Pampel Fred C, Hunter Lori M
University of Colorado, Boulder.
AJS. 2012 Sep 1;118(2):420-448. doi: 10.1086/666506.
The long-standing and sometimes heated debates over the direction and size of the effect of socioeconomic status (SES) on environmental concern contrast post-materialist and affluence arguments, suggesting a positive relationship in high-income nations, with counter arguments for a negative or near zero relationship. A diffusion-of-innovations approach adapts parts of both arguments by predicting that high SES groups first adopt pro-environmental views, which produces a positive relationship. Like other innovations, however, environmentalism diffuses over time to other SES groups, which subsequently weakens the association. We test this argument using the General Social Survey from 1973 to 2008 to compare support for environmental spending across 83 cohorts born from around 1900 to 1982. In developing attitudes before, during, and after the emergence of environmentalism, varying cohorts provide the contrast needed to identify long-term changes in environmental concern. Multilevel age, period, and cohort models support diffusion arguments by demonstrating the effects, across cohorts, of three common indicators of SES - education, income and occupational prestige - first strengthen and then weaken. This finding suggests that diffusion of environmental concern first produces positive relationships consistent with postmaterialism arguments and later produces null or negative relationships consistent with global environmentalism arguments.
关于社会经济地位（SES）对环境关切的影响方向和程度，长期以来存在着激烈的争论，后物质主义论点与富裕论点形成了对比，表明在高收入国家存在正相关关系，也有观点认为存在负相关或接近零的关系。创新扩散理论通过预测高社会经济地位群体首先采纳亲环境观点来调和这两种论点，这会产生正相关关系。然而，与其他创新一样，环保主义会随着时间推移扩散到其他社会经济地位群体，从而削弱这种关联。我们使用1973年至2008年的综合社会调查来检验这一论点，比较了出生于1900年左右至1982年的83个队列对环境支出的支持情况。在环保主义出现之前、期间和之后形成态度的过程中，不同队列提供了识别环境关切长期变化所需的对比。多层次年龄、时期和队列模型通过证明社会经济地位的三个常见指标——教育、收入和职业声望——在各队列中的影响先增强后减弱，支持了扩散论点。这一发现表明，环境关切的扩散首先产生与后物质主义论点一致的正相关关系，随后产生与全球环保主义论点一致的零相关或负相关关系。
