International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 2 No. 4; March 2011 1 The Structure of Environmental Concern Madalla A. Alibeli, Ph.D. Neil R. White, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Sociology, Gerontology, and Political Sciences The University of Louisiana at Monroe 700 University Avenue, 202 Stubbs Hall, Monroe, LA 71209, Phone: (318) 342-1814 E-mail: Alibeli@ulm.edu, nwhite@ulm.edu Abstract The structure of environmental concern in the United States is examined in this article. Confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling are used to test the environmental concern model developed by Stern, P., C. Dietz, T. & Kalof, L. (1993) which indicates that environmental concern consists of three correlated value orientations including (1) social-altruistic value; (2) biospheric value; and (3) egoism or self-interest orientation. Data are derived from the International Social Survey Program of Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR, 6640). Findings confirm the goodness of fit of Stern and associates environmental concern model. Details will be discussed in the article. Key words: Environment, structure of environmental concern, gender, model fit. Introduction This study examines the structure of environmental concern in the United States. Overall, environmental concern indicates “the degree to which people are aware of problems regarding the environment and support efforts to solve them and or indicate the willingness to contribute personally to their solution” (Dunlap and Jones, 2002: 485). Research on environmental concern covers: (1) Attitudinal studies which examine differences in opinions about the environment based on respondents’ demographic and socioeconomic characteristics like country, social class, income, race, gender, and age. (2) Experimental and quasi- experimental surveys that test hypotheses derived from social-psychological theories like norm-activation theory. In addition, (3) Applied research on environmental attitudes and behaviors that investigate social factors related to behavior associated with the environment such as littering, recycling, and energy conservation (Buttel, 1987). Although a number of studies have examined environmental concern, the findings were inconclusive as various studies revealed various outcomes. Early studies indicated that environmental concern is a one-dimensional phenomenon (Dunlap and Van Liere, 1978). In line with this argument, Dunlap and Van liere (1978) developed a ‘New Environmental Paradigm’ (NEP), a one-dimensional model and used it as a scheme to explore attitudes and levels of concern about the environment in society. A few years later, Albrecht, D., Bultena, G., Hoiberg, E., & Nowark, P. (1982) tested the newly developed NEP and found that it is more complicated than previously thought. According to Albrecht et al., the NEP consists of three dimensions including ‘balance of nature’, ‘limits to growth’, and ‘man over nature’. Furthermore, Cluck (1998) argued that environmental concern is a multilayer tripartite construct with different main dimensions including ‘environmental worldview’, ‘environmental concern’, and ‘environmental commitment’. In addition, each main dimension contains sub-dimensions. For instance, environmental worldview’s sub-dimensions are ‘balance of nature’ and ‘humans over nature’. Environmental concern’s sub-dimensions are ‘air pollution’, ‘water pollution’, and ‘nuclear dangers’. Finally, environmental commitment’s sub-dimensions include ‘willingness to commit to the environment’ and ‘environmental behavior’. Building on Schwartz’s norm-activation model of altruism, Stern, P., C. Dietz, T. & Kalof, L. (1993) argued that environmental concern consists of three correlated value orientations. These value orientations include: (1) social-altruistic value that highlights concern about the welfare of other human beings; (2) biospheric value which indicates concern about the nonhuman species or the biosphere; and (3) egoism or self-interest orientation that is best described by the ‘not in my backyard’ attitudes. Nonetheless, egoism, biospheric, and social altruistic orientations are not incompatible, rather, they are correlated. In other words, “many people’s environmental attitudes reflect some combination of the three orientations” (Stern et al, 1993: 327). The Stern’s model however has a number of shortcomings: (1) it uses a relatively small convenient sample of college students to establish the structure of environmental concern model, and (2) it employs explanatory statistical methods to develop such an important construct.