Should I be bothered or not? Development of the Environmental Attitudes Scale (EAS)

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to develop a reliable scale evaluating values, beliefs and attitudes towards the environment, and to test its basic psychometric properties relative to its employment in Serbia. The final sample included 1020 participants (46.9% male and 53.1% female), aged from 18 to 86 (M = 39.29, SD = 15.77). All the participants completed the demographic questionnaire (age, sex, region, education, work and economic status), and the EAS scale. This final scale included 36 items grouped into five dimensions explaining 50.4% of the total variance: Love of nature and Environmental concern 11.36%, Preservation measures 11.25%, Personal conservation practice and activism 10.72%, Population growth policies 8.87%, and Instrumentalism with 7.84% of the variance explained. EAS showed internal consistency α = .80, ranging from .75 to .81 for the subfactors, the split-half (Spearman-Brown) coefficient of validity was .75, and test-retest r = .79. Results confirmed three second-order factors: Personal factor 44.92%, Institutional measures and policies 20.41% and Instrumentalism with 15.95% of the variance explained (in total 81.27%).