[pilot] EcoTypes Overview

As of March 2023, we are piloting a brand new EcoTypes survey: please try it! You can offer feedback via our question form, or by entering your email at the end of the survey. Here is some basic info on the new pilot EcoTypes survey, and to understand the survey report you receive upon completion.

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Take the pilot EcoTypes survey

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Background | EcoTypes | Themes & Axes | Priorities

Background

EcoTypes explores the environmental possibility that many care, just differently. The new, pilot EcoTypes survey offers a way to explore more difference among more people. Here is some background, followed by a summary of the new EcoTypes. Much fuller information will follow in an book!—estimated publication 2024.

Since the EcoTypes initiative was launched in 2017 by Prof. Jim Proctor of Lewis & Clark College, the EcoTypes survey has been completed over 10,000 times. Like earlier versions, the current survey assigns EcoTypes based on the most common responses. As an educational initiative, the survey has primarily been completed by undergraduate college students, mostly in U.S. institutions of higher education. Thus, there are eight EcoTypes at present, largely reflecting differences among these students in Place, Knowledge, and Action theme scores.

The pilot EcoTypes survey is, in most ways, the same as past surveys; but your EcoType derived from the survey is simpler, and assumes a wider range of responses from everyone, not just students. It’s based on the same axes and themes, and your EcoType is derived from your theme scores as always. But it is also based on relevant global research such as the World Values Survey (WVS), from which we have a basic understanding of how people differ around the world.

Here, for instance, is a figure from the WVS comparing people from countries around the world in terms of two main underlying characteristics. Though the WVS does not embody the same theory and learning intent of EcoTypes, the “traditional vs. secular values” axis on the figure has some resonance with the EcoTypes Knowledge theme.

What will we learn from this new, as-of-now pilot EcoTypes survey? We don’t yet know, but we hope to observe, and honor, even greater differences of environmental worldviews: the differing ways we broadly approach issues of environment.

Difference is a reality in our world, and often the source of bitter conflict, preventing genuine environmental progress. Can we work with difference as a resource for, not an obstacle to, environmental progress? That is our ultimate hope via EcoTypes.

Four EcoTypes

Traditional Ways | Technoprogress | Earth Spirit | Ecoscience | (S) / (B)

Check out eight personae exemplifying these EcoTypes!

Consider three very broad questions:

• (Place) What is the place of nonhumans and humans on Earth?
• (Knowledge) What old and new ways of knowing will help us build this place?
• (Action) What action at small and big scales will help us build this place?

These three questions are at the heart of EcoTypes, derived from thousands of survey responses. And there are many different answers! The most common patterns are what we call EcoTypes: your broad approach to these questions—your environmental worldview.

And each EcoType has a complementary EcoType: the one that is most different. Complementarity is a principle derived from physics in which two opposing descriptions of reality are each true, yet a fuller truth arises from considering them both. The differences embedded in EcoTypes arise from our differing interactions with reality and can be a strength, if we are willing to engage with people whose EcoTypes differ from—indeed, may be the opposite of—ours.

Your EcoType is based on your theme scores, themselves summarizing your responses to environmental statements representing twelve EcoTypes axes. The three EcoTypes themes of Place, Knowledge, and Action were originally derived from factor analysis, and as such are statistically orthogonal (at right angles) to each other. Your EcoType is based on the first two theme scores—Place and Knowledge—with Action providing a suffix.

Here is an example. Let’s say this is your EcoType:

Traditional Ways (S) is the EcoType for responses leaning toward human Place, old Knowledge, and small Action. What do these mean, you might ask?: look at the three EcoTypes themes for more information, or the Traditional Ways section below for details.

Below is a possible Traditional Ways chart you might receive on your survey report. The dot represents your Place and Knowledge scores: the x (horizontal) axis spans potential Place scores, and the y axis represents potential Knowledge scores.

The dashed line has been added to this diagram to indicate how well you may fit this EcoType: Place/Knowledge scores farther from the center of the diagram represent a stronger fit. Your EcoTypes report will compare your fit to others who have completed the survey: most are relatively close to the center of the diagram, but some with strong Place or Knowledge scores are quite far from the center. There is no right or wrong place to be on this chart!

The other component of Traditional Ways (S) is small Action. A possible EcoTypes survey report for small Action may include a diagram like the below: do you see how the Action score (the small dot) leans toward small Action?

What might be the complementary EcoType of Traditional Ways (S)? Go to the chart above and look for the opposite sector: this would be Ecoscience, embodying the attractors of nonhuman Place and new Knowledge. Then add the differing Action theme attractor. The complementary EcoType of Traditional Ways (S), then, is Ecoscience (B).

What might be the differing experiences of reality that would lead some people to embody Traditional Ways (S), and others Ecoscience (B)? What might they learn from each other, without necessarily sharing the same environmental worldview? Complementarity approaches difference as a resource, not an obstacle, to environmental progress, if we can listen to those whose EcoTypes are quite different from ours.

Let’s now briefly consider each EcoType in turn: first, the four Place/Knowledge EcoTypes phrases, then the orange small/big Action initial. To imagine these EcoTypes in a more personal way, check out eight personae that exemplify each.

Traditional Ways

If Traditional Ways is your EcoType, please also be open to insights from your complementary EcoType, the one opposite to yours in the EcoTypes diagram. Which one is this? If you guessed Ecoscience, you are correct!

Technoprogress

If your EcoType were Technoprogress, you may offer this answer to the first two questions above:

We believe in technological progress to advance humanity on Earth.

Technoprogress primarily embraces human Place and new Knowledge; this EcoType is thus in the upper right sector below.

Human Place and new Knowledge are idealized theme attractors, each summarizing four statistically related EcoTypes axis poles. Feel free to study these poles via the axis links below: if you are Technoprogress, do they represent you? (You may find that some do, and others don’t!: if your EcoTypes fit is less strong, this may be why.)

Human Place	New Knowledge
Crafted Aesthetics	Orthodox Science
Dynamic Ecosystems	Secular Spirituality
Anthropocentric Ethics	Philic Technology
Hybrid Nature	Future Time

If Technoprogress is your EcoType, please also be open to insights from your complementary EcoType, the one opposite to yours in the EcoTypes diagram. Which one is this? If you guessed Earth Spirit, you are correct!

Earth Spirit

If Earth Spirit is your EcoType, please also be open to insights from your complementary EcoType, the one opposite to yours in the EcoTypes diagram. Which one is this? If you guessed Technoprogress, you are correct!

Ecoscience

If Ecoscience is your EcoType, please also be open to insights from your complementary EcoType, the one opposite to yours in the EcoTypes diagram. Which one is this? If you guessed Traditional Ways, you are correct!

Small/Big Action

These four EcoTypes offer various answers to the first two big questions above. But what about the third question?:

What action at small and big scales will help us build this place?

This is the question underlying the Action theme, for which there are two attractors, small and big Action. Based on your survey responses, your EcoType includes an (S) or a (B) initial, depending on how you lean relative to these two attractors.

Here is a summary of the small and big Action attractors in terms of their contributing axis poles. Feel free to study the poles representing your Action initial via the axis links below: do they represent you?? (You may find that some do, and others don’t!: if your Action score is less strong, this may be why.)

(S)mall Action	(B)ig Action
Incremental Change	Radical Change
Market Economies	Planned Economies
Individual Social Scale	Institutional Social Scale
Consensus Society	Conflict Society

Just like the four EcoTypes above, please also be open to insights from your complementary Action attractor. How might the two approaches to Action be complementary?

Themes and Axes

You learned above that your EcoType is derived from your theme scores, which themselves are derived from your survey response axis scores. Though the pilot EcoTypes survey assigns you an EcoType in a new way, your theme and axis scores are calculated as in the current survey.

Here, then, is where you can go to read existing information about themes and axes:

• Go to the themes page to learn about Place, Knowledge, and Action
• Go to the axes page to learn about the twelve EcoTypes axes, from Aesthetics to Time.

Global Priorities

The pilot EcoTypes survey has a new question asking for your global priorities, relative to a list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) promulgated by the United Nations. Just as EcoTypes assumes that many care, just differently, we may also discover that people with differing EcoTypes list differing global priorities—or, sometimes, possibly the same priority.

Here is additional information on the SDGs from Wikipedia. There has been a lot written about the SDGs! What do you find important, interesting, or perhaps confusing about them? There have also been studies on popular and expert SDG priorities you can read as well.

Above and below are summary lists of the SDG priorities from the EcoTypes survey. Now that you learned about your EcoType above, how do you feel it may relate to these priorities? How may other EcoTypes—say, your complementary EcoType—possibly relate?

Sustainable Development Goals (short form):

1. No poverty
2. Zero hunger
3. Good health and well-being
4. Quality education
5. Gender equality
6. Clean water and sanitation
7. Affordable and clean energy
8. Decent work and economic growth
9. Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
10. Reduced inequality
11. Sustainable cities and communities
12. Responsible consumption and production
13. Climate action
14. Life below water
15. Life on land
16. Peace, justice and strong institutions