Skip navigation
Skip navigation

An exploration of the descriptive validity of surveys designed to measure psychological and economic definitions of environmental value

Ryan, Anthony Michael

Description

When responses to an environmental value survey are used to inform sustainability policy, the integrity of the policy framework requires the survey interpretation to have an acceptable level of validity. The thesis explores three interrelated research themes that examine challenges facing psychologists and economists who measure community environmental values with quantitative survey designs. The first research theme examines the ambiguity and contested nature of the environmental value...[Show more]

dc.contributor.authorRyan, Anthony Michael
dc.date.accessioned2012-01-10T03:17:31Z
dc.date.available2012-01-10T03:17:31Z
dc.identifier.otherb28789374
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/8857
dc.description.abstractWhen responses to an environmental value survey are used to inform sustainability policy, the integrity of the policy framework requires the survey interpretation to have an acceptable level of validity. The thesis explores three interrelated research themes that examine challenges facing psychologists and economists who measure community environmental values with quantitative survey designs. The first research theme examines the ambiguity and contested nature of the environmental value concept. In the sustainability domain, it is common practice for both psychologists and economists to administer an environmental value survey to a diverse population and then to only consider a single theoretical survey interpretation. Such an approach ignores the possibility that the survey questions will elicit response motives that are not formally accounted for by the researcher’s theoretical framework. A review of the conservation psychology, environmental & resource economics and ecological economic literature reveals that each of these fields of inquiry put forward a different conceptualisation of environmental value. By formally describing the ambiguous and contested nature of the environmental value concept, the thesis outlines some caveats of a research approach that focuses primarily on assessing the face validity of a single interpretation. The second research question explores the challenges confronting researchers who empirically assess the validity of environmental value survey interpretations. When an environmental survey is administered in a quasi-experimental design, research conclusions are likely to be subject to various validity threats that reduce the ability of researchers to make an empirically informed conclusion about the validity of a particular survey interpretation. Furthermore, the very act of assessing validity involves making subjective decisions as to what evidence to consider and how to weigh up the overall body of evidence. When quasi-experimental survey responses are empirically assessed against only a single set of environmental value interpretation criteria, a combination of the subjectivity of the validity assessment process and reduced experimental control increases the vulnerability of researchers to the confirmation bias. The third research question explores empirical approaches to examining the validity of environmental value survey interpretations and ways of minimising vulnerability to the confirmation bias. Three empirical studies are presented. One of the empirical studies examines the validity of the mainstream ‘value orientation’ interpretation of the Awareness of Consequence scale, which is widely administered by conservation psychologists. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses support an alternative interpretation that posits that the Awareness of Consequence scale measures beliefs about the consequences of environmental action/inaction rather than supporting the mainstream ‘value orientation’ interpretation. The final two empirical studies formally examine the validity of three interpretations of contingent valuation: the economic interpretation, the contribution model interpretation and the value pluralism interpretation. Both empirical studies support the value pluralism interpretation, which implies that economists in some circumstances would be better served by measuring community environmental values with a pluralism-as-a-methodology approach rather than insisting upon methodologies that measure community environmental values in monetary terms only.
dc.language.isoen_AU
dc.subjectEnvironmental scales, economics, psychology, environmental value, psychometric, ecological economics, Environmental & Resource Economics, environmental psychology, contingent valuation, intrinsic value, extrinsic value, awareness of consequences
dc.titleAn exploration of the descriptive validity of surveys designed to measure psychological and economic definitions of environmental value
dc.typeThesis (PhD)
local.contributor.supervisorSmithson, Mike
dcterms.valid2011
local.description.notesSupervisor - Professor Mike Smithson
local.description.refereedYes
local.type.degreeDoctor of Philosophy (PhD)
dc.date.issued2011
local.contributor.affiliationSchool of Psychology
local.identifier.doi10.25911/5d78dce9cfd1f
local.mintdoimint
CollectionsOpen Access Theses

Download

File Description SizeFormat Image
02Whole_Ryan.pdfWhole Thesis1.78 MBAdobe PDFThumbnail
01Front_Ryan.pdfFront Matter380.3 kBAdobe PDFThumbnail


Items in Open Research are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.

Updated:  17 November 2022/ Responsible Officer:  University Librarian/ Page Contact:  Library Systems & Web Coordinator