Political ingroup conformity and pro-environmental behavior: Evaluating the evidence from a survey and mousetracking experiments

Geiger, Nathaniel; Pasek, Michael H.; Gruszczynski, Mike; Ratcliff, Nathaniel J.; Weaver, Kevin S.

doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2020.101524

Cited by 24 publications

(20 citation statements)

References 73 publications

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“…A great deal of existing research indicates that liberals are more likely than conservatives to engage in eco-friendly consumption and waste practices (e.g., recycling and buying products that purport to have environmental benefits). And recent studies indicate that people stereotype liberals as caring more about the environment than conservatives (Geiger et al, 2020). Arlie Hochschild's (2016) multi-year, ethnographic study of Tea Party supporters in Louisiana substantiates the idea that conservatives sense that liberal elites set the terms by which people's relationships to the environment are evaluated.…”

Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…But recent evidence finds that people tend to underestimate conservatives' level of engagement in PEBs while accurately estimating liberals' engagement (Van Boven et al, 2018). Further, people see environmental behaviors as constituting a politically liberal cultural practice, which can affect environmental norms, possibly making liberals more likely than conservatives to engage in proenvironmental actions (Geiger et al, 2020).…”

Section: Political Polarization and Political Differences In The Envi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Morality, Emotions, and the Ideal Environmentalist: Toward A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Political Polarization

Kennedy

Muzzerall

2021

American Behavioral Scientist

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Americans are politically polarized in their views on environmental protection, and scholars have identified structural and cultural drivers of this polarity. Missing from these theories is a consideration of the emotional dynamics at play in environmentally relevant interactions between liberals and conservatives. Based on analyses of in-depth interviews conducted with 63 politically and socioeconomically diverse residents of four communities in Washington State, we find evidence of important common ground across the political spectrum. Our participants voice support and respect for environmental protection and convey a shared image of an ideal environmentalist: a conscious, caring, and committed individual who seeks to reduce their personal environmental impact. We see political differences arise when our participants evaluate their own relationship with the environment against this ideal environmentalist. Liberals are more likely to align with or admire the ideal environmentalist and conservatives are more likely to challenge or denigrate the ideal. Emotions and competing claims for moral worth, we suggest, play a role in making these political differences polarizing.

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Section: General Discussion and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Political Polarization and Political Differences In The Envi...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Morality, Emotions, and the Ideal Environmentalist: Toward A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Political Polarization

Kennedy

Muzzerall

2021

American Behavioral Scientist

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“…One such indirect measure is mouse-tracking, which indirectly quantifies tensions between conflicting decisions (e.g., choosing an option that more closely resembles one's private preference vs. an option that more closely aligns with public support), that manifest in slight hand movements that deviate towards one preference before settling on another (Freeman & Ambady, 2010). For example, mouse trajectories tracking tensions between an individual's own choices that deviate from group norms can predict normrelevant future behaviors (Geiger et al, 2020). Applied to other complex social dynamics, mouse-tracking may elucidate the circumstances under which tensions arise between private preferences that conflict with group norms.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Preference Falsification: How Social Conformity as an Interdependent, Recursive, and Multilevel Process Corrupts Public Knowledge

Elder¹,

Derreumaux²,

Hughes³

2021

Preprint

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Throughout life, people sometimes lie to curry favor or mitigate disharmony with others, a tendency that may be exacerbated under moments of elevated tension. This phenomenon is captured by the economic theoretical framework of Preference Falsification, which describes why people misrepresent their beliefs in the face of social pressures, and how misrepresentation accumulates to broader misunderstandings that can fuel political polarization. We describe why the current political climate may foster motivations to misrepresent beliefs, as individuals are increasingly siloed into like-minded communities with strong pressures to conform to group norms. Next, we adopt a psychological lens to understand and integrate three motivations that underlie individual misrepresentation – relating to an individual’s intrinsic preference, their reputational concern, and their desire for expression – and describe how individual acts of misrepresentation can propagate across social connections to establish misrepresented beliefs as public consensus. Finally, we outline inroads for examining Preference Falsification using psychological methods that may be uniquely suited to elucidate the different social dynamics and issues that elicit this behavior, with the goal of spurring future research. Ultimately, we argue that fostering a more ideologically pluralistic and socially interconnected society may offer one route to reducing misrepresentation and collective misunderstanding, and thereby attenuate polarization and intergroup antipathy.

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“…Individuals conform most prominently to their perceived opinions and behaviors of local reference groups and valued in‐groups. For example, political conservatives might avoid pro‐environmental behavior to match perceptions of other conservatives (Geiger et al., 2020; Van Boven et al., 2018). This conformity can occur even when individuals misperceive others.…”

Section: Belongingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Core social motives explain responses to collective action issues

Geiger

Brick

2023

Social & Personality Psych

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Managing collective action issues such as pandemics and climate change requires major social and behavioral change. Dominant approaches to addressing these issues center around information provision and financial incentives to shift behavior, yet, these approaches are rarely effective without integrating insights from psychological research on motivation. By accurately characterizing human motives, social scientists can identify when and why individuals engage, and facilitate behavior change and public engagement. Here, we use the core social motives model to sort social psychological theories into five fundamental social motives: to Belong, Understand, Control, self-Enhance, and Trust. We explain how each motive can improve or worsen collective action issues, and how this framework can be further developed towards a comprehensive social psychological perspective to collective action issues.

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Political ingroup conformity and pro-environmental behavior: Evaluating the evidence from a survey and mousetracking experiments

Cited by 24 publications

References 73 publications

Morality, Emotions, and the Ideal Environmentalist: Toward A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Political Polarization

Morality, Emotions, and the Ideal Environmentalist: Toward A Conceptual Framework for Understanding Political Polarization

Preference Falsification: How Social Conformity as an Interdependent, Recursive, and Multilevel Process Corrupts Public Knowledge

Core social motives explain responses to collective action issues

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