Environmental Beliefs Attitudes and Actions in North Carolina (2008)

Undergraduate: Sara Kemp

Faculty Advisor: Kenneth Andrews
Department: Sociology

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This research paper explores the environmental beliefs, attitudes and actions in North Carolina and examines how individuals understand themselves as interconnected to the natural environment and their communities. The baseline environmental beliefs and attitudes of North Carolinians are derived from data collected from a state-wide poll, and in-depth interviews provide a way to view the thinking processes behind these beliefs, attitudes, and actions. The poll explores the general attitudes of environmental concern, concern for others, trade-offs one is willing to make for environmental reasons, personal efficacy, and perceptions regarding the possibility of collective change. This data is analyzed in relation to demographic variables such as age, race/ethnicity, gender, political opinion, party affiliation, income, education level, and main sources of news. The interviews are analyzed to uncover the different paradigms of environmental thinking in North Carolina and explore how citizens understand the relationship between their actions and the greater social and environmental good. In particular, there is a focus on whether individuals emphasize interconnectedness and interdependence versus self-interested individualism and independence in their environmental consciousness.