Keywords

green building, sustainable development, source cues, new urbanism, heuristic processing, semantics

Abstract

Research on public support for green building has, to date, been incomplete. Understanding the demographics of individuals that support green building has remained secondary to merely determining real opinions on the topic. The identity of supporters and the motivation behind their support is the focus of this research. Specifically, is support for green building dependent on the way in which the issue is framed? This research aims to focus on those that are spreading the message about green building, industry experts, and the mass public. By exposing how green building experts talk about the issue, we may begin to understand why public support for green building has yet to reach the kind of mainstream acceptance other planning and design techniques have,such as New Urbanism. I predict that green building experts perceived low levels of public awareness, with the exception of those within the Northwest region, which I believ will perceive higher levels of awareness. In addition, I assume that industry experts will be most focused on energy efficiency as a primary concept of green building. As for the public, I hypothesize that those aware of green building and individuals age 50 and older will be more likely to support green building. With the introduction of source cues, I expect that support for green building will decrease when respondents received either an environmentalism cue or a government program cue. Using survey instruments, I was able to determine that all green building experts perceive public awareness as low and do, in fact, focus their efforts on energy efficiency. With regards to the public, support was highest among those that are aware, as well as those age 50 and older. In addition, insertion of source cues decreased support for green building, with the government program source cue providing the lowest levels of support for green building.

Notes

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Graduation Date

2005

Semester

Summer

Advisor

Schraufnagel, Scot

Degree

Master of Arts (M.A.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Political Science

Degree Program

Political Science

Format

application/pdf

Identifier

CFE0000600

URL

http://purl.fcla.edu/fcla/etd/CFE0000600

Language

English

Release Date

August 2005

Length of Campus-only Access

None

Access Status

Masters Thesis (Open Access)

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