This report investigates possible health effects due to improper disposal of waste and the awareness within a community. The aim was also to investigate what is needed for a pro-environmental behavior in a rural area (Mutomo) within a developing country (Kenya). Waste management in developing countries has been and still remains a challenge, waste is left in nature and this has the potential for negative health effects on people and animals as well as degrading land and aquatic ecosystems. The used method was qualitative and for data collection in-depth interviews were conducted with help of an interpreter, interviewing guide, and a recording device. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using NVivo and thematic analysis. The result shows that all participants were aware of the health risks connected to waste. Much concern was raised amongst the community members, especially for the children’s health. All participants had a positive attitude towards re-collecting, re-using and recycling of waste, for the community members this was if a gain of income was obtained. Also the lack of responsibility by the general public was brought up by many participants as a social norm. To conclude if pro-environmental behavior is to be reached in Mutomo there has to be; (i) available systems for the public, (ii) a collective thought of responsibility in every community member, (iii) education on the issue in three steps (knowledge, comprehension and prevention) but most importantly (iv) the living standards has to be raised for those people that are most frequently affected.

 The majority of Americans profess to hold pro-environmental attitudes and intend to engage in environmentally friendly behavior. Yet their actions tell a different story. The goal of this study was to explain the gap between widely held pro-environmental attitudes and the lack of corresponding individual and collective behavior. Using both quantitative and qualitative methods and applying the principles of grid-group cultural theory, cognitive sociology, and identity theory I examined the meanings people ascribe to the environment, how they think about behavior relative to the environment, and justifications for the performance of environmentally significant behavior. I administered an on-line survey to a nationally representative sample of individuals. By applying grounded theory methods to the textual data generated by open-ended survey questions I developed a model of environmentally signficant behavior which describes the underlying factors that influence the performance of pro-environmental behavior. Individuals develop environmental socio-cognitive schemas based on the ways in which they use the six cognitive acts (perceiving, focusing, classifying, signifying, remembering, and timing) in thinking about the environment. They use these environmental socio-cognitive schemas to filter and interpret environmental discourse, construct a body of environmental knowledge, and guide environmentally significant behavior. According to this study, the explanatory link between pro-environmental attitudes and pro-environmental behavior lies in the concept of proximity. Performance of pro-environmental behavior is driven by the distance individuals perceive themselves to be from environmental issues. Attitudes toward the environment remain abstractions whereas behavior is situational. Individuals from different cultural groups hold different ideas about the relationship between humans and nature, the extent and severity of environmental issues, and how those issues should be addressed. The findings from this study provide a foundation for developing effective strategies for influencing environmentally significant behavior. This study is important because environmental issues are real, their potential impact is substantial, and time is of the essence in addressing them.

The most devastating effects of climate change may be avoided if humans reduce activities that produce greenhouse gases and engage instead in more sustainable ecological behaviors. The current mixed methods study of 279 undergraduate students explored whether environmental worldview, belief in climate change, knowledge of climate change, personal efficacy, and intention to address climate change influenced participants’ engagement in ecological behavior. Results indicated that those with a stronger intention to address climate change and a more ecocentric worldview reported significantly more ecological behavior. Next, the study examined whether participants’ intentions to address climate change mediated the relationship between their belief in climate change and engagement in ecological behavior and whether intentions mediated the relationship between efficacy and ecological behavior. Intentions to address climate change did not mediate the relationship between belief and ecological behavior but fully mediated the relationship between efficacy to address climate change and ecological behavior.

This thesis undertakes analysis of members of the neighborhood anti-mosquito volunteer team which was co-established by the Kaohsiung City Gushan District Office and the Department of Health and finds members of the team have, for the most part, not sufficiently encouraged others to join or participate in dengue fever vector mosquito prevention. In addition, these team members lack proper concepts concerning individual prevention of dengue fever carrying mosquitoes. This study therefore advises anti-mosquito volunteers that anti-mosquito teams must emphasize education concerning environmental behavior, as well as increase public awareness of vector mosquito prevention and measures for individual prevention. In order to make dengue fever vector prevention more effective, it is necessary to start with environmental behavior. In addition to advocating for proper environmental behavior, education and information dissemination concerning environmental behavior must be strengthened so as to increase the effectiveness of the anti-mosquito volunteer workers in dengue fever vector prevention and allow them to attain better results. The possibility of a dengue fever epidemic is an annual threat to the health of the citizens in Southern Taiwan¡¦s Kaohsiung City. The most important tasks in creating a new precedent with respect to mosquito control are to determine how to utilize community and neighborhood anti-mosquito volunteer team resources, to increase efforts to instruct neighborhood citizens to rid their home environments of objects which can retain water, to rid communities of breading sites, to improve environmental sanitary conditions, and to continue advocating neighborhood environmental health works in order to lower vector density for dengue fever and reach the goal of having cleaner and healthier home environments. Needless to say, this type of policy requires the selfless contributions and enthusiastic participation of the community¡¦s citizens. With this in mind, we must ask whether assistance the government provides in can facilitate the effectiveness of anti-mosquito volunteer teams. In addition, we should inquire into what impressions anti-mosquito volunteers have concerning dengue fever vector prevention. This thesis examines the extent to which anti-mosquito volunteer team members¡¦ cognition of environmental literacy influences the effectiveness of dengue fever vector prevention through an analysis which examines the interaction between anti-mosquito volunteer team attributes, members¡¦ environmental literacy, and dengue fever vector prevention results. This study uses the questionnaire survey method and various statistics in compiling data and utilizes various statistical techniques to understand the relationship between these factors, find a clear policy direction, and make this work less arduous and more productive.

In Taiwan, the environmental protection actions that people usually take are "physical actions", such as picking up litter, sorting trash, installing household resource-conserving devices. Other kinds of actions¡Xe.g., persuasive actions, civic action (such as signing for environmental causes, petitioning and lobbying) ¡Xare far less common. However, the latter actions, especially civic actions, are more effective than physical actions in pushing the government to adopt proenvironment policies and thus have more far-reaching impacts. This study thus focused on three civic and persuasive actions¡Xsigning for environmental causes, lobbying, and being an ecotourism interpreter. And since these actions are usually taken as a group action (people do so either because they are members of environmental groups or other NGOs, or because they join the actions of these organizations) , this study took environmental group members as its target population. A survey of intentions regarding the above three kinds of actions was made, with 210 environmental group members as respondents. Two models were used to predict these behaviors. One was the theory of planned behavior (TPB) proposed by Ajzen (1988, 1991) , the other one was an integrated model based on theories from three disciplines¡Xsocial psychology, environmental education, public health¡Xand literatures of society mobilization. The integrated model contained 8 predictors, 4 of which were from the TPB (the subjective norm variable in the TPB was further split into 2 variables: subjective norm with respect to family members, subjective norm with respect to community members) . The other 4 variables were environmental moral obligation, environmental attitude, response efficacy and collective efficacy. Results showed that both the TPB and integrated models could predict all three kinds of environmental intention (R2 > .49 for each model and intention) . The integrated model, however, was not better than the TPB model in predicting the intention to lobby. And it was only a little better in predicting the intentions to sign and to be an interpreter. Implications of these results and suggestions for environmental groups and environmental education organizations were discussed.

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Though recycled toilet paper (RTP) is more environmental friendly than toilet paper made of virgin fiber, they are also more expensive. The price difference has made manufacturers hesitate about marketing RTP in shops, because they assume that consumers are reluctant to buy it. However, no research has been done in Taiwan to explore consumers¡¦ willingness to pay (WTP) for RTP. This study is an attempt to do so by the use of two methods: contingent evaluation method (CVM) and conjoint analysis. Both methods were administered through a survey, which had a convenience sample of 192 female Kaohsiung citizens as respondents. Results based on CVM showed that the mean WTP for RTP was NT 151, which was a little higher than the price set by Homemaker¡¦s Union and Foundation¡Xan NGO which was the main channel selling RTP to the domestic sector in Taiwan. This suggests that manufacturers might have underestimated the market for RTP. To check the validities of the CVM and conjoint method, two criteria were measured: the respondents¡¦ past environmental behavior (PEB) and their willingness to make sacrifice for environmental causes (WTP3). The WTP as estimated by CVM, namely WTP1, was significantly related to both of these criteria (rs = .16, .32, ps < .05), showing that the CVM had a certain degree of validity. The importance that respondents attached to the eco-label of RTP was assessed by conjoint analysis. Validity of the importance scores thus obtained, however, was quite low: the correlation between these scores and WTP1, PEB and WTP3 were .05, .12 and .20 respectively, with only the last one significant. Results also suggest that environmental knowledge and health and safety concerns for products were not related to WTP1. Keywords: green consumption, contingent valuation method, conjoint analysis, environmental behavior, eco-label, green mark.

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Many environmental behavior models have been proposed to predict or explain environmental behavior in the past two decades. Due to limitations in practice, these models were mostly tested on a basis of self-reported measures of environmental behavior. How would these models perform if an observed measure of environmental behavior was used? What are the differences between the results of testing a model with a self-reported environmental behavior (SB) measure and the same model with an other-reported environmental behavior (OB) measure? And, what do these differences imply? A major model, Ajzen¡¦s (1985) theory of planned behavior (TPB), was tested with SB and OB measures respectively with structural equation modeling (SEM) analysis. Data were collected through questionnaires and participant observation in which students living in dormitories in a university were trained to observe their 172 roommates¡¦ five environmental behaviors. The other-reports of these roommates¡¦ environmental behavior made by the observers were based on their observation as well as experiences in living with and understanding of their roommates. Results showed that there existed significant frequency gaps between behavioral intention (BI) and SB and between SB and OB. The difference between SB and OB frequency was about 1.25 points on a 7-point scale. The BI-SB correlation (.87) was much larger than BI-OB correlation (.31) implying that SB was better predicted than OB was by BI. It was found that the subjects¡¦ SB tended to be conservative compared with BI and that OB was provided even more conservatively by the observers. BI could be the common cause of both SB and OB or SB could intervene in the relationship between BI and OB. A few significant differences were found in the results of testing the TPB model with SB and OB. The preference for the behavior might have played an essential role in predicting one¡¦s SB. The model had a very large proportion of variance explained (.814) because of the strong connection between BI and SB. It also seemed to have a better model fit when SB was used while the model¡¦s capability in predicting behavior was greatly reduced due to the large disparity between BI and OB when OB was used. Finally, it seemed that social desirability was a not cause of the SB-OB gap.

This thesis examines whether or not differences in people’s water conservation attitudes, political party orientation, severity of drought, and attention to drought news affect their engagement in water conservation behavior during a time of continued water shortage. Previously, it has been found that attitudes are predictive of intentions that relate to behaviors (e.g., Dietz et al. 2005). Democrats have been shown to be more pro-environmental then Republicans (e.g., Dunlap et al. 2000). It has also been found that severity of drought is positively related with environmental concern (e.g., Accury and Christianson 1990), and access to news information is directly related to willingness to take action (e.g., Johnson and Scicchitano 2000). However, during a time of drought, what is the relationship between individual water conservation attitudes and behaviors? Do conventional understandings of political party orientation and water conservation behaviors hold during a time of drought? Do those living in counties that experience more severe drought engage in more water conservation behaviors? Do those who pay more attention to drought news engage in more water conservation behaviors? Using data from Georgia’s 2007 Peach State Poll, I explore the answers to these questions. I examine how water conservation attitudes (Model 1), political party orientation (Model 2), drought severity (Model 3), attention to drought news (Model 4), sociodemographics, controls, and other factors from models 1-4 (Model 5) influenced water conservation behavior during the 2007 Georgia drought. Results indicate that differences in people’s water conservation attitudes, political party orientation, drought severity, and attention to drought news did not significantly affect their water conservation behavior during the 2007 drought. However, race, class, and gender variables in the full model did have a significant effect, which seems to suggest that one’s location in the social stratification system affects their opportunities to engage in water conservation behavior. Therefore, environmental policy issues should not be considered apart from social issues. The fundamental theoretical significance of the following research is that we affect and are in turn affected by the biophysical world in a dialectic fashion. Recognizing the quality, quantity, and interrelatedness of nature-society relationships is essential for future research.