The justification of illegal anti-ecological behavior / La justificación del comportamiento anti-ecológico ilegal

Background: Not everyone considers breaches of environmental laws as reprehensible behaviors or to the same extent. Research on the causal explanations of illegal anti-ecological behavior given by individuals is useful to analyze the social support of environmental laws and their consolidation as social and/or personal norms. This study aims to analyze the explanations selected by participants as most likely for environmental transgressions perpetrated by other persons in participants’ surroundings. Method: 573 persons of both genders, aged between 17 and 74 years, living in a setting of high environmental protection answered a questionnaire including seven environmental breaches and 11 scales related to the amount of punishment that they would mete out to perpetrators, and possible causal explanations of the facts being described. Results: Data show that people generally consider illegal anti-ecological behavior as a reflection of the “badness” of perpetrators, but that certain circumstances can lead anyone to behave illegally in environmental terms. Conclusions: These results are discussed comparing participants’ explanations with the explanations given by environmental transgressors in previous studies (AU)

Antecedentes: las transgresiones de las leyes medioambientales son actos que no todo el mundo considera reprensibles, ni en la misma medida. El estudio de las explicaciones que las personas dan ante este comportamiento es útil para analizar el apoyo social que reciben las leyes medioambientales y su consolidación como normas sociales y/o personales. El propósito de este trabajo es analizar las explicaciones que las personas dan a las transgresiones medioambientales llevadas a cabo por otros en su contexto inmediato. Método: 573 personas de ambos sexos, de entre 17 y 74 años, residentes en un contexto de alta protección medioambiental, contestaron a un cuestionario que incluía siete transgresiones medioambientales y 11 escalas de evaluación referidas a la cantidad de castigo que les asignarían a los transgresores y a las posibles explicaciones de los hechos descritos. Resultados: los datos obtenidos ponen de manifiesto que, en general, los participantes consideran que el comportamiento anti-ecológico ilegal es un reflejo de “la maldad” de quien lo realiza, pero que existen circunstancias que pueden llevar a cualquier persona a comportarse ilegalmente en términos medioambientales. Conclusiones: estos resultados se discuten contrastando las explicaciones dadas por los participantes con las dadas por transgresores medioambientales en estudios previos (AU)

The justification of illegal anti-ecological behavior.

BACKGROUND: Not everyone considers breaches of environmental laws as reprehensible behaviors or to the same extent. Research on the causal explanations of illegal anti-ecological behavior given by individuals is useful to analyze the social support of environmental laws and their consolidation as social and/or personal norms. This study aims to analyze the explanations selected by participants as most likely for environmental transgressions perpetrated by other persons in participants' surroundings. METHOD: 573 persons of both genders, aged between 17 and 74 years, living in a setting of high environmental protection answered a questionnaire including seven environmental breaches and 11 scales related to the amount of punishment that they would mete out to perpetrators, and possible causal explanations of the facts being described. RESULTS: Data show that people generally consider illegal anti-ecological behavior as a reflection of the "badness" of perpetrators, but that certain circumstances can lead anyone to behave illegally in environmental terms. CONCLUSIONS: These results are discussed comparing participants' explanations with the explanations given by environmental transgressors in previous studies.