Representación social del ser humano versus naturaleza y su relación con las creencias medioambientales

Abstract

This study analyses the content of beliefs about the relationship between people and their environment, combining an attitudinal perspective with a social representation approach. In this regard, the main objective is to determine whether the relationship between human beings and the environment has a different social representation for those who have a biospheric approach towards the relationship and value nature for its own intrinsic worth, than it has for those with an anthropocentric belief, who consider nature for its contribution towards improving the quality of human life. The results obtained from a sample consisting of participants from Madrid, Toledo and towns of Toledo province, showed that those who scored highly on biospherism evaluated the positive aspects of nature differently, as expected. Correspondingly, the anthropocentric scale generated results in the expected way: Participants who scored highly on anthropocentrism evaluated human beings using adjectives with moral connotations, which were not employed by those with low scores on this scale