TY - CHAP
T1 - The New Ecological Paradigm, Functional Stupidity and University Sustainability
T2 - A Polish Case Study
AU - Platje, Johannes
AU - Motylska-Kuzma, Anna
AU - Caniels, Marjolein
AU - Will, Markus
PY - 2023/1/20
Y1 - 2023/1/20
N2 - The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) reflects fragility in nature, limits to growth and the perceived ability of mankind to deal with all kinds of challenges to sustainable development. Functional Stupidity (FS) concerns the willingness to use and apply knowledge, while being able to go beyond short-term, myopic goals. Both concepts bear on the capacity to create a policy for and redefine goals for sustainable development. This study aims to provide a picture of the adherence to the New Ecological Paradigm and the level of Functional Stupidity of a group of business and economics students. By means of a survey and a teaching intervention, data was gathered among Polish business and economics students (N = 428) in April-May 2019. Fuzzy logic was found suitable to analyse the data, as worldviews tend to be general and imprecise. The results show that worldviews of the students are very similar and do not depend on specific characteristic like gender, employment, etc. The only one exception is the direction of the study, which show little influence on the specific view. Interestingly, the teaching intervention does not change specific views. The lack of reflection and justification, as well as the belief in unlimited growth, may lead students to believe that human intervention, when using a system approach, can prevent different types of adverse side effects. Adherence to the New Ecological Paradigm is neutral or positive.
AB - The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) reflects fragility in nature, limits to growth and the perceived ability of mankind to deal with all kinds of challenges to sustainable development. Functional Stupidity (FS) concerns the willingness to use and apply knowledge, while being able to go beyond short-term, myopic goals. Both concepts bear on the capacity to create a policy for and redefine goals for sustainable development. This study aims to provide a picture of the adherence to the New Ecological Paradigm and the level of Functional Stupidity of a group of business and economics students. By means of a survey and a teaching intervention, data was gathered among Polish business and economics students (N = 428) in April-May 2019. Fuzzy logic was found suitable to analyse the data, as worldviews tend to be general and imprecise. The results show that worldviews of the students are very similar and do not depend on specific characteristic like gender, employment, etc. The only one exception is the direction of the study, which show little influence on the specific view. Interestingly, the teaching intervention does not change specific views. The lack of reflection and justification, as well as the belief in unlimited growth, may lead students to believe that human intervention, when using a system approach, can prevent different types of adverse side effects. Adherence to the New Ecological Paradigm is neutral or positive.
KW - Economics of information
KW - Education for sustainable development
KW - Functional stupidity
KW - Fuzzy logic
KW - New ecological paradigm
U2 - 10.1007/978-3-662-66597-8_7
DO - 10.1007/978-3-662-66597-8_7
M3 - Chapter
SN - 9783662665961
VL - 13750
T3 - Lecture Notes in Computer Science
SP - 117
EP - 135
BT - Transactions on Computational Collective Intelligence XXXVII
A2 - Ngoc Thanh Nguyen,
A2 - Ryszard Kowalczyk,
A2 - Jacek Mercik,
A2 - Anna Motylska-Kuźma,
PB - Springer
ER -