Environmental Worldview and Behavior: Consequences of Dimensionality in a Survey of North Carolinians

This research investigates the potential dimensionality of environmental worldviews using a scale derived from the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP). It delineates the substantive consequences of dimensionality for our understanding of environmental behavior and both demographic and religious correlates of environmentalism. We found that our NEP-based Scale of Worldview contained two distinct dimensions that were differentially predicted by demographic and religious variables. Of particular importance was the relationship of religious fundamentalism to the two subscales thereby highlighting the inherent religious implications of NEP item wording. In general, we found that Worldviews do not contribute substantially to the prediction of Environmental Behavior. Additionally, Worldviews do not allow us to account for demographic differences in the performance of Environmental Behavior. We concluded that environmental worldviews have limited policy implications given the lack of correspondence to behavior but that they remain an important prerequisite to such behavior which is deserving of careful study.