Compare methods

	New Ecological Paradigm Scale (NEP)	Risk Perception Survey (Psychometric Paradigm)
Field	Environmental Sociology	Environmental Sociology
Family	Latent structure	Latent structure
Year of origin	2000	1987
Originator	Riley E. Dunlap & Kent D. Van Liere; revised by Dunlap, Van Liere, Mertig & Jones	Baruch Fischhoff & Paul Slovic; Paul Slovic
Type	Psychometric scale of ecological worldview	Survey-and-factor measurement of perceived risk
Seminal source	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.	Slovic, P. (1987). Perception of Risk. Science, 236(4799), 280-285.
Aliases	NEP Scale, Revised NEP Scale, New Environmental Paradigm Scale, Ecological Worldview Scale	Psychometric Paradigm, Perceived Risk Survey, Dread-Unknown Risk Mapping, Slovic Risk Perception Method
Related	3	3
Summary	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.	The risk perception survey, or psychometric paradigm, measures how laypeople intuitively judge the riskiness of hazards by having respondents rate many activities and technologies on a battery of qualitative risk characteristics. Baruch Fischhoff, Paul Slovic, and colleagues introduced the approach in their 1978 study 'How Safe Is Safe Enough?', and Slovic's 1987 Science synthesis 'Perception of Risk' established it as the dominant empirical framework for studying risk attitudes. The central finding is that perceived risk is highly predictable from a handful of qualities — above all how dreaded and how unknown a hazard feels — rather than from expert estimates of expected fatalities. Factor analysis of the characteristic ratings collapses the many attributes into a low-dimensional cognitive map, typically a 'dread' and an 'unknown risk' axis, in which each hazard occupies a position. Where a hazard falls in this space predicts public concern, desired regulation, and acceptance far better than its statistical death toll. The method gave environmental and technological controversy a measurable psychological structure and remains foundational to risk communication.