I personally found career smart rather time wasting for our Psychology tutorials and free time, as it did not teach me anything new about career choices, interests, myself or the work force in which I am interested in. Careersmart continually gave me career options that ‘matched’ my interests and values which were professor jobs which is one I’d never want nor consider.

In saying all of that, I did learn more about forensic psychology, but I was already interested in that subject as it is. This being mandatory I find silly.

The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes by Matthew Feinburg and Robb Willer aims to investigate the environmental attitudes among American’s and why they’re so ‘polarized’. Five studies were organised and conducted on both the liberal and conservative political party’s morality and attitude applied to the environment and the affiliation between the political ideology and environmental attitudes.

Within moral foundations and political attitudes, Haidt and Josephs found (with supporting evidence from the study of morality within individuals and cultures) five crucial domains of human morality which have been identified as: “harm/care”, “fairness/reciprocity”, “in-group/loyalty”, “authority/respect”, and “purity/sanctity”.

Studies 1a and 1b aimed to investigate the difference of moral and non-moral attitudes towards the environment depending whether they’re liberal or conservative. The scholars believed liberals would see the environment in a moral aspect therefore environmental stance is significant in comparison to conservatives.

 The results proved their hypothesis and saw that conservatives therefore don’t see the environment in a moral way, hence the difference of pro-environmental attitudes from the liberals.

Study 2 was looking at the ‘why’. Why do liberals see the environment morally speaking, where conservatives do not? That is what study 2 is aiming to understand, using one of the crucial domains of human morality; harm/care which is the concern of the safety and care for other people. They are also specifically looking at newspapers, and public announcements within the media.

The results of study 2 found that within the media chosen, the primary domain of human morality seen was the harm/care domain. It also suggested that pro-environmental attitudes can be fostered to the conservatives if the moral persuasion was in the domain more closely affective for conservatives rather than liberals (this is study 3).

Study 3 investigates whether approaching conservatives with pro-environmental messages within the domain of purity/sanctity, would boost their attitudes of pro-environmentalism.

The results found that the exposure to messages in the purity/sanctity approach to pro-environmentalism encouraged feelings of disgust among individuals within this domain rather than the harm/care domain. therefore, the hypothesis was proved correct.

This experiment of the morality of environmental attitudes was in-depth and accurate to their hypothesis. They followed a theoretical framework, and continually referred to their aim and hypothesis which is what a productive and academic research paper does. They therefore concluded that experiments 1a and 1b illustrate the political ideology on environmental attitudes, and study 2 and 3 supported their hypothesis.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton