Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 115, Issue 49, Pages 12429-12434Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1804698115
Keywords
diversity; sustainability; climate change; stereotypes; social influence
Categories
Funding
- David R. and Patricia D. Atkinson Foundation
- Environmental Defense Fund
- David L. Hirsch III and Susan H. Hirsch Research Initiation grant
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In a nationally representative survey experiment, diverse segments of the US public underestimated the environmental concerns of nonwhite and low-income Americans and misperceived them as lower than those of white and more affluent Americans. Moreover, both whites and nonwhites and higher-and lower-income respondents associated the term environmentalist with whites and the well-educated, suggesting that shared cultural stereotypes may drive these misperceptions. This environmental belief paradox-a tendency to misperceive groups that are among the most environmentally concerned and most vulnerable to a wide range of environmental impacts as least concerned about the environment-was largely invariant across demographic groups and also extended to the specific issue of climate change. Suggesting these beliefs are malleable, exposure to images of a racially diverse (vs. nondiverse) environmental organization in an embedded randomized experiment reduced the perceived gap between whites' and nonwhites' environmental concerns and strengthened associations between nonwhites and the category environmentalists among minority respondents. These findings suggest that stereotypes about others' environmental attitudes may pose a barrier to broadening public engagement with environmental initiatives, particularly among populations most vulnerable to negative environmental impacts.
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