Historical Ecospirituality and Environmental Attitudes

Paul Behler and Paulina Schröder

No 2594, RFBerlin Discussion Paper Series from ROCKWOOL Foundation Berlin (RFBerlin)

Abstract: This paper studies ecospirituality - spiritual views that people have about the natural world. First, utilizing folklore data from around 1,000 pre-industrial societies, we present the first comprehensive global measurement of ecospirituality. Our analysis reveals systematic cultural variation: ecospirituality is most prevalent in South America and least prevalent in Europe. Additionally, we find a strong negative correlation between ecospirituality and belief in high gods. Second, we study the potential impact of historical ecospirituality on current environmental attitudes. Combining data from the Integrated Values Survey with folklore, we find no statistically significant relationship between contemporary environmental attitudes and the prevalence of ecospirituality in the folklore of ones ancestors.

Keywords: Environmental Attitudes; Ecospirituality; Folklore (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q50 Z12 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-11
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crm:wpaper:2594

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