Attitudes and Values

Through a study done by Stephen Kellert (1980), attitudes, which refers to a way of thinking or feeling about something, can be divided into 10 different groups of basic attitudes towards animals and the environment.

In this section, we will examine people’s attitudes and concerns towards animals and the environment through the use of ecologistic, humanistic and utilitarian attitudes in global context and the negativistic and neutralistic attitude in Singapore context.

The ecologistic attitude is the primary concern for the ecosystem and for the interrelationships between wildlife species and natural habitat. The humanistic attitude is another primary concern and strong affection for individual animals.

Inspecting of the possible causes of CCD has revealed that human’s activities and behaviours are the main contributors to the threats of the honey bees population globally. In a globalized world where people are living in urban jungles with limited natural environmental and wildlife interactions, this may result in these people having a lack of the ecologistic and humanistic attitudes whereby people have limited affection and interest in the relationship of wildlife and their habitats. Therefore, there is a lack of connection between humans and the animals and their natural environment, resulting in the engagement of behaviours that are harmful to the natural environment and which has an impact on the honey bees population.

The utilitarian attitude is the primary concern for the practical and material value of animals and their habitats. This can be seen through the misuse of pesticides, industrial agricultural, urban development and resource extraction which benefits people in terms of monetary and material values but results in habitat loss and pollutions of the natural environment as well as negative impacts on biodiversity such as the honey bees.

In Singapore, the two different attitudes that are more predominant is the negativistic attitude in which people are primarily concerned about avoid animals because of fear and dislike, and the neutralistic attitude, in which people are completely uninterested and are passive avoidance due to the indifference towards animals and the natural environment. This is evident through the handling of the bee hives where the entire colony is killed instead of being relocated. People generally also do not have good impressions of bees and are often very afraid of them. Therefore, it can be inferred that most people in Singapore have very limited connection with the wildlife and their habitats and will tend to avoid them as well.