Guest speakers social psychology

Culture, Identity, and Support for Environmental Action

David K. Sherman
University of California, Santa Barbara

Addressing global issues such as climate change requires significant support and engagement of citizens with diverse socio-cultural and political backgrounds. This talk will present findings showing that people with different sociocultural backgrounds, beliefs, and identities support or reject pro-environmental actions for different reasons. I examine factors that influence the relationship and relative importance of personal factors (i.e., personally held environmental beliefs) and social factors (i.e., perceived social norms) as psychological antecedents of support for pro-environmental actions. The first part of the talk will examine cultural orientation (individualism-collectivism) and socioeconomic status as moderators of the link between environmental beliefs, social norms, and support for environmental action. We found that personal factors predict support for pro-environmental actions more strongly among people from individualistic and higher SES cultural contexts whereas social factors predict support for pro-environmental actions more strongly among people from collectivistic and lower SES contexts. The second part of the talk shifts to identity as a predictor of environmental action and policy support. Identity as an environmentalist is more likely to predict environmental behavior when those behaviors are perceived as socially visible. Identity as a partisan (Republican or Democrat) also determines how people process policy information related to carbon emissions as a function of who proposes the policy. The talk will also include a discussion of how this research may be utilized to spur pro-environmental actions in response to the climate crisis.