Voluntary Simplicity Lifestyles and Energy Conservation

Abstract

This paper presents a behavioral index for measuring an individual's tendency towards a lifestyle of voluntary simplicity, characterized by ecological awareness, attempts to become more self-sufficient, and efforts to decrease personal con-sumption of goods. The index is shown to predict energy conservation and inten-tion to purchase solar equipment. T hroughout the nation in recent years, there have been signs of new or rekindled interest in low-consumption, ecologically benign, and self-sufficient ways of living (Campbell, Conserve, and Rodgers 1975). Many of the more dramatic indicators of such emerging lifestyles have surfaced in California, e.g., numerous ecological organi-zations, from the powerful Sierra Club to the less-known Abalone Alliance or the Greenpeace Society to "save the whales"; antinuclear movements; the Whole Earth Cata-logue and other guides to alternative lifestyles; innovative