Validating the Campbell paradigm as an alternative to the NEP scale for measuring environmental attitude in China

The New Ecological/Environmental Paradigm (NEP) scale is the most popular environmental attitude instrument in the world, including China, but it still suffers from two problems. Conceptually, the conceptualization of the NEP scale is ambiguous. This scale has been used to measure not only people’s environmental attitudes/concerns but also many other constructs. Empirically, in its long application history, the NEP scale has often failed to show the hypothesized unidimensional structure. In contrast, the Campbell paradigm, formalized as the Rasch model, is expected to avoid both problems due to its unique behavior-based perspective of not rigorously focusing on item conceptualization and its technical advantage of separating difficulty parameters. Therefore, the main goal of this study is to validate the applicability of the Campbell paradigm as an alternative to the NEP scale for measuring environmental attitude in China. We constructed and tested a Campbellian environmental attitude measure consisting of 21 behavioral self-report items. The results showed that this measure had reasonable reliability, fit, unidimensionality, and construct validity, thus positioning it as a viable new attitude measure for future research in China. Furthermore, the Chinese New Environmental Paradigm (CNEP) scale could be included in our measure to form a well-performing combined measure under the Campbell paradigm, suggesting the paradigm’s ability to redescribe and integrate diversified NEP-based studies. Meanwhile, this inclusion also revealed the potential limitation of the CNEP scale being overly easy. Finally, the implications for the inner dimension of sustainability transformation and the promotion of ecological civilization in China are discussed.