People with conservative political views can care as much about the environment as leftwing climate-change activists, according to new Australian research.
This new insight into the different ways people value and connect with nature will be useful for more inclusive public messaging about environmental matters, the study's lead author Nicola Sockhill tells Afternoons.
Photo: Unsplash / Gabriel Jimenez
In a survey of 2,000 Australians, University of Queensland researchers found that people across the political spectrum share a desire to protect and nurture the environment, Sockhill says.
“We wanted to find out how people's attitudes and values towards nature interacted, and then how that influenced their pro-environmental behaviours.
"Attitudes we measured as [whether a person had] a strong to weak connection to nature – how much you like nature, essentially."
People's values were measured on a scale from 'anthropocentric' – valuing nature for what it's worth to humans – to 'ecocentric' valuing nature for its intrinsic worth.
The distinction between people's attitudes and values has been neglected by social scientists, she says, but is important for understanding our personal connections to nature.
“In the past, all scientific research has assumed that values and attitudes are essentially the same things but we found that that's not the case.
“We uncovered these groups in society where you might have more of an anthropocentric value towards nature but you really enjoy nature – you have a strong connection to it. We found that and that's new in the scientific community.
“It was assumed that people with egocentric values, like your typical ‘greenie’, would be the only ones who actually care about the environment and support that with their behaviour.
“But we found the subset of people who value the environment differently with different motivations, but they also care just as much as the ecocentric people. And they also do just as many pro-environmental behaviours already as the other group.”
These results have implications for environmental activism strategies, Sockhill says.
“In the past, all this sort of messaging has been aimed at the egocentric people, disenfranchising people who have different values.
“Like protecting a tree for its intrinsic worth is different – the people who care about that are going to be different to the people who care about farming or our future or temperature increases that impact on us, our comfort and that sort of thing.
“[This knowledge] will have an impact on the way we talk to people, but also the people we target with this sort of messaging.”
The results of the study are value-neutral and simply offer sociological insights that can be used by whoever finds them useful, Sockhill says.
“We're not saying one way is right or one way is not right ... We have our own personal value systems, but that's not to say that everyone should feel the same way. We just care about people doing the right thing for the environment in general. It has the same impact at the end of the day.
“This sort of research can apply to different groups of people who want to talk to the public. So it could be a politician, it could be a conservation group, or NGO, or even small community groups.
"I guess, taking it case by case, there will be some instances where it makes more sense to talk to specific groups of people for, for example, maybe your electorate is more left-leaning, so you can talk to them in that way. But I think in general, it's a good idea to not alienate anyone and have more of a broad message because you don't really know who's listening or who might hear.”
