Political ideology shapes perceptions of environmental impact: Study

Two people can take the same climate‑friendly action — recycling, eating less meat or biking to work — and generate the same environmental results. But a new study finds they may perceive the impact of those actions very differently depending on their political beliefs, shaping whether they choose to act at all.

In the paper, titled The politics of impact: How political ideology shapes perceptions of the environmental impact of individual actions, researchers conducted seven studies, examining how those of different political leanings assess the environmental impact of their own actions.

In one of the studies, the researchers compared the real-world impact of certain behaviours, including avoiding one transatlantic flight, switching from a meat-based diet to plant-based and reducing food waste, with how impactful participants believed those behaviours to be.

In another experiment at a shopping mall, shoppers were offered a free pen and were asked to choose between two — one was made from reclaimed wood and recycled materials, and the other offered better performance — and asked which they believed had the greater environmental impact.

Across the studies, those who held more conservative views consistently underestimated the impact of more sustainable behaviours.

“Especially for the more meaningful, higher impact actions, conservatives tended to underestimate their impact, which ultimately led them to show lower sustainable intentions and behaviours,” says UBC Sauder Professor Dr. Kate White, who co-authored the paper with Aylin Cakanlar of the Stockholm School of Economics and Remi Trudel of Boston University.

In general,  liberals had a more accurate sense of their impact, says Dr. White; yet still, they also made mistakes. “If anything, liberals tended to overestimate some impacts — thinking that smaller, more token actions were doing more good than they really were.”

White adds that both sides get it wrong when it comes to the impact of certain behaviours, like avoiding a single transatlantic flight. “Nobody understands what a big deal that is for carbon emissions,” she says, “but conservatives underestimated it’s impact to an even greater degree.”

Part of what’s happening, says Dr. White, is that when conservatives look around within their social circles, they don’t see as many people talking about more sustainable practices or engaging in them.

“So there’s a kind of social inference process that happens. Conservatives are thinking, ‘If it was worth doing, people I know would be doing it,’” explains Dr. White. “But I don’t see anyone else changing their behaviour, which makes me question whether my own actions would really make a difference.”

In another experiment, researchers found that if conservatives are encouraged to change their behaviours for a different reason — riding their bike to work for health reasons rather than to slow climate change, say — they’re more likely to engage in those practices.

What’s more, if researchers clearly explained the environmental impact of specific actions, it made conservatives more likely to take them up.

Interestingly, they found the effect is not the simply driven by climate change denial. White says conservatives are, on average, more likely to believe that climate change isn’t real, or that it isn’t human-caused, but the researchers statistically controlled for this and still saw a significant difference in terms of how conservatives viewed their impact of greener actions. “Even when we selected for conservatives who strongly believe in climate change, they still view their own environmental impact for a given action as significantly lower than liberals do,” White says.

The findings have big implications for businesses, policymakers, or non-profits trying to encourage a wider range of people to engage in sustainable behaviours, says Dr. White. Instead of simply encouraging people, they should clearly outline the environmental benefits and consider highlighting other “co-benefits” of engaging in the sustainable action.

“You have to think about what other benefits come along with the action. So if it's riding a bike or eating more plant-based options, what are the other positives?  It could be health. It could be saving money. It could be a way of spending time with your family,” says Dr. White.

“For whoever you’re trying to convince, ask ‘What do they really care about? What resonates with them?’ Then frame it that way,” she says.

These findings help explain why some climate‑friendly behaviours remain polarizing in Canada and the U.S. and suggest that efforts to promote sustainability may be more effective if they either:  make environmental impacts very clear or emphasize personal or community benefits, rather than environmental ones alone.