The Effect of Respondent Characteristics on General Environmental Attitude-Behavior Correspondence

Five different environmental attitude scales were regressed on an 11-item self-reported general environmental behavior index derived from a confirmatory factor analysis. Correlations between each of the 5 attitude scales and the behavioral index were computed and a Fisher's Z-transformation was used to test for the effect of six respondent characteristics (gender, residence, education, income, age, and political orientation) on the attitude-behavior correlations. Although all of the five scales were significantly correlated with the behavioral index (p < .001), correlations for some attitude scales were highly affected by respondent characteristics. Of the 5 scales examined, the Environmental Concern (EC), New Environmental Paradigm (NEP), and Awareness of Consequences (AC) scales were associated most strongly with behavior, but the EC and NEP also were significantly affected by respondent characteristics. Implications for future studies and use of the scales are discussed.