Deck 7: Putting the I in Environment

Question 1

Individuals who believe that outcomes depend on chance, fate, luck, or divine will are said to possess _______________.

A)an internal locus of control
B)an external locus of control
C)a belief in a just world
D)an environmental local of control

Answer 1

an external locus of control

Question 2

If Tess feels guilty because, like all of her friends, she threw her compostable scraps in a trash bin, she is experiencing the consequences of

A)violating a personal norm.
B)violating an implicit attitude.
C)violating a social norm.
D)violating egoistic values.

Answer 2

violating a personal norm.

Question 3

Which of the following is not one of the three types of values identified as pertinent to proenvironmental beliefs, intentions, and actions?

A)egoistic
B)biospheric
C)ecologistic
D)altruistic

Answer 3

ecologistic

Question 4

Environmental concern focused on direct personal impacts, such as how polluted water might threaten one's own health, stems from __________ values.

A)egoistic
B)biospheric
C)ecologistic
D)altruistic

Question 5

Environmental concern focused on impacts to other people, such as how climate change will threaten people in other parts of the world, stems from __________ values.

A)egoistic
B)biospheric
C)ecologistic
D)altruistic

Question 6

Environmental concern focused on negative impacts to ecological systems, including nonhuman animals, plants, oceans, and so on, stems from __________ values.

A)egoistic
B)biospheric
C)ecologistic
D)altruistic

Question 7

Biospheric and altruistic values

A)both predict proenvironmental behaviors.
B)sometimes conflict with each other.
C)differ across individuals and cultures.
D)All of the above.

Question 8

Which of the following is not true about individuals with more materialistic values?

A)They have larger ecological footprints than people with less materialistic values.
B)They prize and prioritize monetary wealth and material possessions more than people with less materialistic values.
C)They likely developed these values because of unmet emotional needs and materialistic role models.
D)They likely have a genetic predisposition to become more materialistic than other individuals.

Question 9

Which of the following is not a factor that predicts the development of materialistic values during childhood development?

A)genetic inheritance
B)exposure to materialistic messages on TV
C)unavailable or unreliable parenting
D)role models who exhibit materialistic values

Question 10

A person who finds it fun to solve puzzles and critque evidence is

A)high in need for cognition.
B)low in conceptual complexity.
C)high in conceptual complexity.
D)low in need for cognition.

Question 11

Values ____________ both beliefs and attitudes.

A)derive from
B)are synonymous with
C)override
D)inform

Question 12

Attitudes are _____________ than values.

A)more closely linked to behavior
B)less enduring
C)more resistant to change
D)All of the above

Question 13

Which of the following accurately sums up research on locus of control and proenvironmental behavior?

A)People with an external locus of control are more likely to exhibit proenvironmental behaviors than people with an internal locus of control.
B)People with an internal locus of control are more likely to exhibit proenvironmental behaviors than people with an external locus of control.
C)People with an internal environmental locus of control are more likely to exhibit proenvironmental behaviors than people with an external environmental locus of control.
D)People with an external environmental locus of control are more likely to exhibit proenvironmental behaviors than people with an internal environmental locus of control.

Question 14

Internal environmental locus of control positively predicts

A)both easy and costly proenvironmental behaviors.
B)easy, but not costly, proenvironmental behaviors.
C)costly, but not easy, proenvironmental behaviors.
D)neither easy nore costly proenvironmental behaviors.

Question 15

Self-efficacy refers to an individual difference in the extent to which people believe

A)their behavior makes a difference.
B)they have the ability to successfully pursue a course of action.
C)outcomes depend upon planning, effort, and personal commitment.
D)all of the above

Question 16

Research suggests that self-efficacy perceptions significantly predict

A)a variety of environmentally relevant behaviors.
B)easy, but not costly, proenvironmental behaviors.
C)costly, but not easy, proenvironmental behaviors.
D)antienvironmental, but not proenvironmental, behaviors.

Question 17

Which of the following would help increase a person's sense of self-efficacy?

A)a persuasive pamphlet providing convincing evidence that an individual person's everyday actions make a difference to the planet.
B)a hands-on station where the person can practice behaviors such as tending a compost pile.
C)a webinar featuring environmental educators explaining ecological systems in terms laypersons can understand.
D)All of the above would help increase self-efficacy.

Question 18

Which of the following is false about environmental attitudes?

A)People are most likely to develop elaborate attitudes about the environmental issues that seem most relevant to them.
B)Environmental attitudes are not particularly strong predictors of environmentally relevant behavior.
C)Cross-cultural research suggests that only people living in wealthy countries can afford to hold environment attitudes.
D)It is challenging to accurately measure environmental attitudes.

Question 19

Which of the following is false about self-report measures of environmental attitudes?

A)Both A and B are false.
B)Neither A nor B is false.
C)Self-report measures only assess implicit attitudes.
D)People are not always honest when it comes to self-reporting their attitudes.

Question 20

Research studies on implicit environmental attitudes have found that they

A)are sometimes better predictors than explicit environmental attitudes of environmentally relevant behavior.
B)sometimes do not predict environmental intentions or behaviors.
C)both A and B
D)Neither A nor B

Question 21

One possible explanation for why implicit proenvironmental attitudes may not predict proenvironmental behavior is that

A)implicit attitudes may better predict spontaneous behavior than deliberate behavior.
B)implicit attitudes may better predict deliberate behavior than spontaneous behavior.
C)implicit attitudes are generally not predictive of external behaviors.
D)implicit attitudes only predict intentions, not behaviors

Question 22

A person who is good at integrating large amounts of information by making connections and seeing patterns is high in

A)high in conceptual complexity.
B)low in need for cognition.
C)high in need for closure.
D)low in integrative complexity.

Question 23

Individuals who are high in integrative complexity are

A)low in conceptual complexity.
B)low in need for cognition.
C)low in need for closure.
D)high on need for cognition, conceptual complexity, and need for closure.

Question 24

When researchers measured participants' nature connected identity and past experience with nature skills activities, they found that

A)men were more likely than women to be high on past experience but low on nature connected identity.
B)women were more likely than men to be low on past experience but high on nature connected identity.
C)Both A and B
D)Neither A nor B

Question 25

Which of the following is the most accurate summary of research on gender differences in perceptions of environmental risk?

A)Women score higher than men on measures of environmental risk perceptions.
B)White men score lower than women and other men on measures of environmental risk perceptions.
C)Women and men show similar levels of environmental risk tolerance across studies.
D)Women are generally more educated about environmental risks than men are.

Question 26

Which of the following is false about gender differences in environmental behaviors?

A)One study found that women are more likely than men to recycle at home.
B)One study found that women have rarely led grassroots environmental campaigns.
C)One study found that men are more likely than women to attend political meetings about environmental issues.
D)One study found that women are more likely than men to make ecologically responsible dietary choices.

Question 27

How is knowledge about environmental issues related to environmental concern and behavior? How do beliefs interact with knowledge to affect concern and behavior?

Question 28

As described in the text, although both biopsheric and altruistic values directly predict proenvironemntal behaviors, in some situations they can conflict. One example is a shopper who must choose between organically-grown coffee and fair-trade coffee. Describe another example and explain how the situation presents a conflict between biospheric and altruistic values.

Question 29

Individuals differ in the extent to which they tend to think optimistically or pessimistically. How optimism/pessimism might be related to environmental behavior is not obvious. Why might optimism be positively correlated with proenvironmental behavior? Why might pessimism? Why might each of these be negatively correlated with proenvironmental behavior?

Question 30

All of the major dimensions of personality have been shown to predict proenvironmental concern and/or behavior. Describe the dimension of Agreeableness, and explain why it makes sense that this characteristic would be positively correlated with a proenvironmental orientation.

Question 31

How might an individual's social identity promote or discourage sustainable behavior? Describe examples of social identities in your community that likely influence individuals' environmentally relevant behavior and explain why.

Question 32

What is the ""white male effect"" in environmental risk perception research? How is this effect related to the concepts of ""cultural cognition"" and ""social identity""?

Question 33

When researchers measured participants' nature connected identity and past experience with nature skills activities, they found that

A)participants who were highly experienced in nature tended to have stronger nature connected identity.
B)some participants were high on the identity measure but low on the experience measure, and vice versa.
C)there were gender differences in the pattern of results.
D)all of the above.

Question 34

Which of the following is false with regard to individual differences in nature connected identity?

A)Researchers have settled on a standard way to assess this individual difference.
B)Individuals whose identities are more nature connected tend to behave more sustainably.
C)There seem to be nature identity subtypes, such as ""gardner"" and ""energy saver.""
D)How nature connected one's identity is may be influenced by significant life experiences in childhood.

Question 35

A study on integrative complexity and attitudes toward the Endangered Species Act (ESA) found suggested that individuals with a complex thinking style are

A)likely to strongly favor environmental policies like the ESA.
B)likely to strongly oppose environmental policies like the ESA.
C)likely to have moderate attitudes toward environmental policies like the ESA.
D)likely to be indifferent toward environmental policies like the ESA.

Question 36

Which of the following is false about individuals who have a future time perspective?

A)They are unmotivated by temporally distanct concerns such as climate change.
B)They are more likely to behave sustainably than are individuals with a past or present time perspective.
C)They habitually think about the future when making decisions in the moment.
D)They are inclined to plan and set goals.

Question 37

Many psychologists believe that all variation in people's personalities can be captured by just _______ dimensions.

A)three
B)five
C)eight
D)twelve

Question 38

Which of the following is not one of the primary dimensions of personality?

A)Extraversion
B)Conscientiousness
C)Optimism
D)Agreeableness

Question 39

Among the primary dimensions of personality, the strongest predictors of a proenvironmental orientation are

A)Openess and Agreeableness
B)Neuroticism and Conscientiousness
C)Extraversion and Agreeableness
D)Openess and Conscientiousness

Question 40

Although there is some research evidence for all of the major dimensions of personality as predictors of proenvironmental concern, the weakest evidence is for the dimension of ____________.

A)Neuroticism
B)Conscientiousness
C)Openness
D)Extraversion

Question 41

Which of the following is not associated proenvironmental concern and behavior?

A)empathy
B)a social dominance orientation
C)openess to experience
D)honesty-humility

Question 42

A cross-cultural study of participants in 27 countries found that the social dominance orientation is ________ with environmental concern.

A)negatively correlated
B)positively correlated
C)not correlated
D)both positively and negatively correlated.

Question 43

The anecdote about the student who defiantly threw his recyclable bottle in the trash, asserting, ""I'm not a campus liberal!"" illustrates the fact that individuals are resistant to adopt behaviors that ___________.

A)contrast with their personalities
B)threaten their social identities
C)contradict their personal identities
D)All of the above.

Question 44

Based on the variety of individual differences discussed in the chapter, describe an imaginary individual who possesses the characteristics that would seem to make a person most inclined to behave sustainably. Address at least six individual difference variables.

Question 45

Even when the situation encourages sustainable behavior and the behaving person is thinking deliberately, it is not a given that the behavior displayed will be proenvironmental.

Question 46

Explicit attitudes are conscious while implicit attitudes are nonconsciou.

Question 47

Attitudes formed via conscious deliberation are more stable and resistant to change than attitudes formed heuristically

Question 48

Some individuals are inclined to think harder than others.

Question 49

Environmental concern can be temporarily increased by experimentally inducing a future-oriented mindset.

Question 50

Both optimistic thinking and pessimistic thinking could lead individuals to behave more or less sustainably.

Question 51

One of the strongest personality predictors of environmental concern is neuroticism, which is characterized by a tendency to worry.

Question 52

Personal identities are typically defined by social context.

Question 53

People with proenvironmental attitudes are generally eager to adopt the social identity ""environmentalist.""

Question 54

Individuals differ in the extent to which their sense of identity includes a connection to the natural environment.

Question 55

Measures of environmental attitudes tend to rely on self-report.

Question 56

A good way to encourage sustainable behavior is to reinforce people's external locus of control.

Question 57

Individual differences are stable and resistant to change.

Question 58

Providing information to people is a sufficient strategy for inspiring behavioral change in a sustainable direction

Question 59

Research suggests that policy-makers tend to have higher ecological literacy and environmental knowledge than members of the general public.

Question 60

The best environmental education programs recognize that children in different developmental phases benefit most from different types of activities and foci.

Question 61

Many adults are likely not being exposed to accurate information about environmental issues.

Question 62

Research suggests that policy-makers tend to have higher ecological literacy and environmental knowledge than members of the general public.

Question 63

Some so-called climate change ""deniers"" don't actually doubt climate change itself, but do doubt that it is caused by humans.

Question 64

Two individuals with opposing beliefs may interpret the same set of information differently.

Question 65

Not all people perceive environmental inequalites, such as unequal access to clean drinking water, as unjust.

Question 66

Whether nature experiences lead to a feeling of affiliation and identification with nature may depend upon the context of the experiences.

Question 67

Women score higher than men on measures of environmental concern.

Question 68

Theory on environmental education suggests that the best type of program for early adolescents (age 12-15) is one that encourages them to ___________.

A)explore their environment
B)empathize with other living creatures
C)engage in social action
D)learn about the biology of plants and nonhuman animals.

Question 69

Most environmental education is aimed at children. For most adults, the primary sources of environmental information are

A)books and websites.
B)media outlets.
C)nature-oriented locations such as zoos, aquariaums, and parks.
D)environmental organizations.

Question 70

Some media outlest continue to give equal time to the arguments for and against humans as the primary cause of climate change. This ""balanced"" coverage is

A)an accurate reflection of the split opinion among scientists on this topic.
B)a good way to increase adults' environmental knowledge.
C)a misleading misrepresentation of the overwhelming consensus among scientists on this topic.
D)easier for people to digest than coverage that emphasizes only one side of the debate.

Question 71

Climate change ""skeptics"" or ""deniers"" believe

A)climate change is not happening.
B)climate change is happening but it is not caused by humans.
C)climate change is happening and is caused by humans, but really isn't worth worrying about.
D)All of these describe beliefs held by some climate change skeptics or deniers.

Question 72

A research study on more than 1500 adults in the U.S. suggested that the reason the public seems less concerned about climate change than the scientific evidence warrants is

A)climate change concern is positively correlated with scientific literacy, which most people lack.
B)the public lacks knowledge about climate change.
C)laypeople don't understand the science of climate change.
D)some people who understand the science are unconcerned because of their values.

Question 73

A research study on more than 1500 adults in the U.S. found that scientific literacy was _______________ correlated with concern about climate change.

A)positively
B)negatively
C)both positively and negatively
D)not at all

Question 74

The cultural cognition thesis states that people's perceptions of risks are influenced by

A)their knowledge about the risks
B)the values of the social groups with which they affiliate and identify
C)both knowledge and values
D)neither knowledge nor values.

Question 75

Believing in a ""just world"" allows people to feel

A)a sense of security that if one is a good person, one is assured good outcomes.
B)less guilty or upset when witnessing injustice experienced by others.
C)both A and B
D)neither A nor B

Question 76

According to research on German adults, which of the following is false regarding Ecological Belief in a Just World (EBJW)?

A)EBJW is significantly negatively correlated with reluctance to purchase energy-saving devices.
B)EBJW is significantly positively correlated with outrage about conservation-related limits to personal freedom.
C)EBJW is significantly positively correlated with outrage about conservation-related limits to economic growth.
D)EBJW is significantly negatively correlated with feeling a sense of responsibility for energy conservation.

Question 77

Theory on environmental education suggests that the best type of program for elementary school children (age 8-11) is one that encourages them to ___________.

A)explore their environment
B)empathize with other living creatures
C)engage in social action
D)learn about the biology of plants and nonhuman animals.

Question 78

Theory on environmental education suggests that the best type of program for young children (age 4-7) is one that encourages them to ___________.

A)explore their environment
B)empathize with other living creatures
C)engage in social action
D)learn about the biology of plants and nonhuman animals.

Question 79

The derogatory term ""tree-hugger"" came into use when women in India wrapped their arms around trees to prevent logging.

Question 80

Which of the following is not an example of an individual difference that affects behavior?

A)knowledge and beliefs
B)attitudes and values
C)biased thinking and automaticity
D)personality and social identity