Testing the dimensionality of environmental policy approval and its convergence with environmental attitude and behavior measures

Abstract

It can be argued that environmental policy approval (EPA) is a key individual response to the global ecological crisis. This study explores EPA in two ways. First, we tested the dimensional structure of EPA applying confirmatory factor analysis to a newly constructed 24-item scale. Specifically, we analyzed a one-dimensional EPA model, a two-dimensional model that tells existing policies apart from claimed policies, a three-dimensional model that splits EPA into fields of action (energy, agriculture/nutrition, and mobility/transport), and a four-dimensional model that segments EPA into policy types (charges, regulations, infrastructure, and adaptation). Second, we examined the extent to which EPA can be regarded as a variant of environmental attitude or pro-environmental behavior by estimating the relationship of the EPA scale with established measures of environmental attitude and pro-environmental behavior via path analyses. The results (N = 276) indicate marginally superior fits for the three-factor fields-of-action model and the path model that describes EPA as a pro-environmental behavior. Our findings also suggest that EPA is particularly strongly predicted by affective environmental attitude.