Public support for restoration: Does including ecosystem services as a goal engage a different set of values and attitudes than biodiversity protection alone?

We measured the internal consistency of the values and attitudes scores using Cronbach’s alpha. Higher values for this statistic mean that disparate items on the scale reliably measure the same value orientation or environmental attitude. For Egoistic, Altruistic, and Biospheric values, Cronbach’s alpha was measured at 0.76, 0.81, and 0.92, respectively. For attitudes, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.63 for Preservation and 0.70 for Utilization. A rule of thumb for suffi- cient consistency is a Cronbach’s alpha value of 0.7 or higher [49]. Reliability declines with fewer items on the scale, which may explain why (with only 4 items) the values are marginal for the two attitudinal metrics. Discussion Our work produced three main findings. First, the results indicate a strong strain of ecocentr- ism in support for restoration, tempered by a lesser, secondary influence of egocentrism that appears when biodiversity protection and ecosystem service provision are explicitly contrasted. Though not unequivocal, these findings lend credence to our main hypothesis, that reliance on the anthropocentric rationale of ES provision can draw in support for conservation from those more concerned about personal gain and human benefit from the environment, and less responsive to ecocentric or biophilic arguments. Second, in agreement with our hypothesis, we found that altruism and desire for preservation predict people’s disinclination to believe that restoration can have significant drawbacks, while an egoistic/use-oriented orientation is asso-

ciated with concern about potential drawbacks. Third, as predicted, environmental attitudes are generally more proximal to opinions or behavioral intentions expressed about restoration than are closely held, core values. The most robust evidence for ES rationales tapping a nontraditional source of support for environmental action was when respondents were asked to choose a particular preferred bene- fit as the outcome of restoration. The selection of an ES outcome over a biodiversity attribute was positively associated with the Egoistic value orientation and the Utilizationist attitude clus- ter, and negatively associated with the Preservationist attitude. This suggests that those whose view of nature is that it should be exploited or managed for human benefit, and those who frame the costs and benefits of pro-environmental behavior in terms of personal gain, believe more strongly that restoration’s purpose should be to provide ecosystem services. This finding was echoed in responses to the general question about benefits to nature and benefits to humans resulting from the BES scenario restoration. The more a respondent tended toward Preservationist attitudes, and away from Egoistic or Utilizationist predilections, the less certain the respondent was that the restoration will have benefits to people commensurate with bene- fits to nature. With respect to WTP as a measure of generic support for ecosystem restoration, the sole value orientation predicting WTP was Biospheric in the BO scenario, and Egoistic in the BES

scenario. This again suggests that those whose value system is self-enhancing are more engaged Table 5. Correlation coefficientsa for Pearson’s product-moment correlations between value orientations and attitude axes. Egoistic Altruistic Biospheric Preservation Utilization Egoistic 1 Altruistic 0.19 1 Biospheric 0.18 0.66 1 Preservation -0.07 0.33 0.5 1 Utilization 0.25 -0.25 -0.43 -0.54 1 a All values are significant at p < .001. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245074.t005 PLOS ONE Values and attitudes towards biodiversity and ecosystem service goals of restoration PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245074 January 19, 2021 7 / 15