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AGE, GENDER AND ENDORSEMENT OF THE NEW ECOLOGICAL PARADIGM
Abstract
The New Ecological Paradigm Scale is one of the widest used instruments in the assessment of environmental attitudes and there is a consensus in the scientific community on the validity of the scale. The scale allows measurement of five dimensions of the pro-environmental attitudes (the fragility of nature?s balance, the reality of limits to growth, antianthropocentrism, rejection of exemptionalism and the possibility of an ecocrisis). In this paper, we have analyzed the influence of age and gender variables on the endorsement of the NEP scale. The study hypotheses are: 1. The adult and the elderly people will manifest a higher level of endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm, by comparison with the young ones; 2. Women will register higher scores on pro-environmental orientation, given their nurturing role. We have also investigated, for both hypotheses, the influence of the parental status on the pro-environmental attitudes, exploring whether this will favor the manifestation of a higher level of environmental concern. The results highlighted the existence of a weak, but statistically significant positive correlation, independent of the parental status, between age and the NEP endorsement. Even though no statistically significant differences have been identified to NEP endorsement in relation to the gender variable, the parental status had led to different results within the female sample, as mothers? pro-environmental attitudes are stronger than the attitudes displayed by the women without children.
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