ISTPP Researchers Bryce Hannibal, Xinsheng Liu, and Arnold Vedlitz extend our understanding of factors that influence an individual’s environmental concern. They do so by incorporating local environmental conditions into the traditional models that rely only on personal characteristics as explanatory variables of environmental concern. The research team tests their model of environmental concern using data from ISTPP’s 2013 National Public Climate Change Survey combined with government agency data about local environmental conditions associated with each survey respondent’s zip code. They find that individual level characteristics behave similarly to what has been found in other studies. The results for local environmental conditions are mixed – local environmental incidents and air pollution are positively associated with individual concern, while industrial wastes are not. The researchers offer insight into why some predictors do not relate to concern, which is important to policymakers and future environmental policy recommendations.
Bryce Hannibal, Xinsheng Liu and Arnold Vedlitz. 2016. “Personal Characteristics, Local Environmental Conditions, and Individual Environmental Concern: A Multilevel Analysis.” Environmental Sociology. DOI: 10.1080/23251042.2016.1197355.
