Early-Life Outdoor Experiences and an Individual's Environmental Attitudes

This study investigated the effects of early-life experiences on an individual's environmental beliefs. Data from a survey of 533 university undergraduate students from 20 areas of academic study were analyzed using sequential regression to determine the degree to which current environmental beliefs could be explained by early childhood experiences. Results showed that four of the seven independent variables (appreciative outdoor activities, consumptive outdoor activities, media exposure, and witnessing negative environmental events) explained 14% of the variance in the eco-centric/anthropocentric beliefs. Three of the independent variables (early-life participation in mechanized outdoor activities, education, and involvement with organizations) were not significant predictors of eco-centric/anthropocentric beliefs. Implications for research and practice were discussed.     

UNEMPLOYMENT AND CONSUMPTION

In this paper we argue that the aggregate unemployment rateis a valuable measure of aggregate income uncertainty. Accordingto the theory of precautionary saving, an increase in incomeuncertainty would be expected to increase saving. We use U.S.quarterly data on the consumption of motor vehicles first toexamine whether unemployment has a negative effect on consumptionand then to differentiate between the various explanations forthis phenomenon. We conclude that the negative relationshipbetween unemployment and consumption is due in large part toprecautionary saving motives.     

Managing the economy,managing the people: Britain c.1931–701

The rise and consolidation of national economic management is one of the key themes of British economic and political history in the middle decades of the twentieth century. This article seeks to complement the existing substantial literature focused upon elite economic policy‐making processes with an analysis of how that economic management has been accompanied by persistent government attempts to develop and popularize new understandings of 'the economy'. In this way, governments were involved in a profound shift in their relationship with the wider society, as they sought to shape the beliefs and behaviour of producers, consumers, and the public in general. The article attempts to link the elite discourse of national economic management to the attempts to shape popular understandings about the economy, and the (problematic) impact of these understandings on behaviour. The particular focus is on the 1960s, when these attempts reached some kind of culmination.     

Material and moral resources: the 1984–5 miners' strike in Scotland

This article contributes to debates about the economic framework of industrial politics by examining aspects of the 1984–5 miners' strike in Britain, focusing on developments in Scotland. It focuses on strike endurance and pit‐level variations in strike endurance by examining the contrasting quantity and quality of the material and moral resources available to the strikers at different collieries and in different communities. Powerful local variables in building or inhibiting strike commitment included pre‐strike pit‐level production, industrial relations, and the impact of debates about the economics and finances of coal‐getting; incomes gained for households during the strike by married women in part‐time and full‐time employment; expenditure saved by households in local authority housing where rents were in effect deferred by sympathetic local authorities; communal attitudes to pits, jobs, and redundancies; the character and weight of political tradition; and the cultural as well as economic role of women. By focusing on developments at community and colliery level the article challenges dominant narratives of the strike, which remain wedded to high politics, the strategy of the union leadership, changes in energy supply and policy, and public order.