GLOBAL CHANGES AND LOCAL ACCIDENTS - CONSISTENCY IN ATTRIBUTIONS FOR ENVIRONMENTAL-EFFECTS

A questionnaire concerning environmental issues was administered to 46 2 tourists visiting beaches in southwestern England. One set of items concerned the greenhouse effect, and measured the extent to which glob al warming was seen as attributable to individual behavior or corporat e industrial activity, controllable by changes in behavior and policy, and having an immediate impact on the local climate. Other items conc erned a recent shipping accident that had resulted in oil pollution of beaches in the region. Attributing the greenhouse effect to individua l or corporate behavior, and interpreting climatic events as signs of this effect, were associated with a belief that the consequences of gl obal warming could be disastrous, but also controllable through intern ational and/or individual action. These responses covaried significant ly with those concerning the oil spillage. Thus, greater perceptions o f the urgency of dealing with global warming were associated with more negative views of the impact of the oil spillage, and with a greater tendency to attribute the shipping accident as due to bad seamanship, rather than chance. Those who saw individual behavior as contributing to the greenhouse effect were more likely to attribute the accident to bad seamanship, whereas those who felt that ordinary people could do little to stop the effects of global warming regarded the accident as one which could have happened to any tanker. It is suggested that cros s-situational consistencies in attributional style and normative belie fs may contribute to associations between attitudes on distinct enviro nmental issues.