UNDERGRADUATE

connectedness, evolution theories, and worldview have
all been studied as potential predictors of environmental
concern and pro-environmental behavior. Of these,
I will focus my review on morality and worldview as
indicators of environmental concern, place-attachment
or one’s connection to their immediate environment, and
motivations for preservation embedded in evolution. I will
go on to speak about issues with methodology and a lack
of common measurement tools.
In terms of one’s worldview, some scholars contend that
each person has a different moral schema relating to the
environment. These schemas can be broken into three
different categories: un-enchanted, intrinsic, and creational.
The un-enchanted moral schema does not see nature as
sacred. The intrinsic schema states that nature is sacred in
itself, and the creational schema believes nature is sacred
because it is a divine creation. In studies like these, one’s
group membership in a specific schema reliably predicts
their level of environmental activism (Farrell, 2013).
Other scholars have argued that place attachment—one’s
degree of attachment to the social and physical place they
live—can be a reliable predictor of pro-environmental
behaviors (Takahashi & Selfa, 2015). They explain that
increased attachment to other’s in your community and
your physical environment results in greater engagement
in pro-environmental behaviors. Varied results have
been found linking community attachment and proenvironmental
behaviors. This variation may be due to
inconsistent measurement techniques. For example, both
surveys and in-depth interviews were used with different
samples, perhaps indicating a variation in methodology
rather than behavior. Another issue with this study is in
the way attachment to one’s physical environment can
be measured. If one is asked about affinity, this may be a
result of memories embedded in the landscape opposed to
the actual landscape itself.
As stated earlier, some scholars have drawn upon
evolutionary theories and specifically, some scholars have
oriented their research around the biophilia hypothesis
(Nisbet et al., 2009; Kals et al., 1999). This hypothesis
argues that humans have a strong need to relate and
positively engage with other living things, including the
natural environment. This has been substantiated by the
popularity of outdoor recreation, as well as noted health
benefits as a product of being in natural scenery. Given
this hypothesis, scholars have sought to understand how
much this need varies between people and its relationship
to environmentally responsible behaviors. These studies
look beyond exposure to nature, and question the
emotional experiences in nature. Further, it has been well
documented that positive past experiences in nature are
strong predictors of environmental concern (Nisbet et al.,
2009, Kals et al., 1999). However, it remains unclear to what
degree past experience influences environmental concern,
compare to, say, place attachment or one’s moral schema.
Due to the lack of agreement on root causes or
explanatory factors regarding environmental concern
and environmentally responsible behaviors, there has
subsequently been a lack of a common measurement
scale. Variation in measurement scales has resulted
in very different conclusions even in relatively similar
studies. For instance, many studies testing a variation in
urban versus rural levels of environmental concern are
often contradictory due to a lack of using the same type
of measurement scale (Takahashi & Selfa, 2015). As many
of the studies testing these factors use surveys, lack of
a common tool leads to conflicting results. The Nature
Relatedness scale is one potential tool scholars could use
to test individuals’ connection to the environment over
time and place. Tested with a large sample sizes multiple
times, this scale prevails as a reliable tool.
Largely, studies investigating pro-environmental behaviors
use self-reported surveys. Pro-environmental behaviors
are typically characterized as ‘recycling,’ ‘composting
household kitchen waste,’ ‘donating money to environmental
organizations’ and ‘avoiding chemical use in your yard
(Takahashi & Selfa, 2015). ’ Surveys are convenient and
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