What happened to them? an empirical examination of the relationship between adolescent and adulthood experience and environmental attitude and behaviors

Abstract

This study aimed to elucidate the relationship between adolescent and adulthood experience and environmental attitude and behaviors. Specifically, this research aimed to identify the factors and insights associated with a pro-environmental attitude and behaviors that are difficult to capture via one-time surveys and interviews. This study used survey data from 610 American participants, tracked over a period of 25-years: the Longitudinal Study on American Youth. Findings showed that experience of nature and related education gathered from various points of life via diverse channels were efficacious in explaining the level of environmental attitude and behaviors. Furthermore, it was found that the experiences accumulated throughout the young period of participants were continuously associated with the present level of all environmental knowledge and behaviors. Among these, pro-environmental behavior was most substantially explained by adolescent and young youth period of experiences. To empirically demonstrate this, ordered logistic regression and multiple regression was conducted for a total of nine models, three models (Demographic features, Demographic features + Adult nature experience, Demographic features + Adult nature experience + Adolescent nature experience) for each dependent variable. These empirical findings provide critical insights for both existing efforts to investigate the mechanism of environmental concern, knowledge and behavior in the environmental psychology field and future directions of green policies for fostering environment conscious citizens.