Journal Article

The influence of social dominance orientation and right-wing authoritarianism on environmentalism: A five-year cross-lagged analysis

Stanley, Samantha K., Milfont, Taciano L., Wilson, Marc S., Sibley, Chris G.

2019

Overview

Social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) are ideological attitudes that predict lower concern for the environment and less willingness to act on climate change. Research generally shows that SDO and RWA exhibit moderate, negative relationships with environmentalism. We examine the longitudinal influence of SDO and RWA on people's willingness to change their behaviour to benefit the environment in a national probability sample over five years. We show that both ideological attitudes relate to lower environmentalism across time and that the SDO effect was stronger than the RWA effect, yet the association from environmentalism to later endorsement of SDO is stronger than the reverse. Interestingly, these findings suggest that the more likely temporal association flows from environmentalism to SDO.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Adult / Attitudes / Authoritarianism / Behavior change / Behavior modification / Biology and Life Sciences / Climate Change / Climate change research / Denial, Psychological / Dominance / Earth Sciences / Ecology and Environmental Sciences / Environmental aspects / Environmental effects / Environmental justice / Environmental policy / Environmentalism / Exploitation / Female / Global temperature changes / Group dominance / Group dynamics / Human behavior / Humans / Ideology / Inequality / Influence / Longitudinal Studies / Male / Models, Psychological / Natural resources / Nature / New Zealand / People and places / Psychology / Right and left (Political science) / Right wing politics / Social aspects / Social Dominance / Social Sciences / Trends / Willingness