Date of Award

5-2019

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Sociology

First Advisor

Andrew Lindner

Abstract

Is community size tied to attitude towards environmental spending? Previous research has shown that whether one lives in an urban, suburban, or rural setting affects one’s environmental spending views and behaviors. I propose that living in an urban setting causes one to believe that the United States government is spending too little on the protection and improvement of the environment. Using 1,240 responses from interviews conducted in the 2016 General Social Survey, regression analyses were conducted to determine the relationship between community size and environmental spending views while controlling for political view, family income, and years of education completed. The results from the bivariate analysis show no correlation between community size and environmental spending views, but a weak, positive correlation between political views and environmental spending views, suggesting that identifying as liberal is what drives environmental spending views. Additionally, bivariate results show a very weak, positive correlation between highest year of school completed and environmental spending views. In the multivariate results, this relationship disappeared, but political view remained a statistically significant variable on environmental spending views. These results do not support my hypothesis, though they challenge much of the literature on the subject. Future research should further explore sociological determinants of environmental spending views such as political view, and examine the waning of the community size effect.

DOI

10.31235/osf.io/5rkum

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