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The impact of parenthood on environmental attitudes and behaviour: a longitudinal investigation of the legacy hypothesis

Overview of attention for article published in Population and Environment, December 2017
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About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • Among the highest-scoring outputs from this source (#13 of 363)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (97th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
4 news outlets
twitter
93 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
55 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
155 Mendeley
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Title
The impact of parenthood on environmental attitudes and behaviour: a longitudinal investigation of the legacy hypothesis
Published in
Population and Environment, December 2017
DOI 10.1007/s11111-017-0291-1
Pubmed ID
Authors

Gregory O. Thomas, Rose Fisher, Lorraine Whitmarsh, Taciano L. Milfont, Wouter Poortinga

Abstract

Willingness to engage in sustainable actions may be limited by the psychological distance of climate change. In this study, we test the legacy hypothesis, which holds that having children leads parents to consider the legacy left to offspring in respect of environmental quality. Using the Understanding Society dataset, a longitudinal survey representative of the UK population (n = 18,176), we assess how having children may change people's individual environmental attitudes and behaviour. Results indicate that having a new child is associated with a small decrease in the frequency of a few environmental behaviours. Only parents with already high environmental concern show a small increase in the desire to act more sustainably after the birth of their first child. Overall, the results do not provide evidence in support of the legacy hypothesis in terms of individual-level environmental attitudes and behaviours. We argue that the transition to parenthood is a time where concern is prioritised on the immediate wellbeing of the child and not on the future environmental threats.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 93 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 155 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 155 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 25 16%
Student > Bachelor 14 9%
Researcher 12 8%
Student > Ph. D. Student 11 7%
Student > Doctoral Student 9 6%
Other 29 19%
Unknown 55 35%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Social Sciences 27 17%
Psychology 23 15%
Environmental Science 9 6%
Business, Management and Accounting 8 5%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 5 3%
Other 18 12%
Unknown 65 42%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 95. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 15 November 2023.
All research outputs
#458,116
of 25,784,004 outputs
Outputs from Population and Environment
#13
of 363 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#10,335
of 448,701 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Population and Environment
#1
of 3 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,784,004 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 98th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 363 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 15.2. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 448,701 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 97% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 3 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than all of them