Natural and urban environments determining environmental beliefs and behaviours, economic thought and happiness / Ambientes naturales y urbanos determinan creencias y comportamientos ambientales, el pensamiento económico y la felicidad

Abstract

Abstract This article compares attitudes and pro-environmental behaviour, liberal economic thinking, happiness and favourability to the construction of nuclear power plants in two physical and cultural contrasting Chilean territories — one of them insular, predominantly natural or rural (Easter Island) and the other continental, eminently urban (Talca). It examines 145 adult participants (57.2% continental) of both sexes (66.2% women), who answered the NEP-R on environmental attitudes, the Ecological Behaviour Scale (EBS), the Economic Liberalism Scale (ECOL), the Subjective Happiness Scale (SHS) and a question on the agreement of the construction of nuclear power plants. Insular participants report greener behaviour and happiness than their continental peers, while the latter ones tend to show more positive attitudes towards the environment and more liberal economic thought. In both territories, adults over 30 years old report more ecological behaviours than youth, and continental adults have a more pronounced liberal economic thinking than their insular peers, but this difference vanishes among young people. The results are discussed regarding the literature on the effect of culture on thinking, attitudes and behaviour.