Recycling and its Relationship to Political Ideology, Environmental Concern, Knowledge, and Beliefs

1. PURPOSE • Psychologists must lead the way in promoting sustainability (Oskamp, 2000). One relatively easy sustainable behavior to promote is recycling. • Recycling research has addressed both dispositional and external determinants of recycling behaviors (e.g., Guagnano, Stern, & Dietz, 1995; Lindsay & Strathman, 1997). • We compared recyclers and non-recyclers on these attitudinal variables: • Conservative-Liberal Political Ideology • Environmental Concern • Belief in Global Warming • Recycling Procedural Knowledge • Importance of Reasons for Recycling • Importance of Reasons for Not Recycling • We also examined the interrelationships among these variables. Recycling in Relation to Political Ideology, Environmental Concern, Knowledge and BeliefsDaniel Arkkelin, Jennifer Winquist & Christina RobertsValparaiso University

2. Questionnaire administered to 121 undergraduates measured: • Ideology, Concern & Belief • Political Ideology • “How would you characterize yourself politically?” • One 5-point scale (Higher scores indicate more liberal ideology) • Environmental Concern (NEP) • “Humans are severely abusing the environment.” • Mean of eleven 5-point items (Higher scores indicate greater concern; Cronbach’s alpha =.78) • Belief in Global Warming • “Most scientists are unsure about whether global warming is occurring or not.” • Mean of seven 5-point items (Higher scores indicate greater certainty; Cronbach’s alpha =.79) METHODS

3. Recycling Knowledge & Reasons For/For Not Recycling • Recycling Procedural Knowledge • “I know where the recycling bins are located in my dorm.” • Six 5-point items summed (Higher scores indicate greater knowledge; Cronbach’s alpha =.57) • Importance of Reasons for Recycling • “Decreased landfill use.” • Eight 5-point items summed (Higher scores indicate greater importance; Cronbach’s alpha =.54) • Importance of Reasons for Not Recycling • “No storage space.” • Six 5-point items summed (Higher scores indicate greater importance; Cronbach’s alpha =.76) METHODS

4. METHODS Recycling Behavior • Self-Reported Recycling Behavior • “I regularly use the recycling bins for my dormitory.” • One 5-point item (1: Strongly Disagree; 5: Strongly Agree) • Respondents were classified as high or low-recyclers: • If response > 3, classified as Recycler (N = 32) • If response < 3, classified as Non-Recycler (N = 43) • If response = 3, respondent omitted from analyses (N= 46) • Differences between these two groups on the other variables were examined using t-tests. • Correlations were also computed among all variables for the entire sample.

5. RESULTS Table 1  Comparisons Between Mean Scores of Recyclers and Non-Recyclers ____________________________________________________________ Mean Score Mean Score VariableRecyclers Non-Recyclerst(73) p Liberalism 3.48 2.73 2.01 .05 Environmental Concern 3.69 3.36 -2.32 .02 Procedural Knowledge 21.31 16.54 -5.26 .01 Belief in Global Warming 3.41 3.19 -1.29 .20 Imp. Reasons For Recycling 23.31 22.91 -0.48 .63 Imp. Reasons Not Recycling 12.59 15.30 2.35 .02 ____________________________________________________________ Note. Higher scores mean greater liberalism, concern, knowledge, belief in global warming, and importance of reasons for/for not recycling; * p < .05; ***p < .001; ns: not significant.

6. Figure 1. Comparison of Recyclers & Non-recyclers

7. Figure 2. Comparison of Recyclers & Non-recyclers

8. Figure 3. Intercorrelations Among Variables Reasons to Recycle Reasons Not to Recycle Procedural Knowledge -.23 .24 .28 .61 -.30 Belief in Global Warming Liberalism Recycling .45 .28 .43 .42 .50 .31 Env’l Concern

9. CONCLUSIONS • Recyclers’ greater environmental concern and procedural knowledge, and the strong relationship between procedural knowledge and recycling suggest: • Efforts to increase recycling should focus on increasing non-recyclers' environmental concern and knowledge about how to recycle. • The equal importance of perceived reasons to recycle by these groups, but greater importance attached to reasons not to recycle by non-recyclers replicates other research (Vining, 1990; Arkkelin et al., 2000). • This suggests that efforts should focus on overcoming perceived barriers to recycling, rather than reiterating reasons to recycle. • The interrelationships between liberalism, environmental concern, belief in GW and importance of recycling suggest a cluster of cognitive and affective dispositional variables as predictors of environmentally-responsible behavior.

10. REFERENCES Arkkelin, D., Schroeder J., Suchodolski, K., Skrenes, J. & Rodriquez, M. (2000). Why Some People Don’t Recycle: Environmental Concern, Recycling Knowledge, Reasons For/For Not Recycling and Future Commitment to Recycling. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association. Dunlap, R.E., & van Liere, K.D. (1978). The new environmental paradigm. Journal of Environmental Education, 9(4),10-19. Guagnano, G.A., Stern, P.C., & Dietz, T. (1995). Influences on attitude-behavior relationships: A natural experiment with curbside recycling. Environment and Behavior, 27(5), 699-718. Lindsay, J.J., & Strathman, A. (1997). Predictors of recycling behavior: An application of a modified health belief model. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 27(20), 1799-1823. Oskamp, S. (2000). A sustainable future for humanity? How can psychology help? American Psychologist, 55(5), 496-508. Vining, J., & Ebreo, A. (1990). What makes a recycler? A comparison of Recyclers and Non-recyclers. Environment and Behavior, 22(1), 55-73.