Conservatism and concern for the environment

The current ideology of the United States justice system leans toward more rights for victims This study explored whether attitudes toward the natural environment are affected by self-reported conservatism. Political ideology was measured with three items measuring general, social and fiscal conservatism/liberalism. Environmental attitudes were measured by using LaTrobe and Ascot’s (2000) Modified New Environmental Paradigm (NEP)/Dominant Social Paradigm (DSP). The NEP/DSP considers four factors: human interference with nature; equity and development issues; humans and economy over nature; duties to nonhumans. An interesting pattern of findings emerge, showing that fiscal conservatism is negatively associated with environmental attitudes, even when controlling for region, gender and age, that is for variables that tend to be associated with conservatism.