Human values and environmental studies

The primary purpose of this seminar is to integrate humanistic and social science perspectives into the discussion of environmental issues. We will look at the ways in which culture, values, and the very nature of human beings have shaped our environmental dilemma. The capstone is organized in conjunction with an interdisciplinary faculty seminar (which meets every other Tuesday). We will participate in that seminar and build on it in our capstone discussions. This format lets us bring together a broad spectrum of people — undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty interested in exploring “new” territory together. We are going to rely on the insights and experience of everyone — there are no “right” ways to think about the ideas we will discuss. FOCUS FOR FALL 1993 This year, we want to look at some of the cultural and social paradoxes that seem to have gotten us into a fair amount of environmental trouble and that seem to stymie meaningful action. The class will develop a framework for understanding these dynamics and approaches to reconciling the paradoxes inherent in environmental issues. WHY A CAPSTONE? The flexibility of an Independent Concentration (ICP) brings with it the challenge of achieving some integration and synthesis of the varied coursework you have taken. Furthermore, even though there are a number of ICP majors, there have been few opportunities for all of you to work together. The capstone is an effort to provide a setting where we can begin to exp...

This study explores influences of human values and trust on stated preferences for food labeled with environmental footprints. We apply survey data to assess the impact of these individual-specific characteristics on German consumers’ choices of potatoes, through an attribute-based choice experiment in which product alternatives are described by footprint labels and prices. We find that accounting for consumers’ value systems, but not generalized trust beliefs, aids in understanding choices and identifying possible markets for footprint-labeled food products. Introduction Consumer choices for environmentally sustainable foods are of interest given links between carbon dioxide and global warming (e.g., IPCC Report, 2007), as well as concerns regarding human intervention in the global hydrological cycle as this relates to the production of agri-food products (Rost et al., 2008). In Germany, where the first “Product Carbon Footprinting (PCF) World Summit” was held in 2009, it is estimated that 40% of climate-relevant emissions can be related to consumption patterns (Schächtele and Hertle, 2007, Klockenhoff, 2009). 1 Consequently, shifting consumption patterns may have important implications for entire supply chains (Edwards-Jones et al., 2009), particularly for agri-food (Weber and Mathews, 2008). However, current knowledge is insufficient to understand whether, how and why consumers might shift to more sustainable consumption patterns (Thøgersen and Ölander, 2002). We consid...

Thijs Bouman *, Linda Steg and Henk A. L. Kiers • Department of Psychology, Faculty of Behavioural and Social Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands Four human values are considered to underlie individuals’ environmental beliefs and behaviors: biospheric (i.e., concern for environment), altruistic (i.e., concern for others), egoistic (i.e., concern for personal resources) and hedonic values (i.e., concern for pleasure and comfort). These values are typically measured with an adapted and shortened version of the Schwartz Value Survey (SVS), to which we refer as the Environmental-SVS (E-SVS). Despite being well-validated, recent research has indicated some concerns about the SVS methodology (e.g., comprehensibility, self-presentation biases) and suggested an alternative method of measuring human values: The Portrait Value Questionnaire (PVQ). However, the PVQ has not yet been adapted and applied to measure values most relevant to understand environmental beliefs and behaviors. Therefore, we tested the Environmental-PVQ (E-PVQ) – a PVQ variant of E-SVS –and compared it with the E-SVS in two studies. Our findings provide strong support for the validity and reliability of both the E-SVS and E-PVQ. In addition, we find that respondents slightly preferred the E-PVQ over the E-SVS (Study 1). In general, both scales correlate similarly to environmental self-identity (Study 1), energy behaviors (Studies 1 and 2), pro-environmental personal norms, climate change be...

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript. The construct of values is central to many fields in the social sciences and humanities. The last two decades have seen a growing body of psychological research that investigates the content, structure and consequences of personal values in many cultures. Taking a cross-cultural perspective we review, organize and integrate research on personal values, and point to some of the main findings that this research has yielded. Personal values are subjective in nature, and reflect what people think and state about themselves. Consequently, both researchers and laymen sometimes question the usefulness of personal values in influencing action. Yet, self-reported values predict a large variety of attitudes, preferences and overt behaviours. Individuals act in ways that allow them to express their important values and attain the goals underlying them. Thus, understanding personal values means understanding human behaviour. Why do some people tend to help others in need while others do not? Why are some people more religious than others? What accounts for individuals’ differences in preferences for occupations? The values people hold play a crucial role in...

What responsibilities do we have to wild species and ecosystems — and to present and future generations of humans dependent on critical ecological services? How does the recognition of rapid, global environmental change challenge our traditional understandings of these obligations? What does it mean to be "sustainable" and why do many believe that achieving sustainability is an ethical imperative for science and society in this century? These questions, and others like them, are explored in this series. Environmental ethics is a branch of applied philosophy that studies the conceptual foundations of environmental values as well as more concrete issues surrounding societal attitudes, actions, and policies to protect and sustain biodiversity and ecological systems. As we will see, there are many different environmental ethics one could hold, running the gamut from human-centered (or "anthropocentric") views to more nature-centered (or "non-anthropocentric") perspectives. Non-anthropocentrists argue for the promotion of nature's intrinsic, rather than instrumental or use value to humans. For some ethicists and scientists, this attitude of respecting species and ecosystems for their own sakes is a consequence of embracing an ecological worldview; it flows out of an understanding of the structure and function of ecological and evolutionary systems and processes. We will consider how newer scientific fields devoted to environmental protection such as conservation biology and sus...