We argue that Buddhism and Hinduism merit specific consideration owing to their emphasis on

the interconnectedness between humans and the natural environment. Although data collection
for the 5th wave of the EVS does not countries that primary religion is Hindu population such as
India, Nepal and Mauritius we believe that the sample encompasses a substantial number of
Buddhists from various nations.

Traditionally, Buddhism promotes harmony with nature through compassionate and altruistic
attitudes. The doctrine underscores the principles of causality, interdependence, and reciprocity
to attain happiness. Given the interconnectedness of all things and humans' inherent connection
to nature, Buddhism inherently fosters a heightened environmental sensitivity. Therefore, we
propose that the association between religiosity and environment attitudes will be more
pronounced among Buddhists compared to other religious groups.

Hypothesis 4; The association between religiosity and environment attitudes will be more
pronounced among Buddhists compared to other religious groups.

In our study we discovered that multi-item scale is the approach that can access our constructs of
religiosity and environment attitudes. These were evaluated through several approaches. First,
we reviewed articles to ensure that the items selected were theoretically grounded and aligned
with established conceptual frameworks. Additionally, we used exploratory factor analysis and
principal component analysis to examine the underlying structure of the scales and confirmed
their dimensionality. In doing this we examine the correlations between items within each scale,
ensuring that they measure the same construct. Furthermore, we examined the correlation
between different constructs to ensure they were distinct from one another. Also, we conducted a
reliability test using Cronbach's alpha approach to test for internal consistency of the scales. In
using these validation techniques, including theoretical grounding, factor analysis and reliability
testing, we ensure the validity of our multi-item scales enhances the credibility and
trustworthiness of our study findings.

. Therefore we conducted principal component analysis and exploratory factor analysis of

various variables related to religiosity and environment attitudes

Additionally, we conducted exploratory factor analysis (EFA) using all of the items from the multi-item
measures from EVS for our constructs. The multi-item EVS measure demonstrated substantial factor
loadings in every instance, achieving unidimensionality. Thus, the results indicate that the multi-item
measures from the EVS capture the meaning of the multi-item scales.

However, the fact that EVS employs single-item scales for a sizable portion of its measurements
raises possible problems. Researchers like (Sarstedt, 2016) find it convenient in some situations
to use single item measure our research will employ a multi scale approach to capture the
complexity of environment attitudes and religiosity attitudes which will suggest using a multi-
item scales aid in pursuit of an expanded and fair evaluation of environment attitudes (Carfora,
Caso, Sparks, & Conner, 2017). The selected variables for environment attitudes and religiosity
attitudes was supported by our exploratory, principal component analysis and the reliability test
of our concepts (Mancha & Yoder, 2015; Coutinho, 2016) showed a connection between
religiosity attitudes and environment attitudes. The EVS 5th wave dataset variables used for study
measures individual environmental attitudes have a Likert scale of 1 to 5 ranging from 1 to
strongly agree and 5 to strongly disagree (Coutinho, 2016), these scales will be reversed in our
analysis. With religiosity attitudes variable importance of religion being reversed from the Likert
scale ranging from 1 very important to 4 not at all important.

Similar to what most research articles have written in regards to use of single item scale in EVS,
our analysis our analysis shows that a single-item scale can be effective in capturing the effect of
religiosity attitudes on the environment. Our factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha results shows
that the use of single item measure in our study is effective in capturing the essence of our
construct. For the same concept, we found significant relationships between the single-item and
multi-item measures. Furthermore, factor analysis verified that single-item scales demonstrated
unidimensionality by loading on the intended construct. These results are consistent with other
studies showing that single-item scales may be valid and reliable assessments, especially when
they are carefully selected.

We included GDP per capita as a country level control variable based on World Bank statistics in
order to further rule out income effects at the national level (World, 2016).
From Hofstede's framework, we use indulgence to understand the relationship at the country
level. Indulgence encapsulates the degree to which societies allow or promote fulfillment related
to the basic individual needs, appreciating life and enjoying oneself (Sun, 2019; Hofstede G. ,
2011). According to Hofstede (Hofstede G. , 2011), restraint—the contrast of fulfillment—
occurs when societal standards prevent people from fulfilling their basic human needs. Research
has demonstrated that indulgence plays a moderating role in various relationships, such as
between different types of innovation (design-oriented versus technology-driven) and market
share, as well as between different types of values (utilitarian versus hedonic) and affective
commitment (Griffith & Yalcinkaya, 2017; Zhou, 2014). Generally, these studies suggest that
indulgence tends to amplify the effects of the independent variable when it aligns with indulgent
tendencies. For instance, (Griffith & Yalcinkaya, 2017; Zhou, 2014) demonstrates that as
indulgence levels rise, the positive impact of design innovations on market share strengthens,
while the positive impact of technological innovation diminishes. Put differently, when there is
alignment between the type of innovation and indulgence levels (design innovations and high
indulgence or technological innovations and low indulgence), market share tends to increase.
Drawing from this premise, we hypothesize that the association between religiosity and
environmental attitudes is most pronounced in low-indulgence contexts. Given that religious
values often advocate for restraint and moderation, we anticipate that societies characterized by
low indulgence (marked by heightened restraint) rely on fundamental social principles like
religion to shape specific values and attitudes, including environmental attitudes. Conversely, in
societies with high levels of indulgence, the influence of religiosity as a guiding norm is
expected to diminish. This brings us to our hypothesis;

Hypothesis 3; The relationship between religiosity and environmental attitudes is

dependent upon the level of indulgence in society.

Indulgence serves as a moderator in the association between religiosity and environmental

attitudes. Particularly, this relationship exhibits greater strength in societies characterized by low
levels of indulgence compared to those with higher indulgence levels.

While adopting an aggregated approach across diverse countries and religious affiliations offers
a comprehensive insight into the dynamics between religiosity and environmental attitudes, it's
essential not to overlook the specific roles of individual religious affiliations.
We utilized the national cultural dimension from (Hofstede G. a., 2010) to obtain index scores
for indulgence at the country level. Indulgence stands for free satisfaction of basic and natural
human desires, whereas restraint regulates the satisfaction of demands through rigid societal
rules (Hofstede G. , 2011).

extracted country scores data from (Hofstede G. a., 2010), which houses scores of
76 countries. The cultural dimension created by Hofstede does not score all
European countries which reduces the final sample size of our data to 56,889 from
34 countries.

This means that individuals who consider religion to be important or describe

themselves as religious may prioritize environmental protection as part of their
faith-based values. Similarly, individuals who frequently attend religious services
may be more inclined to participate in environmental activities or support
environmental causes. The findings underscore the link between religiosity and
environmental attitudes and indicates that religious beliefs and practices can play a
role in shaping individuals' perceptions and actions on environmental attitudes.

The test was done using t-test which showed that females perceive taking personal
environmental actions as slightly less difficult compared to males. This difference
is statistically significant with a negative t-test score of -5.93, degree of freedom =
16094, p-value = 3.131e-09. This means that females have the higher chance on
average to contribute to the environment than their male counterparts with a 95%
confidence interval of or the difference in means (-0.1387 to -0.0698) indicates that
the mean difficult contribution to the environment personally score for females is
estimated to be between 0.0698 and 0.1387 units lower than that of males.