THE ECOCENTRIC, ANTHROPOCENTRIC AND ANTIPATHHETIC ATTITUDES TOWARD ENVIRONMENT IN TURKISH AND AZERBAIJANI STUDENTS

This study compares the ecocentric, anthropocentric, and antipathetic attitudes of Turkish and Azerbaijani teacher candidates toward the environment. It seeks to determine whether there are differences between the environmental attitudes of the students of these countries. In order to bring to light some of the psychological structures behind their thoughts on the subject, a Turkish translation of the attitude scale is used to determine whether anthropocentric, ecocentric, or nonenvironmental reasoning forms the basis of the attitudes of these individuals toward the environment. The importance of this study lies in its demonstration of a difference in the aforementioned environmental attitudes between these two societies, so commonly thought of as one nation in two states. The results indicate that there is a statistically significant difference between the groups in terms of ecocentric, anthropocentric, and antipathetic attitudes toward the environment. It is thought that the underlying cause of this difference lies in a discrepancy between the two societiesʹ environmental consciousnesses. In the present study, the Cronbach alpha of the survey used for Turkish teacher candidates is found to be .85, while the Cronbach alpha of the survey used for Azerbaijani teacher candidates is .74.