| This study explored two qualitatively different ways Christian environmental awareness is formed---as a function of shared beliefs (ideology), and as related to psychological development of meaning-making (epistemology). Extreme sampling (N = 52) was used to gather data from a diverse group of adult Christians who were given a modified version of Dunlap and Van Liere's (1978) New Environmental Paradigm scale (M-NEP) and an environmental behavior checklist. A subgroup (N = 12) that shared a pro-environmental consensus participated in semistructured interviews (ideology). Subject/object interviews assessed these participants' psychological development of meaning making (epistemology).; Factor analysis of the M-NEP scale suggested participants' environmental worldviews were distinguished by different perceptions of the impact of human beings on the environment, by an inclination to firstly endorse social dominance or alternatively, firstly nurture people and nature, and by the perceived need for structural changes in broad social and political systems. From content analysis, four conceptual patterns (evil, critical direction, extremism, and natural order) emerged. The patterns were interpreted within Lakoff's (1996) framework for liberal and conservative worldviews and compared with participants' psychological development of meaning making.; In spite of their initial expression of pro-environmental beliefs, participants with less complex meaning-making were not able to epistemologically construct descriptions of human interference in the natural world. Nor could they discern in their ideology the implicit functions of social and political systems in forming their environmental worldviews. These limitations left those participants particularly vulnerable to broad systematic efforts that willfully distort environmental information in the service of ideology.; Results suggest Kegan's (1994) fourth order meaning-making is a positive feature of pro-environmental awareness but does not assure its presence. A conceptual moral framework, which affirms social interdependence and innate human goodness, and binds these concepts to responsibility for the natural world, seemed to be the most significant contribution.; Lakoff's (1996) model of "strict father" morality allowed for an interpretation of the simplistic anti-environmentalism expressed with less psychological complexity. His model of "nurturant parent" morality indicates how research participants compensated for less complexity in meaning-making through endorsing a broader environmental perspective that did not exist within their subject/object experiences. |
