Rethinking environmental values in psychology from the perspective of anthropocentrism

Inspired by the concept of anthropocentrism, this research revisited the psychology of environmental values by challenging two widely held assumptions. First, we evaluated whether it is appropriate to categorize two self-focused values, egoistic and hedonic, as anti-environmental. To do so, we analyzed their correlations with biospheric value. Second, we explored whether biospheric value accurately represents people's intrinsic valuation of the environment, as originally theorized. This was investigated by examining the moderating effect of an anthropocentric worldview on the relationships between three human-focused values—egoistic, hedonic, and altruistic—and biospheric value. Using data from two waves of the World Values Survey (Studies 1a and 1 b), 1008 U.S. participants (Study 2), and 300 U.S. participants (Study 3), we provided robust and largely replicable evidence demonstrating that the two self-focused values were positively correlated with biospheric value. Furthermore, in Study 3, we found that these associations were positively mediated by egoistic environmental motives. Additionally, we observed that an anthropocentric worldview moderated the relationships between human-focused values and biospheric value, with stronger positive associations evident among individuals with a pronounced anthropocentric worldview. These findings suggest that the pro-environmental potential of self-focused values has been neglected in prior discussions. Moreover, this research underscores the ambiguous nature of current biospheric value measurements, which may capture either instrumental or intrinsic valuations of the environment depending on participants' worldviews. These results call for a new approach to conceptualizing and measuring environmental values, one that recognizes and incorporates the diverse ways the environment contributes to human well-being. Copyright © 2025 Elsevier Ltd. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies.