It's political: How the salience of one's political identity changes climate change beliefs and policy support

Unsworth, Kerrie; Fielding, Kelly S.

doi:10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.05.002

Cited by 208 publications

(130 citation statements)

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“…In this view, the environment is a concern of the political left: those who prioritize social equality and welfare over industry and commerce and who are less hierarchical and individualistic. Environmental protection entails interventionist action by the state and, therefore, sits less well with the political right (Borick and Rabe 2010;Gromet, Kunreuther, and Larrick 2013;Hamilton 2011;Kahan et al 2012;Konisky et al 2008;Lewandowsky et al 2013;McCright and Dunlap 2011;McCright, Xiao, and Dunlap 2014;Poortinga et al 2011;Unsworth and Fielding 2014). Yet all of these articles have examined only U.S. data, with the exception of Poortinga et al 2011 (who use data from culturally similar Britain) and Unsworth and Fielding (Australia).…”

Section: Other Explanations Of Environmental Concerns and Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts

Fairbrother¹

2016

SocScience

120

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Worldwide, most people share scientists' concerns about environmental problems, but reject the solution that policy experts most strongly recommend: putting a price on pollution. Why? I show that this puzzling gap between the public's positive concerns and normative preferences is due substantially to a lack of trust, particularly political trust. In multilevel models fitted to two international survey datasets, trust strongly predicts support for environmental protection within countries and, by some measures, among countries also. An influential competing theory holds that environmental attitudes correlate mostly with left versus right political ideology; the results here, however, show that this correlation is weaker and varies substantially from country to country-unlike that with trust. Theoretically, these results reflect that environmental degradation is a collective action problem and environmental protection a public good. Methodologically, they derive from the more flexible application of multilevel modeling techniques than in previous studies using such models.

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Section: Other Explanations Of Environmental Concerns and Preferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts

Fairbrother¹

2016

SocScience

120

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“…Therefore, environmentally-focused techniques will be ineffective for those who refute that climate change is happening, who do not find environmental sustainability particularly important, or whose political identities prime them for opposing environmental policies and behaviors (see e.g., Unsworth & Fielding, 2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

Increasing pro-environmental behaviors by increasing self-concordance: Testing an intervention.

Unsworth

McNeill

2017

Journal of Applied Psychology

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Concordance: Testing an InterventionGlobally, there is a clear need to change our behavior to mitigate climate change. Many people, however, will not find the need for mitigation important enough to make their behavior more environmentally sustainable. Three studies supported the hypothesis that it is possible to overcome this issue by connecting these behaviors to goals that are important to people, even if such goals are unrelated to climate change or the environment in general.Study 1 (N = 305 working adults) showed that stronger self-concordance of behavior related to energy sustainability was related to a greater chance of signing a petition for increasing renewable energy sources. Next, two experimental studies (Study 2: N = 412 working and non-working adults, and Study 3: N = 300 working adults) showed that increasing selfconcordance of environmentally sustainable behaviors by asking people to cognitively connect either sustainable energy use (Study 2) or commuting behaviors (Study 3) to their personal goals increased intentions to engage in these behaviors compared to a control condition (Study 2 and Study 3) and compared to persuasion attempts based on climate change mitigation (Study 3). These findings occurred even after controlling for political orientation and environmental concerns. This research has significant practical implications for workplaces, particularly for those in which employees or managers place a low priority on environmental and climate change considerations.

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“…between religious groups), and workplace conflict (Tajfel 1982;Hogg and Abrams 1988;Haslam 2000). There has been some use of the social identity approach in ENRM, though this has not been extensive Stoll-Kleemann and Welp 2006;Bryan 2008;Dono et al 2010;Lute and Gore 2014;Unsworth and Fielding 2014;Mason et al 2014;Bliuc et al 2015;Mason et al 2015;Fielding and Hornsey 2016).…”

Section: The Social Identity Approachmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In research on attitudes toward ENRM issues, the social identity approach has provided insights into socio-political divides about perceptions on climate change action, and suggested potential social identity-based strategies for addressing the divide (Unsworth and Fielding 2014;Bliuc et al 2015). Both studies argue that the divide on climate change action is best viewed as an intergroup conflict due to the politicised nature of the climate debate.…”

Section: The Social Identity Approach In Enrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on this understanding, messaging around climate change can be framed in terms which aim to ameliorate the identity-based divide (Bliuc et al 2015). For example, ingroup messaging can be used to frame climate change action as a positive in-group norm for those groups antagonistic to climate change (Unsworth and Fielding 2014). This reflects findings of Hoffarth and Hodson (2016), who found that among those who opposed policy addressing climate change, opposition was influenced more by dislike for the out-group, i.e.…”

Section: The Social Identity Approach In Enrmmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The social identity approach to understanding stakeholder conflict in environmental and natural resources management

Colvin¹

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Conflict between stakeholders about environmental and natural resources management (ENRM) issues is a significant challenge for achieving sustainable outcomes for people and the environment.Although conflict can be a constructive and important part of deliberative processes, ENRM routinely experiences dysfunctional conflict, where people involved focus on their perceived incompatibilities rather than finding solutions for the problem. This form of dysfunctional conflict leads to decision-making stagnation and exacerbation of issues which require timely management.The self-perpetuating nature of conflict means that relationships between people and groups become strained, and the potential for cooperation and compromise is undermined. In ENRM, conflict is addressed, often implicitly, through the practice of stakeholder engagement. Although advancements have been made on stakeholder engagement processes through both research and practice, conflict continues to manifest in ENRM issues.This thesis investigates ENRM conflict through analysing the contribution of ENRM stakeholder engagement practice to the prevalence of dysfunctional conflict. In order to understand the hidden complexities and drivers of conflict, the social identity approach has been applied as a theoretical lens. The social identity approach is a theoretical perspective from social psychology which explains how people become members of groups, and how groups interact. As such it is well suited to a study of ENRM conflict, where the heart of the conflict is how groups of people -stakeholders -interact with each other.First, the thesis outlines the theoretical basis for the interest in ENRM conflict, and makes a case for both why stakeholder engagement processes are a critical aspect of conflict which are worthy of investigation, and why the social identity approach is a useful theoretical lens. Following this, a theory building approach to integration of the literature across disciplines is used to present a way of understanding the human dimension of ENRM conflict, and the argument is made for the use of the social identity approach. As a result, a clear distinction is made between 'stakeholders' and 'the citizenry', where stakeholders are formalised groups with a defined interest, and the citizenry is everyone else. An integrative conceptual model for ENRM conflict is created, and is analysed with the application of the social identity approach.Next, the thesis examines the processes taken by ENRM practitioners to identify stakeholders, thereby filling a recognised gap in the literature. This is undertaken with the use of semi-structured interviews with experienced ENRM practitioners, analysed qualitatively. As a result, a typology of approaches to identification of stakeholders is presented, and the previously proposed distinction iii between stakeholders and the citizenry is shown to be reflective of how practitioners categorise people in the context of ENRM issues.The thesis then investigates a case study of a large-scale wind energy d...

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It's political: How the salience of one's political identity changes climate change beliefs and policy support

Cited by 208 publications

References 48 publications

Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts

Trust and Public Support for Environmental Protection in Diverse National Contexts

Increasing pro-environmental behaviors by increasing self-concordance: Testing an intervention.

The social identity approach to understanding stakeholder conflict in environmental and natural resources management

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