A five-country comparison of attitudes toward the environment and association with perceived threat to the countryside: Secondary analysis of the SUPER-G citizen survey
Creators: name: Newell-Price, Paul
name: Bunting, Brendan
name: Frewer, Lynn
name: Stewart-Knox, Barbara
name: Jin, Andy
name: Tindale, Sophie
Publisher: name: Open Science Framework
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Life Sciences
subject: Social and Behavioral Sciences
subject: SuperG

description: A five-country comparison of attitudes toward the environment and association with perceived threat to the countryside: Secondary analysis of the SUPER-G citizen survey Introduction It is becoming increasingly important to protect the environment for the benefit of human health and wellbeing, as well as to achieve sustainable food production for ecological survival (EEA., 2023; Pellaton et al., 2022). In recent years, rural areas have seen a move away from agricultural productivism and toward a multifunctional model of land-use that includes leisure and tourism (Filyushkina et al., 2022; Schmitt et al., 2022; Bjorkhaug &amp; Richards, 2008). The leisure industry must also consider sustainability in land use (Gossling &amp; Peeters, 2015), however, people may be unwilling to embrace low-carbon tourism or pay a premium (Lin et al., 2022). Achieving sustainable land use will therefore require urgent and extensive ‘social innovation’ to bring about change in food production, food consumption and people’s lifestyle practices (EEA., 2023). Understanding citizen attitudes to the environment and land use is therefore important in the design and implementation of effective environmental planning to conserve the environment whilst enabling citizen access and food production. Historically, human interaction with the environment has been viewed in terms of intrinsic and instrumental value and only recently has the importance of the ‘relational’ value of the environment, encompassing emotion and experiential factors, received greater attention (Richardson et al., 2020; Himes &amp; Muraca, 2018; Jones et al., 2016). Pro-environmental attitudes are more frequent in people with a less materialistic world view (Hedlund et al., 2014) and those with more liberal political views (Wyss et al., 2022). Added to this, attitudes to the environment can be integral to an individual’s social identity (Lou &amp; Li, 2021). Environmental attitudes are complex and multifaceted and as such subject to individual differences that may need to be addressed in promoting pro-environmental behaviours. Existing research indicates wide variation in public attitudes towards the countryside (Howley et al., 2012) and this variation may reflect differences between regions and demographic groups (Tindale et al, 2023). Environmental attitudes tend to be more positive among older people (Koprowicz et al., 2022; Bleidorn et al., 2021; Domingues &amp; Goncalves, 2020), women (Martin-Ezpeleta et al., 2022; Domingues &amp; Goncalves, 2020), those who have spent longer in education (Koprowicz et al., 2022), and those of higher socio-economic status (SES) (Grandin et al., 2022). Research undertaken in France (n=15,924) and the United Kingdom (UK) (n=560) has indicated more positive environmental attitudes among those of higher socio-economic status (SES) (Grandin et al., 2022). SUPER-G a priori qualitative research (Tindale et al., 2023) indicated that even when people in different countries agreed that farming for biodiversity was a preferable approach to managing agricultural landscapes, rural and urban dwellers held contrasting perspectives on the prioritisation of ecosystem services within countries. It is important therefore to consider environmental attitudes not only between countries but also in different social groups. Whilst some previous research reported that more positive environmental attitudes are associated with pro-environmental behaviour (Baierl, et al., 2022; Wyss et al., 2022; Stylianos &amp; Markowitz, 2022; Henn et al., 2020), other research has shown that positive environmental attitudes do not always translate into pro-environmental behaviour (Wyss et al., 2022; Carrington et al., 2014). A possible reason for these mixed findings and why pro-environment attitudes may not always translate into pro-environmental behaviour, is that factors such as perceived environment threats (aka costs) prevent people from changing their behaviour. Recent evidence suggests that pro-environment attitudes are more likely to translate into behaviour when perceived costs (aka threats) are perceived to be low (Wyss et al., 2022). A systematic literature review of 51 studies concluded that threats tend to be concerned with land use, land management, social attitudes, industrial development, human recreation and tourism (Pelaton et al., 2022). Perceived environmental threats may be amenable to intervention and have been analysed along with environmental attitudes in this study. The aim in this analysis, therefore, will be to inform effective intervention to encourage more positive attitudes towards the environment, taking into account perceived environmental threats that could potentially influence whether attitudes translate into behaviour. A starting point in planning intervention to protect the environment, therefore, would be to identify and understand people’s attitudes to the environment as well as how they perceive threats to the environment, and then to determine how these factors vary individually, demographically and between countries. Environmental attitudes will be assessed using the Environmental Attitudes Inventory (EAI-24) and along with perceived environmental threats, will be compared cross-nationally (United Kingdom, Spain, Switzerland, Sweden Czech Republic), between urban and rural dwellers and in different socio-demographic groups. Given previous research, environmental attitudes are expected to be more pro-environment among females, older people and those who have spent longer in education. It is predicted that environmental attitudes will be associated with perceived environmental threats, and that this association will vary by age and between genders, education level, urban and rural dwellers. Method This secondary analysis draws on survey data collected as part of the European (EU) funded SUPER-G project. The SUPER-G project (Grant Agreement No.: 774124) has received funding from the European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. The views and opinions expressed in this paper do not represent the official position of the European Commission and is entirely the responsibility of the authors. Ethical approval for the survey study was granted by Newcastle University, Faculty of Science, Agriculture and Engineering Ethics Committee on 21/08/2020 [Ref 20-TIN-029]. Sampling and Procedure Sample recruitment and survey data collection were undertaken by a social research agency across five European (EU) countries (N=3190). These countries were Switzerland (n=641); Spain (n=623); United Kingdom (UK) (n=632); Sweden (n=645); Czech Republic (CR) (n=649); to represent the Alpine, Mediterranean, Atlantic, Boreal and Continental biogeographical regions of Europe (respectively). The sample was quota sampled on age, gender, socio-economic status and rural versus urban residency. Data were collected by on-line survey conducted during November 2022. Materials The Environmental Attitudes Inventory The environmental attitudes inventory (EAI) appears to be the only existing psychometric tool that measures attitudes representative of instrumental, intrinsic and relational aspects of the environment and that considers both productivist and conservational attitudes. It also considers environmental attitudes that tap into social identity. The original environmental attitudes inventory (EAI) comprised twelve scales (Milfont &amp; Duckitt, 2010). The shorter 24-item environmental attitudes inventory (EAI-24) has been found to have similar psychometric properties to the original version and with two dimensions, preservation (eg. preserving and maintaining ecosystems) and utilization (eg. citizen access, tourism and food production) (Moussaoui et al., 2016; Milfont et al., 2010; Bogner &amp; Wiseman, 2006). The EAI-24 has been previously administered in Spain (Andrade et al., 2021), Portugal (Domingues &amp; Goncalves, 2020) and France (Moussaoue et al., 2016). The inventory has been shown to have satisfactory predictive validity and test-retest reliability (Moussaoue et al., 2016). The EAI also appears to have good discriminate validity in that older people, women and natural scientists have been found to score higher on preservation and lower on utilisation (Domingues &amp; Goncalves, 2020). All items were prompted by ‘How far do you agree or disagree with the following statements’ and scored on a five-point Likert scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Negative items were reverse scored. Perceived Environmental Threats Questionnaire items (15 items) were informed by the findings of the a priori qualitative research investigating public attitudes and perceptions of grassland landscapes in Europe (Tindale et al., 2023), the wordings for which were derived from focus group discussion dialogue - tapping into perceived environmental threats. All items were prompted by ‘How far do you agree or disagree with the following statements on the causes of problems in the countryside’. Responses were also on a five-point Likert-scale ranging from strongly agree to strongly disagree. Data Analysis Multi-factor analysis was conducted on the means of the intercepts using Mplus. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using a geomin factor rotation was undertaken on scores for all 24 items of the environmental attitudes inventory (EAI-24). Taking the United Kingdom (UK) data, a 5-factor solution was obtained. Environmental attitudes fell into two main dimensions comprised positive attitudes towards ‘preservation’ (13 items) of the environment and negative attitudes reflecting ‘utilisation’ (9 items) of the environment (Table 1). Only two items ‘going on trips to the countryside’ and ‘join and participate in an environmental group’ failed to load on to one or other of these dimensions. The remaining three factors appeared to be related to environmental ‘activism’ (joining environmental movements), ‘scientism’ (that science can solve environmental issues) and ‘procreation’ (having children or not) each of which contained only two strong items (factor loading greater than 0.4) on each potential factor. Owing to the relatively small numbers of items loading onto these factors, and their relatively poor psychometric properties, items relating to the first two factors were only used in the subsequent analysis. These items were selected on the basis that they (a) had a factor loading above 0.4 (b) that the factor was clearly related to only one factor. This left eleven items loading onto the first factor: ‘utilisation’ of the environment (productivist) (items: 2,3,7,10,13,15,18,19,22,23,24) (Table 1). The second factor represented ‘preservation’ (conservationist) of the environment and contained seven items (5,8,11,12,17,20,21). Insert table 1 Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using a geomin factor rotation was also conducted on the 15 items related to perceived threat to the countryside (Table 2). The EFA suggested 4 factors representing ‘changing land use’, ‘negative human behaviour’, ‘land use and food demand’ and ‘farming challenges’. Selecting factor loadings greater than 0.4 only, the first factor ‘changing land use’ contained two items ‘conversion to urban land use’ and ‘conversion of pasture or meadows to cropland’ and therefore will be excluded from subsequent analysis. Factor 2 ‘negative human behaviour’ contained four items: ‘bad behaviour of visitors’, ‘poor farming practices’, ‘misuse of chemical fertilisers’ and ‘effects of climate change’. Factor three, ‘changing land use and food demand’, comprised five items: ‘conversion of pasture or meadows to woodland’, ‘too many livestock causing damage to the land’, ‘increased number of visitors’, ‘changing diets’ and ‘changing demand for food loading’. A sixth item, ‘conversion of pasture or meadows to cropland’, loaded negatively and was cross loaded with factor one. Factor 4, ‘farming challenges’, contained three items: ‘farmers unable to make a living from the land’, ‘lack of young farmers taking over farming’ and ‘changes to market prices of farm products’. A further item, ‘abandonment of land by farmers’, failed to load onto any factor and will be excluded from further analysis. Insert table 2 Demographic factors to be entered into the analysis are age (continuous), gender (male/female), educational level (secondary or less; upper secondary; and graduate/post-graduate), frequency of visits to the countryside (continuous) and location (urban/rural). Environmental attitudes were entered as two factors (preservation, i.e. positive attitudes towards preservation of the environment; and utilization, i.e. negative factors towards utilization of the environment). The outcome variables were the factors related to perceived threat to the countryside (‘negative human behaviour’; ‘changing land use and food demand’; and ‘farming challenges’). Aims and Hypotheses The aim in this analysis, therefore, will be to inform effective intervention to encourage more positive attitudes towards the environment, taking into account perceived environmental threats that could potentially influence attitudes and whether they translate into behaviour. Environmental attitudes will be assessed using the EAI-24 and associations with perceived environmental threats identified and compared cross-nationally, between urban and rural dwellers and in different socio-demographic groups. Multiple regression analysis will be conducted using a weighted least squares mean and variance approach. In this estimation strategy the measures were assumed to be ordinal, as this was more in keeping with the five-point polytomous response scale used to obtain the information (Muthén &amp; Asparouhov, 2002). The analysis will be conducted within a multi-group framework where measurement data from the five countries will be held invariant where possible. The covariate relationships between the constructs will be freely estimated in the initial stage, and in some cases Wald tests will be conducted to examine structural parameter equality. The UK will be taken as the comparator in subsequent regression analyses. Data were analysed using Mplus Version 8.9 Muthén &amp; Muthén. Given previous research, environmental attitudes are expected to be more pro-environment in females, older people and those who have spent longer in education. It is predicted that environmental attitudes will be associated with perceived environmental threats and that this association will vary by age and the frequency with which people visit the countryside, between gender, education level, urban and rural dwellers. References van Ajdukovic, Daniel Gilibert &amp; Valérie Fointiat (2019) Structural confirmation of the 24-item Environmental Attitude Inventory / Confirmación estructural del Inventario de Actitudes Ambientales de 24 ítems, Psyecology, 10:2, 184-216, DOI: 10.1080/21711976.2019.1586140 Baierl TM, Kaiser FG, Bogner FX (2022) The supportive role of environment attitude for learning about environmental issues. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 81, 101799. 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