Translating climate beliefs into action in a changing political landscape

Abstract

Political leaders can influence public beliefs about climate change, and climate beliefs can influence climate actions. But, much is still unknown about (1) whether changes in political landscapes influence public's climate beliefs and (2) the psychological process through which climate beliefs influence pro-environmental sentiments and actions. Achieving a better understanding these influences are the dual purposes of this paper, we investigated during the unique setting of the 2016 US presidential elections. First, we explored to what extent the American public's belief in the anthropogenic origins and negative impacts of climate change were influenced by the 2016 US presidential election and earliest administrative days of a climate-skeptical political leader, Donald Trump. We found Trump's influence on public climate beliefs may have increased after his election in such a way that may have polarized public climate beliefs. Compared with pre-election levels, supporters' climate beliefs grew weaker and, further, opponents' climate beliefs grew stronger after his election. Second, we tested a novel conditional mediation model that proposes climate beliefs interact to exert their influence on climate actions via moral behavioral sentiments. Specifically, we found people's origin and impact climate beliefs interact to influence climate actions by activating moral sentiments about their own environmental behavior (i.e., guilt, striving to be a better person), with the particularly weak moral sentiments reported by those with both weak belief in climate change's anthropogenic origins and its negative impacts. Moral sentiments, in turn, predicted respondents' willingness to save energy to reduce climate change and their support for the Paris Climate Agreement. These results suggest the election of climate-skeptical political leaders can impact the public's climate beliefs. Moreover, climate beliefs interact to influence the moral sentiments people feel about their own behavior, and consequently, influence their climate-friendly behavioral intentions and policy preferences.

Emotional foundations of the public climate change divide

“…Republicans were in general less likely to believe in climate change than Democrats, F(1,331) = 122.14, p < .001, η p 2 = .27 (see, e.g., Dunlap et al 2016;Van Boven et al 2018). In line with findings by Zawadzki and colleagues (Zawadzki et al 2019), belief in climate change decreased significantly from before to after the presidential election, F(1,331) = 4.84, p = .028, η p 2 = .01. Party affiliation in itself did not moderate the temporal changes in climate change beliefs, F(1,331) = 0.07, p = .788, η p 2 < .01.…”

“…While the present study observed increased positive emotions toward the Republican Party and associated lower climate change beliefs directly after the election outcome was known, these effects have been reported to be attenuated (or even reversed) after the Trump administration took office in January 2017 (Koerth-Baker 2019). In accordance, Zawadzki and colleagues (Zawadzki et al 2019) found that public climate change beliefs returned to pre-election levels after the US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. Along the same lines, post-election increases in public climate change concerns were associated with stronger media attention and public reactance after major policy decisions and messaging counteracting efforts to mitigate global climate change (Koerth-Baker 2019; Schwartz 2019).…”

Political Psychology in the Digital (mis)Information age: A Model of News Belief and Sharing

“…President Trump has repeatedly expressed his skepticism of climate change on social media (Matthews, 2017). Following his election in 2016, belief in climate change actually decreased in the United States, for both Republicans and Democrats, suggesting that people update their beliefs based on cues from political leaders (Hahnel et al., 2020; see also Zawadzki et al., 2020). Interestingly, the changes in climate change belief from pre‐ to postelection were mediated by increased positive feelings toward the Republican party (by both Republicans and Democrats), and those with the most pronounced increases were the ones who most strongly reduced their climate change beliefs.…”

A Research Agenda to Better Understand the Human Dimensions of Energy Transitions

“…A better understanding is needed of ways to strengthen individuals' intrinsic motivation to engage in sustainable energy behaviour, as this may be an important source for consistent sustainable behaviour. Notably, people are intrinsically motivated to do the right thing and to protect the environment, and doing so elicits positive feelings and enhances well-being (Steg, 2016;Johnson Zawadzki et al, 2020;Zawadzki et al, 2020). We need to better understand how such intrinsic motivation can be fostered and strengthened.…”

“…It is important to understand how politicians form their perceptions of public opinion and how much these perceptions resemble what the public actually thinks. Likewise, it is important to appreciate whether, how, and under which conditions political support may affect public support, for example because the public appreciates political leadership, or because of enhanced trust in the leadership (Dietz et al, 2015;Zawadzki et al, 2020). Moreover, it is important to understand how interest group lobbying affects political and public support (Oreskes and Conway, 2010).…”