Is Cultural Assimilation Related to Environmental Attitudes and Behaviors?

Research in environmentalism (Lynch 1993 and Schultz, Unipan, and Gamba 2000) suggests that culture is an important determinant of environmental attitudes. This paper applies ethnic-assimilation theory to analyze intra-cultural differences within the Hispanic cultural group. Results indicated that acculturation was negatively related to environmental attitudes like importance, effort, and inconvenience. These results are contrary to conventional thinking, which posits that environmental concerns are post-materialistic concerns associated with higher levels of economic development and immigrants; especially those coming from developing societies are not likely to have these concerns. These findings also suggest that the design of environmental strategies for ethnic groups must recognize the importance of acculturation and not treat cultural groups as one composite entity.