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	Energy Cultures Framework	New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP)
Field	Environmental Sociology	Environmental Sociology
Family	Process / pipeline	Latent structure
Year of origin	2010	2000
Originator	Janet Stephenson and colleagues (University of Otago)	Riley E. Dunlap & Kent D. Van Liere; revised by Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig & Jones
Type	Interdisciplinary framework linking norms, practices, and material culture	Psychometric scale of ecological worldview
Seminal source	Stephenson, J., Barton, B., Carrington, G., Gnoth, D., Lawson, R., & Thorsnes, P. (2010). Energy cultures: A framework for understanding energy behaviours. Energy Policy, 38(10), 6120-6129.	Dunlap, R. E., Van Liere, K. D., Mertig, A. G., & Jones, R. E. (2000). New Trends in Measuring Environmental Attitudes: Measuring Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised NEP Scale. Journal of Social Issues, 56(3), 425-442.
Aliases	Energy Cultures Model, Stephenson Energy Cultures Framework, Norms-Material-Practices Energy Framework, Energy Behaviour Cultures Approach	NEP Scale, Revised NEP Scale, New Environmental Paradigm Scale, Ecological Worldview Scale
Related	4	3
Summary	The Energy Cultures Framework is an interdisciplinary tool for understanding why people, households, and organizations use energy as they do, and how that behaviour might change. Developed by Janet Stephenson and colleagues at the University of Otago and published in Energy Policy in 2010, it models energy behaviour as the dynamic interaction of three elements: cognitive norms (what actors believe and expect about energy), energy practices (what they actually do), and material culture (the technologies, buildings, and appliances they possess). These three reinforce one another, tending to lock an actor into a stable 'energy culture,' and they are shaped by external influences such as prices, policy, infrastructure, and markets that lie beyond the actor's immediate control. The framework was designed as a pragmatic bridge between psychological models that emphasize attitudes and sociological practice theories that emphasize routines and materials. Its purpose is both to explain entrenched energy behaviour and to identify where interventions can break a self-reinforcing pattern. It is widely used in energy-policy and behaviour-change research.	The New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale is the most widely used survey instrument for measuring an individual's general ecological worldview — the degree to which they see humanity as part of, and constrained by, a fragile and finite natural environment. Riley Dunlap and Kent Van Liere introduced the original New Environmental Paradigm in 1978 to capture the emerging post-materialist environmental consciousness, and Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig, and Jones published the revised 15-item NEP scale in 2000, broadening its content and balancing pro- and anti-ecological items. Respondents rate agreement with statements about the balance of nature, limits to growth, anti-anthropocentrism, the fragility of nature's balance, and the possibility of an ecological crisis. Summing the balanced items yields a score of how strongly a person endorses an ecological versus a dominant social paradigm. The scale functions as a foundational worldview measure that predicts more specific environmental beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors, and it anchors much of quantitative environmental sociology.