Seeing Green: A Perceptual Model of Identity-Based Climate Change Judgments

Abstract

Q1 5We are the first generation to feel the effect of climate change and the last generation who can do something about it. -Barack Obama (September 23, 2014).This very expensive global warming bullshit has got to stop. Our planet is freezing, record low temps, and our GW scientists are 10 stuck in ice. -Donald Trump

Attribution matters: Revisiting the link between extreme weather experience and climate change mitigation responses

“…This finding is consistent with previous suggestions by Ogunbode et al (2017) that flooding perceptions and associated responses to climate change in the UK covary systematically with individuals' political affiliation. Affiliation with the right-leaning Conservative Party has previously been linked with climate change scepticism (Whitmarsh, 2011), and political group identity can be expected to influence whether individuals perceive relevant events to be unusual, unnatural and a reason to worry or act (Hahnel and Brosch, 2016;Shao and Goidel, 2016). Therefore, it seems plausible that right-leaning UK voters may be predisposed to reject a rationalisation of flooding as manifestation of climate change in conformity with the normative views that prevail within their political groups.…”

The moderating role of political affiliation in the link between flooding experience and preparedness to reduce energy use

“…The polarization of public views on climate change along political and ideological lines is well (Kahan 2013;Hornsey et al 2016). This tendency -broadly termed motivated cognition, is underpinned by the appropriation of normative views and attitudes associated with salient social identities and group memberships as a lens through which information is processed and incorporated into personal beliefs (Fielding and Hornsey 2016;Hahnel and Brosch 2016), and individuals' desire to maintain congruence between their beliefs and fundamental values they share with significant others (Kahan 2013). To an extent, our findings reflect the involvement of motivated cognition in UK residents' interpretation of flooding with regard to climate change.…”

“…In line with the cultural cognition thesis (Kahan et al 2011;Kahan 2013), it appears that people Given an understanding that values and identity function as a filter in information processing (Kahan et al 2011;Fielding and Hornsey 2016), simply highlighting the links between extreme weather and climate change is unlikely to be a broadly effective strategy for promoting climate change engagement. Information which supports climate change knowledge and understanding is unlikely to be politically neutral (Gavin et al 2011), and political affiliation can have considerable influence on how individuals interpret their experience with extreme weather in relation to climate change (Givens 2014;Hahnel and Brosch 2016). Identification with a political group makes individuals susceptible to align their judgments and actions to their affiliated political group's standards; to the extent that political affiliation may have a greater influence on climate change-related judgments than the combination of personal experience, values and ideology (Cohen 2003;Hahnel and Brosch 2016).…”

“…Information which supports climate change knowledge and understanding is unlikely to be politically neutral (Gavin et al 2011), and political affiliation can have considerable influence on how individuals interpret their experience with extreme weather in relation to climate change (Givens 2014;Hahnel and Brosch 2016). Identification with a political group makes individuals susceptible to align their judgments and actions to their affiliated political group's standards; to the extent that political affiliation may have a greater influence on climate change-related judgments than the combination of personal experience, values and ideology (Cohen 2003;Hahnel and Brosch 2016). Therefore, while Spence et al's (2011) argument that flood experience confers a sense of personal efficacy and greater preparedness to reduce energy use may hold true for left-leaning voters -whose politics normatively endorse belief in anthropogenic climate change and engagement in mitigation actions, our findings suggest that these outcomes may not be achieved among right-leaning voters whose political identities are more likely to be associated with climate change scepticism.…”

“…When people perceive themselves in terms of membership in such groups, they assimilate to the group prototypei.e., their attitudes and beliefs become regulated by the norms and standards associated with the salient social identity(Rabinovich et al 2012). According toHahnel and Brosch (2016), political group identity can be expected to modulate individuals' perception of climate change to the extent that that they influence whether group members perceive relevant events as unnatural or a reason to act. Indeed, research shows that political affiliation and ideological orientation significantly influence the way people perceive flooding and other extreme weather events(Cutler 2015; 2016), as well as their climate change beliefs and willingness to act pro-environmentally (McCright and Dunlap 2011; Whitmarsh 2011; Gromet et al 2013; Hamilton and Stampone 2013; McCright et al 2016).On this basis, we hypothesized that political affiliation significantly covaries with the likelihood that UK residents see flooding as linked with climate change (H1), and the way flood experience affects their attitudes toward climate change (H2).…”