Environmental Worldview in Response to Environmental Problems

Abstract

This study examines the influence of a major environmental problem, the 1988 drought, on environmental worldview. Its aims are to both examine the stability of environmental worldview and to further the development of theoretically based environmental social research. Guided by the New Environmental Paradigm, data are analyzed from statewide telephone surveys of Kentucky conducted in 1984 and 1988. In addition to the effects of other sociodemographic factors in both years, the analysis examines the influence of residing in a county which experienced water restrictions in 1988 on environmental worldview. There was an increase in the level of environmentalist worldview for the entire state population between 1984 and 1988. The only group for which the increase in environmentalist worldview was statistically significant for this interval was that which lived in a county which had water restrictions in 1988.