General Social Survey and Sustainable Development. Methodological and Empirical Aspects

Many large national research projects lack variables that would make it possible to monitor environmental attitudes on a regular basis. The General Social Survey (GSS), an American research program, can serve as an example of a good solution in this regard. The GSS surveys have used several variables at intervals of just a few years to measure environmental attitudes across time. The main aim of this article is to analyse these variables and show how they can be employed in other studies. Secondly, the article aims at presenting attitudes towards environment protection in contemporary American society on the basis of the 2014 GSS data. Variables describing the individuals’ position in the social structure, such as income and occupational prestige score, turn out to have no influence on their environmental attitudes. By contrast, education and most of all age, are the most important characteristics that affect how strongly respondents feel about the need to protect the natural environment.