A Cross-Country Exploration of Environmental Attitudes

This research investigates the effect of cultural, sociodemographic, and contextual characteristics in shaping environmental attitudes in a cross-country context. In addition, dimensions underlying environmental attitudes and their generalizability are explored. Significant differences are reported in environmental attitudes between collectivist versus individualistic, externally versus internally controlled, materialist versus postmaterialist, past-oriented versus future-oriented cultures, and across levels of modernity and pollution. Two universal dimensions, general attitude and activity attitude, underlie environmental attitudes.