The purpose of this study was to investigate young people’s environmental attitudes in India. The study had a special focus on the factor of exposure to nature and nature degradation in environmental attitudes formation. Attitudes are of a great importance in education. The investigation was conducted using a qualitative method based on observations and in depth interviews. The subjects were selected from a village in northern India and from Delhi, which is the capital of India. The subjects from the village area were exposed to nature and nature degradation in their daily lives and were expected to have biocentric or eco-centric environmental attitudes (to view humans as part of nature). In addition, Indian traditions and religions were expected to be more preserved in this area compared to Delhi. Hinduism, which is the dominant religion in India, is considered biocentric. In contrast, the subjects from Delhi were not exposed to nature and nature degradation daily and were expected to have anthropocentric or late anthropocentric environmental attitudes (to view humans as separated from nature). Also, these subjects were greatly influenced by industrialization and western influences. Western religions and cultures are considered anthropocentric. The results indicated a difference in environmental attitudes between the subjects in the village area who were exposed to nature and nature degradation and the subjects in Delhi, who were not. The subjects in the village area tended to have a biocentric or eco-centric view on nature and the subjects from Delhi tended to have a late anthropocentric view. This thesis argues for a biocentric view in environmental education and suggests establishing a positive relationship to nature as a part of environmental education, mainly through outdoor environmental education.

Environmental management and sustainability have been recent important issues in the hospitality industry. The hotel industry, as a main sector of the hospitality industry, has benefited from environmental initiatives through improving corporate image and increasing resource and energy efficiency. Among various environmental issues that have been addressed in the hotel industry, managerial influence on environmental management is rarely investigated. The purpose of this study was to examine the current state of environmental management in the hotel industry. Further, this study also determined a relationship between top managers' personal environmental attitudes and organizational involvement in environmental management practices. To achieve the purpose of this study, this study examined currently adopted green practices, top managers' environmental attitudes, and their perception of advantages derived from environmental management. Hotels that participated in this study showed greater involvement in energy management, water conservation, and waste management practices than hotels examined by previous research in different geographical areas. The results of this study showed a correlation between top managers' environmental attitudes and organizational involvement in environmental management. It was also found that top managers' environmental attitudes were positively related to their perceived advantages of environmental management. These findings present various managerial and theoretical implications for related organizations and hotel management companies. The hotel industry should keep promoting green hotel practices to reduce negative impacts on the valuable environment and increase operational efficiency. In order to promote environmental management in the hotel industry, related organizations, governments, and stakeholders need to focus on raising top managers' environmental awareness as well as providing information on successful cases of environmental management. / Master of Science

The present study examined how environmental attitudes and behaviors can be affected using social norms. The study employed a 2 (participant position: pro-environmental or anti-environmental) × 2 (context condition: face-toace or computer mediated communication) × 2 (normative pressure: unanimous or non-unanimous) quasi-experimental design. Participant position was a nonrandomized group classification factor based on responses to a screening survey. Attitude extremity was controlled for in analyses. Participants initially anti-environmental reform and in the non-unanimous normative pressure condition had significantly less attitude change than that of those who were anti-environmental reform and in the unanimous normative pressure condition. Pro-environmental reform people were not affected by the variations in group pressure. Higher rates of conformity found in the computer mediated context did not translate into attitude change. No differences were found in political behavior. Findings suggest that advertising employing unanimous normative pressure in a face-toace interaction would persuade anti-environmentalists to become more pro-environmental.

Thesis advisor: Brian Gareau / This study examines how attitudes of environmental concern affect the behavior of students on the Boston College (BC) campus. Conventional wisdom suggests that attitude would determine behavior, but past studies have been unable to find a connection between environmental attitude and behavior. This suggests that there are other factors at play, in addition to environmental concern. Using survey and in-depth interview data, this study focuses on the influence of the following factors: monetary cost, convenience, habit and visibility of consequences. The findings suggest that attitude itself does influence environmental behavior, but that the aforementioned factors play an important role in either increasing or decreasing the rate of behavior. I conclude by suggesting that the impact of cost as a barrier to behavior speaks to the importance of structural change in order to increase the rate of green behavior. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology Honors Program. / Discipline: Sociology.

To promote people's contact with nature is both an environmental and a health issue. Previous studies show that being in natural environments provides mental, physical and emotional health benefits and is significant in the formation of environmental attitudes, which is also known to be important during child development. This study is about the opportunities that children have to experience natural environments within pre-schools in Sao Paulo Municipality (Brazil) considering their pre-school leaders and teachers' perspectives. Through qualitative interviews and text analysis, five kindergartens were studied. One aim has been to get a better understanding of the preschool's official policy on environmental education and a picture of pre-school leaders and preschool teachers' attitudes regarding children's access to nature. The other goal was to investigate the concrete pre-school activities in which children participate, as reported by their pre-school leaders and preschool teachers. The results show that the municipal curriculum recommends interaction with nature through goal-oriented activities, but does not specifically emphasise free play in nature. It has also been shown that pre-school principals and teachers have a positive attitude towards including nature in unstructured as well as structured pre-school activities. However, the degree to which this is reflected in the current activities is strongly dependent on other factors, such as physical,administrative or organizational conditions that exist in each pre-school. These so-called frame factors need to be known and taken into consideration, whether it is the education planners, pre-school leaders or preschool teachers that are trying to implement change. The study also highlights the importance of a work environment that encourages preschool teachers to seek self-development in their professional capacity, which in turn affects the quality of environmental education that is taught.

Ziel der vorliegenden Studie ist es, die Frage nach der Relation zwischen Umwelteinstellungen und umweltgerechtem Verhalten zu beantworten. Hierzu wird ein deduktiver, theoretischer Zugang gewählt. Es werden unterschiedliche theoretische Perspektiven, die sich in der Umweltforschung etabliert haben, vergleichend betrachtet und analysiert: die Umweltbewusstseinsforschung, die Risikoforschung, die Werteforschung und der Rational-Choice-Ansatz, wobei die beiden letztgenannten Theorieansätze in je zwei unterschiedlichen Varianten berücksichtigt werden. Die einzelnen Erklärungsansätze stehen bisher weitgehend isoliert nebeneinander, es fehlt eine explizite systematische theorievergleichende Perspektive, die versucht, den Bewährungsgrad und die Leistungsfähigkeit der dominierenden Ansätze des Forschungsfeldes empirisch zu untersuchen und zu vergleichen. Ein solcher Vergleich wird in der vorliegenden Untersuchung durchgeführt. In der vorliegenden Studie wird neben dieser theorievergleichenden Strategie zusätzlich auch eine kulturvergleichende Strategie verfolgt. Zum einen weil die Umweltproblematik in Zeiten der Globalisierung ein internationales Problem ist. Zum anderen ist die Validierung der verschiedenen Theorien in verschiedenen kulturellen Settings ein wichtiger Weg der Theorieprüfung.

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Recent theoretical literature in social policy argued that climate change posed a new risk to the states and called for transformation from a traditional welfare state to an "eco" state. From a theoretical point of view, different welfare regimes may manage environmental/climate change risks in a similar way to social risks. However, not much has been done to explore the issue empirically. To this end, this paper aims to investigate public attitudes towards environmental and traditional welfare policies given that environmental change is a new social risk the welfare states have to address. Do individuals that care for one area also care for the other? That is, do the preferences in these two policy spheres complement or substitute one another? We test these hypotheses both at the individual- and country-level, using data from 14 countries included in all three waves (1993, 2000, and 2010) of the environmental module in the International Social Survey Programme. Specifically, we investigate the relationship between attitudes towards income redistribution (indicator of support for welfare policy) and willingness to pay for environmental protection (indicator of support for environmental policy). Our findings suggest that attitudes in the two areas are substitutes in the total sample, but that the relationship is very small and only statistically significant in some specifications. When we explore country differentials, we observe clear heterogeneity in the relationship, which can be explained by differences in political and historical contexts across countries.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of a variety of factors on environmental attitudes and behaviors. Studies have addressed a number of issues that are related to environmental matters. This examination extends the research in this area by incorporating educational attainment, political ideology, gender, marriage and family formation, religiosity and subjective spirituality, race and ethnicity, as well as several sociodemographic influences. The 2010 General Social Survey is selected for the analysis because it is the most recent data available and contains items pertaining to environmental concern and behavior, and the independent and control variables. Directions for future research in the area will be discussed.

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