Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behavior-A Comparison of Thailand and Japan-

Atsuko Kuribayashi

Introduction

The treatment of environmental problems has moved beyond awareness to action. The govern-ment， industry， NGOs， and individuals are engaged in different capacities. In addition， troubling new issues have surfaced such as environmental hormones and dioxin. Nonetheless， the general public is presently more preoccupied with the prolonged recession. Indeed， even though re-duced consumption has been recognized as crucial to the solution of environmental problems， both the government and business are seeking ways to stimulate personal consumption to revive the economy.

Following the "Survey of the Eco-Life of Urban Dwellers" in 1993， 1 NLI Research Institute conducted an annual "Survey of Pro-Environment Life-styles" for the past three years.2 These surveys emphasize the need to analyze personal attitudes and life-styles in successfully imple-menting policies to promote pro-environmental action at the individual level.3

In recent years， international attention has focused on social science research examining the human causes and impacts of global environmental change. As one researcher explains: "Re-search in the natural sciences is clarifying what needs to be done regarding global environmen-tal problems. Now informed opinions are being sought from the social sciences on how to deal with these problems."4 This approach has been the topic of a series of Open Meetings of the Human Dimensions of Global Environmental Change Research Community held at Duke Uni-versity in 1995， Austria's International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in 1997， and Shonan-mura， Kanagawa-ken next June.5

This paper compares environmental behaviors and attitudes among individuals in Japan andThailand based on identical surveys conducted in 1997 in Bangkok， Thailand and Japan nation-wide.6， 7 We analyze the relationship between pro-environmental behavior and attitudes，8 and describe the value structure of Bangkok residents， whose interest in environmental preservation remained strong despite an ongoing financial crisis.