Exploring worldviews and their relationships to sustainable lifestyles: Towards a new conceptual and methodological approach

In the global debate on sustainable development, there appears to be a growing recognition of the crucial importance of worldviews vis-à-vis the urgently needed transition to an ecological economy and society. This study therefore aims to support (survey) research exploring worldviews and their complex relationships to sustainable lifestyles. I do this by analyzing and critically challenging existing measures such as the New Environmental Paradigm, and by developing a new conceptual and methodological approach. First, a review of multiple survey-approaches, stemming from different disciplinary and theoretical traditions, is conducted. This results in a meta-analysis of their strengths and weaknesses. On this basis it is concluded that a more optimal approach should be comprehensive and systematic, measure structural worldview-beliefs, and be able to account for human and cultural development. Then, the Integrative Worldview Framework (IWF) is proposed in order to support such a systematic, comprehensive, structural, and dynamic operationalization of the worldview-construct. In this way, a conceptually and methodologically innovative approach to exploring worldviews and their relationship to sustainable behaviors is developed. © 2012 Elsevier B.V.