Children's Cross-Cultural Environmental Attitudes and Self-Reported Behaviors

This study presents data on the comparison of environmental attitudes and self-reported engagement in environmentally responsible behaviors of young children (6-8 years) from the United States, Austria, Mexico, and Spain. We employed a well-validated and reliable instrument consisting of multiple game formats, developed to assess these constructs in young children. U.S. children have less pro-environmental attitudes, but children from all four countries have comparably high levels of environmentally responsible behaviors. Difficulties in assessing environmental behaviors across a sufficient range of obstacles and effort among young children may explain the nonsignificant environmental behavior findings.