Exploring short-term longitudinal effects of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on environmentalism

Attitudes towards Trump Policies and Climate Change: The Key Roles of Aversion to Wealth Redistribution and Political Interest

“…Finally, the association between Trump favorability and climate change skepticism followed both a direct and an indirect path, through neoliberal elements, such as negative attitudes towards Government‐led redistribution policies. The effects found for attitudes towards Trump could be considered consistent with previous findings that established reliable associations of right‐wing ideology and neoliberal elements with climate change skepticism (e.g., Klinsky et al., ; McCright et al., ; Stanley et al., ). Results appeared also consistent with the moderating role of interest in politics in further polarizing environmental issues and attitudes towards environmental policies (Baldassarri & Gelman, ).…”

“…Therefore, we expected that at least a portion of the attitudes towards Trump effect (and of its interaction with interest in politics) would be mediated by an antiredistributionist stance that represents a neoliberal feature of Trump's policies. Such mediation would lend support to the notion that what is at stake for conservatives or American populists in opposing proenvironmental policies is not just the right of humans to exploit nature, as suggested by some scholars (Dohnt, Hodson, & Leite, ; Milfont et al., ), but rather the hierarchical inequalities embedded in the dominant social system (primacy of production, capitalist system, economic freedom, unrestrained consumption), and in the traditional way of life (Jylhä & Akrami, ; Milfont & Sibley, ; Rossen et al., ; Stanley et al., ). Therefore, we anticipated that: H3a: Aversion to redistribution will mediate the association of attitudes towards Trump with climate change skepticism; and (H3b) the shape of the direct and indirect effects will vary as a function of interest in politics (see Figure ).…”

“…Reliable predictors of such skepticism of climate change and its causes are conservative ideology, right‐wing leaning attitudes, as well as neoliberal economic approaches (e.g. Baldassarri & Gelman, ; Klinsky et al., ; McCright et al., ; Panno et al., ; Panno, Carrus, Maricchiolo & Mannetti, ; Stanley, Wilson & Milfont, ). On the one hand, Trump has been described by political science and psychological research as embracing right‐wing attitudes, prominent among them was authoritarianism (e.g., Choma & Hanoch, ).…”

“…On the other hand, Hallin () claims that “his government represents a continuation of the Tea Party movement, which can be described as a radical populist neoliberalism” (Hallin, , p. 4). In turn, either authoritarian dispositions or neoliberal elements have been linked with climate change denial and antienvironmentalist attitudes (e.g., Jylhä & Akrami, ; Klinsky et al., ; Milfont, Richter, Sibley, Wilson, & Fisher, ; Milfont & Sibley, ; Rossen, Dunlop & Lawrence, ; Stanley et al., ). President Trump has also been described as the latest incarnation of the recurrent populist wave in American politics (e.g., Oliver & Rahn, ).…”

Associations among dimensions of political ideology and Dark Tetrad personality features

“…There is considerable debate regarding the directional relations among personality traits and political attitudes and ideologies (see Hatemi & McDermott, 2016, for a review). To date, empirical evidence supports personality as a prospective predictor of future political attitudes (e.g., Block & Block, 2006) and vice versa (Stanley, Wilson, & Milfont, 2017). Additionally, evidence suggests that the covariance between political ideology and personality is due to a common latent genetic predisposition that mutually influences both rather than one causing the other (Hatemi & Verhulst, 2015).…”