Older High School Students and Anthropogenic Environmental Degradation: Preliminary Findings and Pol

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Older High School Students and Anthropogenic
Environmental DegradationPreliminary Findings
and Policy Implications

• Nick Shorr
• Mentor Baruch Fischhoff
• HDGC/EPP
• Feb. 5, 2003
• Carnegie Mellon University
• REU Supplemental Grant NSF

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Research Associates

• Interviewers/transcribers
• Tylesha Drayton Julia Hustwit
• Vanessa Lobue Aria Thomases
• Coders/analysts
• Ron Avraham Justin Bishop
• Irene Choi Monica Datta
• Colleen Gault Betty Kim
  
• Khurram Naik Neel Pahlajani
• Angeline Silver

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Introduction why the study

• Why civic understanding of environmental issues
  is a critical question for policy
• Why older HS students are a critical population
  in examining civic understanding of environmental
  issues
• Why questions of knowledge and efficacy are
  critical to that understanding

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Why civic understanding of environmental issues
is a critical question for policy
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Civic understanding of environmental issues

• The possibility of common, cultural wisdom
• Historical Background
• Mass Society Politics Rates of Material
  Consumption
• Early 20th c elite roots of environmentalism
• 1960s-70s grass-roots environmentalism
• 1970s-present Professionalization of
  environmentalism
• Policy views of the public
• Constituency for policies, programs, funding
• Responders to, and opposers of (dis)incentives
• Civic environmental concern as fear
• Discovery of civil society funding/promotion
  of participation

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Indirect importance of civic understanding

• Pro-env government programs
• Pro-env corporate reforms
• Pro-env foundation funding
• Pro-env NGO programs
• All depend on the continuing monetary input and
  support of citizens

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Env Significant Behaviors

• Env Activism active involvement in env orgs
  and demonstrations
• Non-activist behavior in the public sphere
• Env Citizenship voting, writing to officials
  signing petitions joining contributing to env
  orgs
• Policy Support stated approval of env regs
  willingness to pay higher taxes for env
  protection
• Private sphere behaviors
• Green Consumerism
• HH energy use, processing waste disposal
  practices
• (that a significant portion of env degrad is
  caused by large institutions)

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Why older teenagers are a critical age-group in
examining questions ofenvironmental knowledge,
values and efficacy
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Older HS students a critical population in
examining civic understanding of environmental
issues

• They are old enough
• Cognitive development Moral development (Piaget,
  Kohlberg, Ericson)
• Emergent Adulthood building identity,
  world-view, lifestyle (Arnett)
• They are what we have in common
• Education as consistent factor in proenv values
  and reported behavior
• Rising tuitions and the forgotten half
• College possibilities and the growth of
  specialization
• The fragmentation of the mass media audience
• They carry weight
• Youth culture and mass society (Ostrander)
• The US Baby-boomlet
• The Ongoing Global Baby-boom

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Are the young always at the forefront of the
environmental frontier?
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Why questions of knowledge efficacy are
critical to civic understanding of
environmental issues
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Knowledge and efficacy in civic understanding

• From Behaviorism to Humanism in Psychology
• (recognition of the conscious will)
• Self-Efficacy (Bandura 1977)
• Locus of Control (Rotter 1966)
• Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior (Azjen
  Fishbein 1980, 1985)
• Other psychol variables mediating the will
• (beyond values and attitudes)
• --Awareness of Consequences
• --Perceived Controllability
• --Domain-specific knowledge
• Emotions Appraisal (Frijda, Lazarus, Weiner,
  Roseman, Smith, Ellsworth, Loewenstein, Lerner,
  etc, etc.)

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A policy relevant cluster

• Concerns (what these young people are worried
  about)
• Emotions (when thinking abt these concerns)
• Values (what they care about)
• Understanding of Causality
• Proposed Mitigation strategies
• Social-political assessment and Efficacy
• How important is any of this stuff to them?

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• Methodology what weve done
• Semi-structured interviews (May-August)
• The protocol skeletal and detailed versions
• The sample
• RAs, training, interviewing, transcribing
• Coding and Analysis (Sept-Jan)
• Universal Codinggt frequency distributions
• Focal scoringgt calculation of correlations
• Thematic Excerptinggt identification of common
  schemas
• assessment of revealed knowledge
• Writing-up

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The Protocol

• Where have you lived?what was/is it like?
• What have been your most impt experiences in
  nature?
• How is nature doing
• Around where you live?
• Around the world?
• What things that people are doing to nature most
  bother or trouble you? (freelist concerns)
• Which the most? (choice X)
• When you think about X, how do you feel?
  (emotions)
• Why is X bad? (values)

• How easy/difficult to mitigate X?
• What are the most important causes for X?
  (freelist)
• Which the most? (choice Y)
• What are the most effective ways to improve/slow
  down X? (freelist mitig strategies)
• Which the most (choice Z)
• Who is most responsible for doing Z?
• How likely/willing/able to do Z are they?
• How would Z work? (Problems, etc.)
• Self-appraisal questions

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• Greater Pittsburgh Greater Access to Nature?
  Sanguine re degradation?
• Hilly terraingt local woods
• Merchant-artistocrat largessegt city parks
• Mill closings env regsgt much better than the
  bad old days
• Family continuity w rural pursuitsgt ongoing
  family traditions of camping, hunting, fishing
• Rel mild economic boomgt relatively slow suburban
  growth
• Hypothesis these factors are likely to
  contribute to
• more positive assessments of the local present
  and future of nature than in many other
  urban-suburban US regions.
• And, by (over)extension, to more positive
  assessments of the global present and future of
  nature than in many other urban-suburban US
  regions.

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Coding Intercoder Reliability

• Mammoth, sprawling task of coding
• 127 places in which coders could place codes
• 45 sets of codes to choose from
• Number of codes in each set ranged bet 2 to 21.
• Coders asked to keep track of a total of over 200
  different codes!
• Low Intercoder Reliability average of 0.362
• Emendations to coding
• Silly mistakes
• Dropped codes
• Merged codes
• Revised average IR of 0.622.

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Ongoing Loss/Damage

• I Ok so this problem of development, do you
  think that its changed since you were a kid?
• S I think of merely been more aware of it.
• I Do you have a hunch?
• S It seems to be more and more development
• I And next 20 years?
• S Same thing, less forest less farm
• I little worse? considerably? 
• S Little
• I Gradually?
• S Yeah not all of a sudden (M17)
• I Globally, how well do you think nature is
  doing?
• S Uh, I would say, not great. Because I dont
  know a lot about it, but kind of from some of my
  mom or my brother or my dad looking up from
  reading the paper its not what I, like, I know
  emissions from big companies arent being
  controlled as well as they should be and, you
  know, Im being redundant, but, like, the cars
  keep getting bigger and bigger and like, the
  strip malls keep going up and things like
  that(F17)

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Ongoing loss/damage

• I Have you been there the rainforest?
• S No, I havent, but I like When I was
  little, I used to watch the Discovery Channel and
  my mom would always tape the rainforests whenever
  there was something on it. Shed always tape it
  for me because I think its so beautiful and I
  want to go there someday. But, if they keep
  burning it, then I wont be able to because its
  going away! F17
• S says he thinks abt env stuff 4x/wk
• I 4 times a week?  
• S Well, yeah. I mean, if I have kids, its Is
  this gonna be here when I have kids? You know,
  when they grow up? Thats the thing that
  probably worries me the most. With the way the
  world is going, non-nature-wise M18
• I So pollution is like this big umbrella, it
  can be a lot of different things, whats so bad
  about it?
• S Its hurting the world. And everything. It
  is hurting us. Its hurting the animals, the
  plants.
• I When you say it is hurting us, like how?
• S it is taking awayI dont know. pause I
  dont know how to word it.
• I If you were talking to one of your friends
  how would you explain how
• S Its, I dont want to use destroying because
  its such a harsh word, but its like effecting
  our future in a way that I dont want to see the
  world go. . F18

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Ongoing loss/damage

• I And what about all over the world, how do you
  think Nature is doing now as opposed to when you
  were a kid?
• S I think its constantly just gettinglike its
  always like, youre always hearing things about
  like around the world like rainforestsand things
  like that being destroyed andfires because its
  too dryand pollutionin the water, and oil
  spills
• I Do you think thats not just the media? Do you
  generally have faith that Natures really doing
  OK? Or do you think its really in some kind of
  trouble? Or how do you?
• S I dont think its in like danger of like
  beingwiped out, but its definitely harmed, like
  and everyevery year its something happens,
  something, constantly its like you always hear
  oh like the ozone layer, things like that,
  being destroyed. But I think that it can take it.
  But we abuse it. F17
• Like, it was all woods at one time, now I go up
  and I see houses.
• What do you feel when you see this?
• I see like the animals being dirted out of their
  homes, stuff like that.
•   What kind of feeling do you get?
• Sad feeling, like the loss of something.
•   Yeah, and angry to or not really angry?
• I guess a little angry, I mean how would you feel
  if you were kicked out your house and had no
  where else to go, mauled up by machines and taken
  away or something?
• No, but more sad, you said, right? And do you
  imagine the same kind of thing in Alaska or
  Canada, or different?
• I dont know, it probably will happen, theres no
  where else to go so I can push up there, it seems
  more open, more free, more nice. M17

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• I Okay. How do you think nature will be doing
  all over the world 20 years from now, on the same
  scale?
• S Um, pause.probably a little worse.
• I A little worse?
• S Yeah, because probably things like government
  taking natural resources and things like that.
  They can only last for so long, like oil and
  stuff like that. 
• I So you think theyll be depleted a little bit
  in 20 years?
• S Yeah.
• I Okay. Are there any things that make you feel
  optimistic about the way nature is doing, cause
  you say that its only going to change a little
  bitare there things that make you feel that
• S Well theres always people working to make it
  better
• I Right.
• S And even though likemaybe Im just optimistic
  because when you go out on the street, its nice
  out and everything looks beautiful and theres
  grass and theres trees and everything looks
  really nice. But then in the back of your mind,
  you know, theres like less trees, and less oil
  and less all these other things that you sort of
  have to think about. So I guess, you know, some
  of my senses are saying everythings fine and
  some are saying, what are you talking about
  theres like all of these other big problems to
  deal with. F18
•  

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Bleak future

• I how do you think nature around where you live
  will be ding in twenty years? Will it be on the
  same track doing much worse, or much better?
  Along the way which direction?  
• S its going down hill its getting considerable
  worse.
• I yeah? What do you foresee in the future?
• S building all buildings, all shopping malls.
  More roads
• I how does that make you feel when you think
  about that stuff? 20
• S it sucks.
• I yeah.
• S yeah im a nature girl. No one in my fam
  except for my mom is its just horrible.
• I will it make you move away or will you stay
  there and just be angry or will you become an
  enviro activist, or what will that do to you? to
  your life?
• S Ill probably try and get away from it. id
  probably move to like I mean, you cant really
  run away from it because its happening
  everywhere. And the places where you want to
  work, or the things that you want to do usually
  you have to move to a big city, you have to live
  around a big city and big cities have nothing
  theres no enviro around there. And so sooner or
  later everything is just going to be big city. I
  mean, like from the future movies were all
  going to be driving around cars and theres going
  to be like one tree left, you know?

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• Okayhow do you think nature all over the world
  has changed since you were a child?
• S Well I didnt really pay much attention to it
  when I was little
• Im sure
• S UmI would imagine a little worse, just
  because of theres more people now, theres
  morelike the more people the more destruction of
  nature, its like, I mean the whole development
  thing, more development and then youve got more
  poor people too so you have more people living on
  the street, and more garbage and more pollutionI
  would just imagine its a little worse, just by
  that.
• Okay, so what kinds of things make it worse?
• S The increase in population basically.
• But what do more people create?
• S Everything, like more development, more
  garbage, more garbage, more pollution, cause
  every person savessic their own amount of
  garbage. F17

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I Um, how do you think nature will be doing in
20 years?   S Where I live? I Where you
live, yeah? S Um, um I live very close to
where theyre building that Mon Valley Expressway
junction. So that, in 20 years, whether they
have it up or not it should start to get busier,
more cars going up and down my street. My street
connects, like Camp Hollow to New England, so
its a pretty easy way to get to Century III for
everybody. Its a busy street already, but itll
get a lot worse. I Ok, so hows that going
to change the life of the neighborhood and the
life of buildings there? S A lot more noise
pollution from all the cars. A lot more air
pollution. Um. Itll make things worseless
animals. Theyll be less and less able to deal
with all the dirty air, all the noise
disturbing all of them. I So, hows that
going to affect the general feeling about the
place. S Itll go down, it wont be as, I
guess, cozy asIll feel good about being home,
but whenever the expressway gets there, itll
really be about getting out of that neighborhood
because of all the traffic and other stuff thats
coming I guess big businesses arehouses are
being built where, like, once was a marsh or just
woods that damages it a little bit too, but not
as much as a big row of cars traveling inwith
the pollution and noise. I What do you
think are the biggest influbiggest causes of,
uh, this landfill overflowing, etc?   S
Everything becomingeverythings just
packagedpackaging, theres just too much
material going into sending out products. Not,
not enough recycling is going on. So it just
keeps piling up and piling up until it becomes an
extremely bad problem.  
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Verbatim emotions
I Okay. So which of the problems that you did
list, you talked about pollution and stuff like
that, which one bothers you the most? What gets
to you the most?   S I think that any
animal or any species is in danger for reasons of
building or construction, or some sort of that
kind of thing where theyre leaving their home
environment because theyre building something
orthat bothers me to think thatthat problem
bothers me the most that like, the animals are
probably being, you know   I So I guess that
links to pollution too because with the animals
in the water. How does thatif you had to use
adjectives to describe the way in makes you feel,
how does it make you feel when you think about
it?   S Like edgy. Like its annoying. It
doesnt anger me to the point where I want to
like you know, get up and kill someone.   I
Right.   S But it angers me enough that it
bothers me, you know.   I Okay.   S Agitated.
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• I Ok, so whywhats so bad about it? I know
  some of these are very simple basic questions,
  but on an elementary level, what is bad about air
  pollution?
• S Um, in the long run, its gonna hurt
  everyone.
• I Hows it gonna hurt them?
• S Its uh, long term effects.
• I What are the long term effects?
• S I dont know exactly, but life span.
  Everyone wants to live long, hopefully.
• I Do you think it changes peoples well being
  when they are alive?
• S Yes. I think it makes them, I dont know
  pause I was gonna say I think it makes them
  appreciate life better, but I dont know how, so,
  Im not going to expand. M17

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Rights of Nature
If some of these plants or animals disappeared,
why would that be bad? Just because the plants,
the animals are part of a food chain, and the
food chain would like be harder for other animals
to survive if another is extinct or whatever.
Why is that bad? Just because theyre animals,
theyre part of the world, theyre part of what we
see on tv or what is it wrong? Yeah I think so,
theyre part of the world, I mean some animals
have been here longer than humans have, if
someone wanted to kill off the human race
everyone would be dead they have a right to be
here? Well yeah, with everything that happened
now, theyreI think they do, just because
theyve been there, and if someone tried to move
you totally away from and not be connected to
anything, then I think youd have a right to be
there because thats where they are. F16
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Pervasive Blame
I And twenty years from now? S Probably a
1. You think its jus going to keep getting
worse? S Yeah. Dont you think? I I dont
know. I think we can Well, well talk about
what I think at the end, if you want. So how
possible do you think it is to seriously slow
down the production of nuclear waste? S I dont
think its really going to slow down, Its
probably gonna get worse because were gonna be
needing it. We need stuff to build to keep life
going, its just gonna get worse.
M17
And you can just list a fewbut again it doesnt
have to be one that some teacher in high school
talked about the most, or something that the
newsguyswhat sticks with you the most?
 I think that theres all
these big things that happen. But the most damage
is caused probably by daily useof products and
things such as plastic bags how they get
inaudible water pollution, and in the air, and
aerosol cans. Cars, I mean everyone has a car.
And its just constant things, like every day
that people do its what reallyit adds up.
Theres always the big huge things like the oil
spills and the fires, but they dont do I dont
think nearly as much damage as like people
throwing things out the window and constant daily
uses ofthings. F17
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awareness
I think and this would be totally impossible,
but if someone had a big screen like youre in a
movie theater, kinda like the science center has
a big dome screen thing, and you were able to put
people in there and show exactly what they did
and how it affected the environment and just how
what they did personally hurts the environment
and how what they did personally helps the
environment like the good and bad of what youre
doing the complete affect of it, and that might
change them to think like, ok maybe Ill stop
dong this, or Ill start doing that. But it would
have to be like it would take so long, though.
And be so much to do it and then they might its
kinda like a diet, ok Im gonna go on a diet
and you start doing it for like two weeks and
then you just stop. It might end up being like
that, and so I mean, I cant think of a better
way then that to show the complete effect of what
it is. F16
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• I So what would you say is the most effective
  way to solve these problems? 
• S Education.
• I Mmm hmm.
• S Teaching kids from, at a early age that
  likeeducating them that all of these problems
  are like constantly happening, and maybe even
  givingfinding ways and somehow including them in
  .like a field trip in fifth grade to clean like,
  to clean like aa highwayI never ever got to do
  that and I always thought it was such a good idea
  to have the kids like, learn how much litter
  there is on likea highway
• I That is a really good idea.
• S But like you know, you dont see that. I was
  ne Im telling you, I was not educated at all
  in terms of environment.
• I Mmm hmmm.
•  S I know like nothing when it comes to that
  area.
• I Okay, are there other ways that we can stop
  this?
• S There are. I mean, above education, I think
  thats the first thing.

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I Well, so when you just talked
about distress you said because you dont feel
that you can really stop this, but try to
thinkis there any way that you can possibly stop
this or slow it down or reverse it? S UmI
guess like if I were to gain more knowledge about
it because I dont know that much, and sort of if
everybody learned about it Im sure that there
are millions of other people that feel the same
way I do that its not ok to be doing the things
that we are to the environment and that perhaps
as a group we would be able to stand up and say
our rights, but I kind of feel that just as
myself without being with other people, I can say
things, but I dont think that they would really
get across.S Well, we could definitely put
up brochures, or put up posters, so that people
could seethey have a really interesting thing at
the zoo in Pittsburgh, where in the monkey house,
they have a billboard, but its not really, and
its three-dimensional, and as you walk up to it,
its the forest, but as you walk past, the other
side of it, its a triangle turns into it being
cut down, and then theres information about it
that says how trees are being cut down, and the
rainforest is being destroyed, and I think
something like that is really meaningful because
it shows you whats happening, instead of
somebody just saying this is happening, its not
good. I think that if you see something for your
own eyes, its makes it has as more of an impact
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I Good. One last question I want to ask you. How
important are all these things to you? How
closely do you feel to all those problems?   S
Um, probably not as close as I would like to be.
Um, I dont know if thats because Im busy doing
other things at the moment, or I havent put
enough, you know I havent consciously put enough
time into it, or I just dont know enough to do
something. Um, I think they are important though
because they do bother me. F17
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Scoring
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Correlations (Pearsons r) of scores
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A different structure of concern and mitigation?
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Policy Implications

• If it is true that
• 1) the great majority of US citizens remain
  sincerely concerned about anthropogenic
  environmental degradation and that
• 2) a pivotal barrier to more widespread, lifelong
  commitment to pro-environmental behaviors is a
  lack of knowledge, specifically abt
• A) the specific causes of ongoing env degradation
• B) the specific env consequences of particular
  everyday acts
• C) specific alternative behaviors w substantially
  reduced negative env impacts,
• Then it follows that

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• A much greater portion of federal funding
  (Environmental, Educational and Scientific)
  should be allocated to gathering these types of
  knowledge and disseminating them as widely as
  possible.
• Life-cycle Analysis
• Ecological Footprint
• Chain-of-Custody Accountability Labeling
• (the importance of disaggregation)
• Federal policies legislation should expedite
  this wide dissemination, and overcome limits to
  it.
• Federal and State policies should integrate the
  collection and distribution of these types of
  knowledge as a central component to secondary
  school curriculum.
• Federal and State policies should challenge and
  assist students and other citizens to participate
  in this collection and distribution of critical
  knowledge.

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Limits to Good Intentions?

• 1) that most environmental degradation is not
  caused by anti-environmental values
• 2) that having pro-environmental values is not
  of itself a guarantee that
• a) one will (consistently) take
  pro-environmental actions
• nor b) that the actions one will take on behalf
  of the environment will be the ones with the
  greatest positive impact, of all the ones that
  might have been taken and
• 3) that a significant portion of environmental
  degradation is caused by institutions rather than
  individual consumers or households directly.
  Stern et al 2000

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• The most important thing that policy-makers can
  do is to assist in
• a) making the actions of those who are motivated
  to behave in pro-env behaviors of maximum
  effectiveness towards mitigation
• b) making the effectiveness of those actions more
  widely known.

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• That emotions may well be necessary for the will
  to become engaged, to act, to choose, to change
  behaviors and habits.
• That emotions can also overwhelm and lead to
  avoidance.
• That knowledge is necessary for the engagement of
  the will to have the intended effects on and in
  the world

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Late adolescents as mirrors

• Examining the state of concern and knowledge of
  older adolescents allows us to
• A) assess those states
• B) gain a sense of the bases upon which they may
  build any further active concern
• C) assess our own societys socialization of our
  youth

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Ongoing analysisfuture research extension

• Excerpting expert consultationgt assessment of
  revealed knowledge
• Excerptinggtconstruction of mental models
• gtConstruction of survey
• Writing
• HS visits (Mar-May)
• Intro Survey Interviews
• Presentation of findings-so-far Discussion
• Textbook analysis Standards analysis teacher
  interviews media analysis
• Radio documentary?
• National interviews survey?

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Distribution of concerns, knowledge, efficacy,
etc.
Tests of Correlation
Coding Scoring
HS ivs, Survey Presentations
Construction Of Survey
Excerpt Plunking
Identification Of common (mis)understandings
Construction of mental models