Conservation concern among Australian undergraduates is associated with childhood socio-cultural experiences

Fostering widespread concern for conservation problems requires a robust understanding of the life experiences that positively contribute to an individual's conservation attitudes and behaviours. However, few studies have assessed a comprehensive range of social and experiential predictors of conservation concern. Using survey responses from 391 undergraduate students enrolled in various course disciplines across Australia, we describe the relationship between five major constructs of early-life experiences and two measures of conservation concern: a preference for conservation career, and positive conservation attitudes. We find that conservation career preferences are positively associated with childhood preferences for nature-related books, movies and school subjects, biospheric family value orientations and environmental volunteering. Conseravtion attitudes were postitively associated with biospheric family value orientations and environmental volunteering. Both constructs were nega...