Environmental Perception: Factor Profiles of Extreme Groups

Abstract

This paper describes an empirical survey of adolescent responses to two environmental perception batteries: “Environmental Perception” (ENV) and “New Environmental Paradigm” (NEP). The first was developed by the present authors for adolescents, while the second is already well-known within environmental psychology. The present study examines both batteries applied to a sample of over 800 German pupils. Responses to both batteries were subjected to factor analyses extracting the hypothesized 8 oblique factors. Groups were ranked according to their “Care with Resources” score, and the extreme groups were identified. Differences between these groups were examined in terms of the remaining seven factor scores, confirming the hypothesis that high scorers tend to enjoy nature, to favor a balanced nature and limits to growth, and to declare their intention to support conservation. Low scorers tend to do the opposite.