4.6 Article

Environmental Concern and Urbanization in India: Towards Psychological Complexity

Journal

SUSTAINABILITY
Volume 12, Issue 24, Pages -

Publisher

MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/su122410402

Keywords

environmental concern; Global South; social-ecological systems; spatial instrument; urbanization; urban psychology

Funding

  1. German Research Foundation (DFG) [WO 1470/3-1, FOR2432/1]
  2. Open Access Publication Funds of the Gottingen University

Ask authors/readers for more resources

Urbanizing social-ecological systems often experience environmental degradation, especially in the Global South. Traditional urban psychology has attributed this to decreasing environmental concern due to weakening connections to nature. However, urban psychological research has barely considered how predictions may improve when including psychological complexity, exemplified by context, in the urbanization-concern link. In this work, we test for sensitivity of a loss of nature connection to cultural context, for substitution by additional southern urban features, and for the emergence of aggregate preferences based on the feedback between these mediators in regard to the overall relationship. Our structural equations model is calibrated using original survey data from the globalized southern megacity Bangalore, India. The spatial explicitness of our data allows for representative sampling from its rich urban variation. Spatial lags of exogenous variables provide instrumental variables to control for endogeneity arising from feedback. The results suggest that modernization-induced value change is the main policy leverage that facilitates pro-environmental preferences within a uniquely Indian interplay of various urban psychological effects.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.6
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available