• Login
    View Item 
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Psychology
    • View Item
    •   Home
    • University of Alaska Fairbanks
    • UAF Graduate School
    • Psychology
    • View Item
    JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

    Browse

    All of Scholarworks@UACommunitiesPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsTypeThis CollectionPublication DateAuthorsTitlesSubjectsType

    My Account

    Login

    First Time Submitters, Register Here

    Register

    Statistics

    Display statistics

    The Role Of Social Paradigm In Human Perception And Response To Environmental Change

    • CSV
    • RefMan
    • EndNote
    • BibTex
    • RefWorks
    Thumbnail
    Name:
    Williams_P_2009.pdf
    Size:
    1.420Mb
    Format:
    PDF
    Download
    Author
    Williams, Paula
    Keyword
    Social psychology
    Environmental science
    Metadata
    Show full item record
    URI
    http://hdl.handle.net/11122/9022
    Abstract
    The role of social paradigms in resilience to change is poorly understood. Past research suggests that social paradigms shape human values through socialization, including those for our environment and alter an individual's attentiveness to information. Thus, there is a relationship among personal cognition, the objective environment, social paradigm, and human behavior, which I posit may affect perception of and response to change, hence human adaptive capacity. The western industrialized dominant social paradigm (WISP) is a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that influence our relationship to the environment. It includes beliefs in continuous economic growth; limited governmental intervention in free market systems; and faith that technology will resolve environmental problems. Past research indicates that the WISP correlates negatively with environmental concern and with belief in the need to change behaviors. In this work, measures for environmental values, the WISP, and environmental behaviors were developed from the General Social Survey and analyzed using mediation. The relationship between WISP, environmental concern and environmental behaviors was tested. Regression analysis suggested that WISP reduces environmental concern, thereby reducing environmental behaviors. The spatial relationship between built environment and environmental values and built environment and the WISP was also investigated. The results suggest that geographic regions with less built environment are significantly more environmentally concerned and have higher values of the WISP. Medium-sized cities exhibited significantly lower values of the WISP. Finally, extensive and diverse literature was reviewed to compare other paradigms affecting the relationship between humans and the biophysical environment. Other paradigms foster links between humans and their environment and also serve the purpose of incorporating ritual, myth and story-telling to conform human behavior to the limits of the biophysical environment rather than conforming the biophysical environment to human desires. Accurate perception of environmental feedback and appropriate responses to change increase resilience. This work suggests that the currently predominant social paradigm may reduce our resilience by impairing our perception of change and our willingness to adapt.
    Description
    Dissertation (Ph.D.) University of Alaska Fairbanks, 2009
    Date
    2009
    Type
    Dissertation
    Collections
    Psychology

    entitlement

     
    ABOUT US|HELP|BROWSE|ADVANCED SEARCH

    The University of Alaska is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer, educational institution and provider and prohibits illegal discrimination against any individual.

    Learn more about UA’s notice of nondiscrimination.

    Open Repository is a service operated by 
    Atmire NV
     

    Export search results

    The export option will allow you to export the current search results of the entered query to a file. Different formats are available for download. To export the items, click on the button corresponding with the preferred download format.

    By default, clicking on the export buttons will result in a download of the allowed maximum amount of items.

    To select a subset of the search results, click "Selective Export" button and make a selection of the items you want to export. The amount of items that can be exported at once is similarly restricted as the full export.

    After making a selection, click one of the export format buttons. The amount of items that will be exported is indicated in the bubble next to export format.