Beliefs and values regarding society and nature: A framework for listening in forest and environmental policy

Americans have come to hold a variety of beliefs about the relationship between society and nature. The traditional paradigm of preservation vs. development may therefore impede understanding of current controversies over U.S. forest policy and other related areas of natural resource and environmental policy. This study was planned to define a new, fuller framework of belief types for understanding these conflicts.; The study employed Q methodology, applied to a sample of the forest policy participatory public in Connecticut, including forestland owners, government officials, conservation leaders, members of forest industry, academicians/scientists, and concerned citizens, during the spring of 1989. From this segment of the public, 512 persons (ten times the number required based on an estimated ten percent response rate) were solicited, of whom 295 (58 percent) agreed to complete a mail-back questionnaire, and 189 (37 percent) submitted acceptable responses.; Each respondent sorted a deck of 60 cards containing statements on forest policy into a forced normal distribution along a scale of most to least characteristic of the respondent's viewpoint. These Q-sorts provided objective records of the respondents' subjective beliefs. Factor analysis revealed five significantly distinct factors or belief types: nature-as-a-community (harmonious relationships), sustainable development (rational management), personal growth (individual choice), self-reliance (wise management), and collective action. No person was a pure example of any belief type; each person held each belief to some degree. Those persons whose Q-sorts correlated most highly with two or more belief type were identified as "harmonizers."; Each respondent also ranked the 18 terminal and 18 instrumental values listed in the Rokeach Value Survey. None of the Rokeach values was a significant predictor of or discriminator between the belief types.; Suggestions for further research include selected replications over time and in other regions and development of Likert-type opinion statements for use in large-scale surveys.