Mental models—internal, dynamic, incomplete representations of the external world that people use to guide cognitive processes such as reasoning, decision making, and language comprehension—have practical implications for predicting attitudes and behaviors across various domains. This study examines how mental models of the human–nature relationship predict pro-environmental behavioral intentions directly and indirectly as mediated through anthropocentric and biocentric environmental attitudes. To address these aims, participants were asked about mental model components of the human–nature relationship (human exceptionalism, beliefs about human impact on nature, and beliefs about nature's impact on humans), pro-environmental attitudes (biocentric and anthropocentric), and their pro-environmental behavioral intentions (protection and investment). We found that protection intentions were (1) directly predicted by human exceptionalism beliefs (negatively) and perceived human impact on nature (positively) and (2) indirectly predicted by mental model components via biocentric attitudes. Investment intentions were directly predicted by nature's perceived impact on humans, and were similarly indirectly predicted by mental model components via biocentric attitudes. The results suggest that mental models of the human–nature relationship provide a cognitive foundation for environmental behavioral intentions both directly and through their association with environmental attitudes. These findings have implications for pro-environmental interventions that deal with conceptual and attitudinal change.

In this research work-in-progress paper, we introduce an ongoing research project that aims to establish foundations for technology-based social entrepreneurship education for engineering students. To answer the research questions of this project, we first clearly define what technology social venture means in our research with example organizations that can be classified as technology social ventures. We explain how we identified such organizations for the project in detail. We conclude this paper with an introduction to our future work and implications for engineering education.