Understanding Ecological Concern, Values, Identity and Other Drivers of Public Engagement and Support for Environmental Protection and Ecological Restoration

Over the last 50 years, social scientists and other human dimensions researchers, have conceptualized and operationalized a variety of constructs, measures, and models that helped us better understand ways to identify collective and individual behaviors and practices that could mitigate environmental impacts and improve the health of socio-ecological systems. This chapter builds upon and extends this research by examining theoretical and conceptual issues related to constructs and models used to understand environmental concern, values, identity and other drivers of public engagement and support for environmental protection and ecological restoration. In doing so, it identifies some of the conceptual, theoretical and methodological barriers inherent within this body of research and how researchers and policy managers can move beyond them in order to more fully understand and respond to climate change, crop toxicity, zoonotic diseases and other socio-ecological challenges facing humans in the 21st century.