Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Table 9.2
Question items for measuring consumerism (Mullins et al.
2004
)
1.
A good life is one in which you can spend money freely without worrying too much about
the consequences
2.
Koreans are going to have to reduce their consumption of material goods over the next
few years
3.
I am concerned about the impact of my own buying habits on the environment
4.
I like to try out new products that come on to the market
5.
I like to upgrade most major appliances in my home (e.g., TV, stereo, computer) every two
or 3 years
6.
I often buy things that I don't really need
7.
I spend money to have fun
8.
Many of the products we buy are over-packaged
9.
I am addicted to shopping
10.
Material wealth is a part of what makes this a good country in which to live
11.
Most of us buy and consume far more than we need - it's wasteful
12.
The “buy now, pay later” attitude caused many of us to consume more than we need
13.
The ready availability of a wide range of consumer goods makes for a good life
14.
The way we live consumes too much
15.
The world's population is growing too fast
16.
We focus too much on getting what we want now and not enough on the needs of future
generations
17.
If everybody in China, India, and Latin America consumed as much as Koreans do, it
would damage the environment
18.
The amount of energy I use does not affect the environment to any significant degree
Catton and Dunlap (
1978
) played a critical role in defining today's unprecedented
ecological crisis by proposing the New Environmental Paradigm (NEP). Dunlap
and Van Liere (
1978
) developed a set of empirical question items to represent the
theoretical notion of the NEP, and the 1978 NEP question items were updated in
2000 (Dunlap et al.
2000
).
The original question items consisted of 12 items, again with a five-point Likert
scale ranging from “strongly agree” (5) to “strongly disagree” (1). The revised
questionnaire contains 15 items. They were revised for two reasons. First, the envi-
ronmental situation changed in the intervening period, particularly because of the
appearance of global environmental problems (such as global warming and sea
level rise) and the rise of the concept of 'human exceptionalism', that is, that
humans are such a uniquely superior species that they are exempt from environ-
mental forces. The second reason was primarily methodological and involved
modifying outmoded terminology (e.g., references to 'mankind') and now includ-
ing an “unsure” category as the midpoint to reduce the number of items for which
there was no response (Dunlap et al.
2000
). The revised questionnaire was used to
measure environmentalism in this study (see Table
9.3
).
Environmental behavior was measured by looking at the respondent's prepared-
ness to change behavior as the conative aspect of environmental concern; in other
words, how willing or ready respondents are to perform the environmental behaviors
suggested. Therefore, behavioral intention - verbally claimed commitment - was
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