted to provide a systematic review of studies using the NEP Scale. Dunlap et al. (2000) provided a review of selected findings supporting the validity of the NEP Scale, but

Procedure

The procedure consisted of three steps: (1) a search for studies using any version of the NEP Scale, (2) selection of studies that met criteria for inclusion in the meta-analysis, and (3) coding of relevant study features.

Study characteristics

The analysis includes 139 samples and a total of 58,279 participants (for two samples information on sample size was not provided). Although a few samples in this analysis were collected and/or published in the late 1970s and early 1980s, the vast majority of samples (86.3%) were published in the last 12 years, since 1997.

Sample composition

The samples in the analysis vary greatly in terms of size, age, gender composition, and sample type. Descriptive statistics relating to sample composition are provided in

Discussion

This article used a meta-analytical approach to provide a quantitative review of 30 years of research using the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale, including 69 studies, 139 samples, and 58,279 participants. Because the NEP Scale is currently the most widely used measure to assess people's environmental attitudes (EA), it seemed useful to investigate whether variations in the characteristics of studies using the scale would affect samples' average scores. Our quantitative review indicates

Acknowledgements

This research was made possible by a Faculty of Arts Honours scholarship from the University of Auckland to Lucy J. Hawcroft, and by scholarship BEX 2246/02–3 from the Ministry of Education of Brazil (CAPES Foundation) to Taciano L. Milfont. The authors would like to express their appreciation to Ronald Fischer for his valuable help on meta-analysis literature and to thank Riley E. Dunlap for his helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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    Portions of this paper were presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society of Australasian Social Psychologists, Wellington, New Zealand, March 2008.

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