Env lab link

Professor Colleen F. Moore's
Psychology of Environmental Issues Lab
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Click here for more recent information on our lab activities as of 2005
Graduates from the lab who completed thesis projects:

David H. Ebenbach, Ph.D. (May, 1999)
Katherine V. Kortenkamp, B.S. with Honors (May, 1999)
Ellen Merten, B.S. with Honors (May, 1999)
Kim Rauwald, B.S. with Honors (May, 2000)
Heidi Geurkink, B.A. (May 2000)
Scott B. Caldwell, B.S. (May, 1998)
Jessica Gershaw, B.A. (May, 1996)

Research topics (see research paper summaries below)

Judgments and decisions about environmental issues
Distinguishing between internally and externally motivated environmental attitudes
Environmental risk perceptions

Gender differences, controllability, and environmental attitudes
Knowledge and perceived reproductive risks

Moral reasoning about environmental dilemmas
Time discounting for environmental expenditures and resource depletion

Publications and papers

David H. Ebenbach & Colleen F. Moore (2000). Incomplete information, inferences, and individual differences: The case of environmental judgments. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 81, 1-27. (Based in part on the Senior Thesis project of Jessica Gershaw.)

The issue of what people do when important information is omitted is especially important in environmental issues because there is often important information that is either not known or purposely withheld from the public. Our research shows that when important information is omitted that judgments are likely to be more negative than when that information is given. There are distinct individual differences in this tendency toward more negative judgments. Our research also shows that the seemingly simple assumption that people infer missing information from the information that is known yields quite complex implications. This paper describes and tests a math model for representing judgments when some information pertinent to a judgment is inferred from the given information. This research helps explain why different people may make quite different judgments based on the exact same information.

David H. Ebenbach (1999). Measuring what motivates a belief: The case of pro-environmental attitudes. Doctoral dissertation, University of Wisconsin-Madison.

This research project developed a new questionnaire (the "Environmental Attitude Scale" or EAS) to distinguish environmental attitudes that are internally motivated versus motivated externally for social rewards. The 17-item questionnaire has excellent internal reliability. David's dissertation reports a series of studies of both the convergent and divergent validity of the EAS. Although most of the studies used college student samples, one study consisted of people attending an EarthFirst! rally. The dissertation also examined how students high and low in internally motivated environmental attitudes differ in decision making regarding environmentally relevant projects. The EAS statistically predicted use of cues about the relative wealth of a neighborhood and the environmental impact of a project in deciding where to site a hypothetical environmental improvement project or a toxic waste facility.

Kim Rauwald & Colleen F. Moore (2002). Environmental attitudes as predictors of policy support across three countries. Environment and Behavior, 34, 709-739. (Based on senior honors thesis of Kim Rauwald, winner of summer honors thesis award). This paper examines the usefulness of the New Environmental Paradigm scale and assessments based on Kellert's dimensions of environmental attitudes as predictors of support for environmental policies among college students in the U.S., Trinidad & Tobago, and the Dominican Republic. The results showed that a dominionistic attitude toward nature is not incompatable with strong support for environmental policy in the two Caribbean countries, but that in the US dominionistic attitudes were negatively related to policy support. Gender effects also differed somewhat across countries.
Ellen Merten & Colleen F. Moore (1999). Environmental reproductive hazards and birth defects: What women know and believe. Presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago, IL. (Senior Honors Thesis of Ellen Merten; also winner of a Trewartha Undergraduate Fellowship; also presented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Sesquicentennial Chancellor's Research Symposium).

How do college-age women perceive reproductive risks due to environmental hazards and substance use? Risk perception is probably the first step in self-protective behaviors -- if a person does not perceive risk from exposure to a substance, then self-protective actions will not occur. We studied the perceived reproductive risks for hypothetical couples who were trying to conceive a child. Scenarios describing a typical day in the life of each couple included information about alcohol and caffeine (in beverages), polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and mercury (in Lake Michigan game fish), and lead (in drinking water or old paint in the home). Our participants rated their perceived reproductive risk for each couple, and then answered questions directly assessing their knowledge of these substances as reproductive hazards. The results showed that both perceived risk and knowledge were greatest for alcohol. Most were not aware of the hazards of prenatal exposure to Lake Michigan gamefish, despite fish consumption advisories issued by all Great Lakes states.

Katherine V. Kortenkamp & Colleen F. Moore (2001). Ecocentrism and anthropocentrism: Moral reasoning about ecological dilemmas. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 21, 261-272. (based on Senior Honors Thesis of Katherine V. Kortenkamp; also, winner of Hilldale Undergraduate Research Fellowship).

What kind of moral reasoning do people use when they think about environmental issues? An anthropocentric ethic gives the well-being of nature consideration because how nature is treated ultimately affects humans. An eco-centric ethic regards nature as deserving moral consideration because of its own intrinsic value. We used moral dilemmas that were structured similarly to G. Hardin's (1968) classic "tragedy of the commons" in which livestock owned by several individuals are grazed on a commons. The results showed that the presence of information about the ecological impact, especially in a more "wild" environment, yielded higher use of eco-centric moral reasoning, whereas the presence of a social commitment yielded higher use of non-environmental reasoning. There were individual differences in type of reasoning, and these differences were statistically predictable from environmental attitudes. One interesting implication is that agricultural land is not regarded as very "natural", at least by our sample of college students. The results have implications for environmental education, as well illuminating different moral viewpoints on land use conflicts.

Scott B. Caldwell, Colleen F. Moore & David H. Ebenbach (1998). Judgment of risk to self versus the environment: Gender differences and environmental attitudes. Presented at the annual convention of the Society for Judgment Decision Making, Dallas, TX. (Senior thesis of Scott B. Caldwell; also winner of a Trewartha Undergraduate Research Fellowship).

Are there gender differences in the perception of environmental risks, and if so, what accounts for thoses differences? In this study we replicated previous findings of gender differences in environmental risk perceptions. We also measured environmental attitudes, and perceived controllability of hazards. The results showed that although there are gender differences in perceived controllability, those differences, as well as the gender differences in perceived risk, are statistically predicted by gender differences in environmental attitudes (but not vice versa). This finding can be interpreted as contradicting the explanation of gender differences in risk perceptions of environmental hazards as due to evolutionary effects due to "reproductive investment".

Heidi Geurkink & Colleen F. Moore (2000). Risk perceptions of crop production methods: Personal health vs environmental risks and willingness-to-pay. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, New Orleans.

Also in progress
Time discounting for environmental expenditures and resources

Most environmental issues involve long time frames, either for creating pollution or resource depletion problem or for taking action to correct it. For example, the ozone hole in the upper atmosphere required release of CFCs for several decades, the severe decline of salmon in the northwest U.S. required decades after dams were built on the Columbia River and other waterways, the clear-cutting of the old growth forests of northern Wisconsin took approximately 3 decades, toxic wastes buried in the 1940s took 2-3 decades to migrate into the ground water. Restoring a natural resource or cleaning up pollution is also a lengthy process.

In environmental economics policy decisions are often strongly influenced by the "discount rate" that is applied. The idea of discounting is the same as interest rates on savings and loans -- you earn interest on savings because in order to forego the use of your money now, you need to get more money later. In general, things

now are worth more than things later. Economists debate the discount rate that is appropriate for environmental expenditures. Many resources (such as clean air) do not have a monetary value determined by the market, and even a small discount rate (say 2%) applied to a project that does not reap benefits for 20 years or more can result in very small estimates of the present value of such projects.

There are also important ethical issues involved time discounting for environmental issues. Future generations of humans stand to benefit or suffer depending on what we do about environmental issues in the present. Most of the non-human life on earth depends on the actions that humans take now with respect to environmental issues. But those of us living now will not benefit directly from actions to reduce emission of greenhouse gases, preserve old growth forests, prevent depletion of fish stocks by commercial fishing, etc.

Our study examines how people equate environmental benefits in the future with environmental benefits obtained now. We are looking for variables that may predict the shape of the discount function, such as how environmental projects are described (positive versus negative description), environmental attitudes, knowledge about environmental issues, economic training, and other personal variables.