Look past the divide: Social dominance, authoritarianism, future thinking, and superordinate identity underlie the political divide on environmental issues

Abstract

Research in social and political science has documented a political divide on environmental issues, describing greater environmental concern as well as more proenvironmental attitudes and behaviours amongst left-wing (or liberal) than right-wing (or conservative) citizens. However, the specific psychological components that underlie this divide remain underexplored. In the present study, we explore the role of several socio-cognitive components known to be associated with political orientation and assess how well each can account for the relationship between political orientation and proenvironmental views. Evidence from a large-scale survey in the UK (N = 1,147) reveals that higher right-wing authoritarianism, higher social dominance orientation, lower future thinking and lower superordinate (European) identity, together accounted for half the effect of political orientation. In contrast, belief in a just world, system justification, and ingroup (British) identity, were not significantly related to proenvironmental views. The present work advances past research by informing which psychological routes may be useful for interventions and persuasion to bridge the political divide on environmental issues.

Keywords

• Environmental issues
• Political divide
• Authoritarianism
• Social dominance orientation
• Future thinking
• Identity