What is valued in resolving environmental dilemmas: Individual and contextual influences

Justice is an increasingly important concept to examine with regard to decisions about environmental conflicts. But justice can be defined in a number of ways. This paper argues that the perceived importance of different principles of justice to environmental decisions is affected by the position argued, by contextual manipulations, and by individual difference variables. Literature is reviewed in support of the first of these points, suggesting that environmentalism is more congenial than antienvironmentalism to macrojustice principles. Data are presented to show that the way in which a conflict is described, in general or specific terms, affects the perceived importance of some justice principles, and that subject gender and environmental ideology are also related.