Suchergebnisse

An environmental education intervention in a university conservation-related course was designed to decrease students' errors in consensus estimates for proenvironmental intentions, that is, their errors in guessing their classmates' proenvironmental intentions. Before and after the course, the authors measured two intentions regarding willingness to contribute money and volunteer work for environmental causes. The false consensus effect, whereby contributors provide significantly higher consensus estimates compared with noncontributors, was displayed both before and after the course. Specifically, students intending to contribute believed most (51%-54%) of their classmates would contribute, and students not intending to contribute believed fewer (28%-35%) of their classmates would contribute. Accuracy in estimating consensus increased significantly after the course. Errors in consensus estimates were significant predictors of behavioral intentions. The study showed that the theoretical and methodological background of environmental education interventions can be enriched by incorporating consensus estimates for proenvironmental intentions in assessment procedures.

Despite the popularization of the environmental discourse, rural environmental belief-systems should not be viewed as homogenous. Focusing on the largest protected area in Greece, we examined heterogeneity in local environmental views. Local spokespersons elicited word associations to two stimulus terms, namely, 'environmentalists' and 'protected area'. Based on association categories for both terms, we identified two sample segments. 'Naturalists' appealed to a naturalistic image, which shaped the core compartment of their representations. On the other hand, 'skeptics' provided both environmentalist claims and critical accounts. Our findings revealed that the environmental discourse was widely diffused among local spokespersons. Issues of power and participation in decision-making processes within protected areas are discussed. For instance, dimensions of power and legitimacy were reflected in the frequency of association categories and their allocation among sample segments. Specifically, environmentalist accounts were overtly expressed by both 'naturalists' and skeptics, while a more socially, politically and critically inclined view was revealed by a small percentage of associations that were all elicited by 'skeptics'. We conclude that appreciating the heterogeneity of rural environmental views can reinforce the democratic mandate in environmental policy-making. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.