Title: Explaining Environmental Activism Across Countries
Abstract: Abstract This article tests a model of pathways to environmental activism across 16 nations using structural equation modeling. Given previous research, a model is proposed articulating individual resources, knowledge, awareness of consequences, attitudes, willingness to contribute, and efficacy as factors influencing environmental activism. The mediating effect of willingness to make environmental contributions is investigated in detail based on expectations from prior studies. Results from analysis of International Social Survey Program data are broadly supportive of the model across 16 countries individually, as education, awareness of consequences, and attitudes combined affect environmental activism. Moreover, mediating tests demonstrate a prominent but not exclusive role of willingness to contribute in promoting activism across nations, uncovering relationships that are masked in previous cross-national research. Keywords: cross-nationalenvironmental activismpathways Acknowledgments An earlier version of this article was presented at the 2006 American Sociological Association's Annual Meeting in Montreal, Canada. I thank Kazimierz Slomczynski, Ed Crenshaw, Pam Paxton, the anonymous reviewers, and the editor for helpful comments on earlier drafts. Notes This research does not replicate either the TPB or VBN theory given items included in the 2000 ISSP Environment Survey that gauge general rather than specific attitudes and behaviors. This is similar to previous research (Bamberg and Moser 2007 Bamberg , S. , and G. Moser . 2007 . Twenty years after Hines, Hungerford, and Tomera: A new meta-analysis of psycho-social determinants of pro-environmental behaviour . J. Environ. Psychol. 27 : 14 – 25 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kaiser and Gutscher 2003 Kaiser , F. , and H. Gutscher . 2003 . The proposition of a general version of the theory of planned behavior: predicting ecological behavior . J. Appl. Social Psychol. 33 ( 3 ): 586 – 603 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Kaiser et al. 2005 Kaiser , F. , G. Hubner , and F. Bogner . 2005 . Contrasting the theory of planned behavior with the value-belief-norm model in explaining conservation behavior . J. Appl. Social Psychol. 35 ( 10 ): 2150 – 2170 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Steg et al. 2005 Steg , L. , L. Dreijerink , and W. Abrahamse , W. 2005 . Factors influencing the acceptability of energy policies: A test of VBN theory . J. Environ. Psychol. 25 : 415 – 425 .[Crossref], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). Given the participation literature (Verba et al. 1995 Verba , S. , K. L. Schlozman , and H. E. Brady . 1995 . Voice and equality: Civic voluntarism in American politics . Cambridge , MA : Harvard University Press .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), the effects of education are hypothesized to be direct, in addition to the indirect pathways articulated in TPB and VBN theory. Education in years serves as a proxy for the content of the educational curriculum and for exposure to particular values. Fifteen countries in the 2000 ISSP Environment Survey are included, with East and West Germany considered separately, yielding 16. Eleven countries were excluded due to missing data or not meeting minimum requirements for analysis. To preserve sample sizes, missing data were accounted for using multiple imputation procedures, specifically the EM algorithm (Allison 2002 Allison , P. 2002 . Missing data . Thousand Oaks , CA : Sage .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). SAS 9.0 and Lisrel 8.7 were used to complete the structural equation modeling analyses. Results using listwise deletion, completed as a robustness check, show similar results. Fit statistics from CFAs demonstrate support for environmental attitudes and willingness to contribute for component fit and overall model fit statistics. The only indications of poor fit are significant chi-squared test statistics in two countries for attitudes and seven countries for behavioral intention. Since the chi-squared test is sensitive to sample size and is a measure of "perfect" fit, fit statistics from other families are reported that are less sensitive to sample size. These measures include the Incremental Fit Index (IFI), the Adjusted Goodness of Fit Index (AGFI) and the root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA). For the IFI and AGFI, values closer to 1 indicate better fit of the model. For consistency with these, 1 minus the root mean square error of approximation (1 – RMSEA) is presented. Traditionally, values above .9 for these fit statistics have been considered to represent adequate fit with values above .95 now recognized to suggest excellent fit (Hu and Bentler 1999 Hu , L. , and P. Bentler . 1999 . Cutoff criteria for fit indexes in covariance structure analysis: Conventional criteria versus new alternatives . Struct. Equat. Model. 6 ( 1 ): 1 – 55 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]). For environmental attitudes, IFI values range from .98 to 1.00, AGFI values from .95 to 1.00, and 1 – RMSEA values from .91 to 1.00. For willingness to contribute, values range from .97 to 1.00 for the IFI, from .89 to 1.00 for the AGFI, and from .85 to 1.00 for 1 – RMSEA across the 16 countries. Multigroup confirmatory factor analyses (MGCFAs) demonstrate configural and metric invariance of latent constructs (Bollen 1989 Bollen , K. 1989 . Structural equations with latent variables . New York : Wiley & Sons .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). More information is available upon request. CFA results indicate very good model fit of this latent construct in all 16 countries. More information is available upon request. The United States is the reference category. The exception is East Germany (IFI: .86, AGFI: .88). However, in the few countries where the chi-square is significant, alternative measures of fit like the IFI, AGFI, and 1 – RMSEA indicate acceptable to good fit. With a small sample of 16 countries, assumptions of a two-sample t test (e.g., normality and equal variances), which tend to be minimized in large samples, are likely not met. Instead, testing for differences in medians requires a nonparametric statistic (Fligner and Policello 1981 Fligner , M. A. , and G. E. Policello . 1981 . Robust rank procedures for the Behrens–Fisher problem . J. Am. Stat. Assoc. 76 : 162 – 168 .[Taylor & Francis Online], [Web of Science ®] , [Google Scholar]; Hollander and Wolfe 1999 Hollander , M. , and D. A. Wolfe . 1999 . Nonparametric statistical methods, , 2nd ed. New York : Wiley . [Google Scholar]). Fligner–Policello tests were conducted for two groups (one including the Netherlands, New Zealand, and Switzerland, and the second comparing former state socialist countries as a distinct group). Results for the second comparison demonstrate that former socialist countries are significantly lower in environmental activism.
Publication Year: 2012
Publication Date: 2012-07-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 55
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