The structure and correlates of anthropocentrism as a psychological construct

In the debate concerning environmental protection issues there is a clash between the positions held by the advocates of anthropocentric and eco-bio-centric environmental ethics. Although wildlife conservators criticize anthropocentrism as the main cause behind the ecological crisis, (1) its structure as a psychological construct underlying the anthropocentric orientation is unclear and (2) there is no psychometrically adequate measure of anthropocentrism that would allow for determining its relations to other constructs. To fill this gap, we conducted two studies. The concept of anthropocentrism, understood as including the finalistic, metaphysical, epistemological, and axiological aspects distinguished in the philosophical debate, was operationalized as the Anthropocentric Beliefs Scale (ABS). Confirmatory factor analyses (CFA) of the results of Studies 1 and 2 showed that anthropocentrism was a one-dimensional construct. Study 2 also revealed that it was negatively related to environmental attitudes and positively related to negative attitudes toward robots, centrality of religiosity, and right-wing authoritarianism. The construct validity and measurement reliability of the ABS were supported.