Exploring worldviews and their relationships to sustainable lifestyles: Towards a new conceptual and methodological approach

Annick Hedlund-de Witt

Ecological Economics, 2012, vol. 84, issue C, 74-83

Abstract: In the global debate on sustainable development, there appears to be a growing recognition of the crucial importance of worldviews vis-à-vis the urgently needed transition to an ecological economy and society. This study therefore aims to support (survey) research exploring worldviews and their complex relationships to sustainable lifestyles. I do this by analyzing and critically challenging existing measures such as the New Environmental Paradigm, and by developing a new conceptual and methodological approach. First, a review of multiple survey-approaches, stemming from different disciplinary and theoretical traditions, is conducted. This results in a meta-analysis of their strengths and weaknesses. On this basis it is concluded that a more optimal approach should be comprehensive and systematic, measure structural worldview-beliefs, and be able to account for human and cultural development. Then, the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF) is proposed in order to support such a systematic, comprehensive, structural, and dynamic operationalization of the worldview-construct. In this way, a conceptually and methodologically innovative approach to exploring worldviews and their relationship to sustainable behaviors is developed.

Keywords: Worldviews; Sustainable behaviors/lifestyles; Values; Environmental attitudes; Survey-research; Literature review; Integrative Worldview Framework; New Environmental Paradigm (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (17)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:84:y:2012:i:c:p:74-83

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2012.09.009

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