The Environmental Values - A Study on the Students' Perception, Attitudes and Behaviours

In the past 30 years the socio-economic field has gone through both theoretical and practical challenges, being accompanied by new orientations such as the environmental psychology. Since "man" is the pawn to which and for which socio-economic systems get adjusted, we believe it is useful to analyze the position of human thinking and action in relation to the environment given the strong interdependence relationships man-nature. The content elements of the environmental psychology allow the analysis of perceptions towards the environment from the perspective of the benefits and the impact which result from the interaction man-nature. To this aim, we performed a survey on a sample of 308 students in order to identify the level and quality of perception of the environmental values from several points of view: knowledge, attitude and behaviour. The study focused on the perception from the perspective of the involvement in ensuring the functionality of the new bio-psycho-socio-economic systems. The environmental psychology can be a real asset in explaining the relational mechanisms between people and the environment and its values. The main reason why we chose to study this subject was that the implementation of the environmentally-friendly development models is conditioned by the degree of social reception and by the level of knowledge and appreciation of environmental values. The results of the study demonstrated that the socio-demographic differences and the educational background influence the perception of the environment, together with the adoption of a favourable attitude accompanied by a pro-environment behaviour.