The relationship between political and religious social identities and beliefs about the existence and cause of climate change and pro-environmental behaviour

Sophie Watson (Heriot-Watt)

It is argued that climate change is one of the greatest threats to humanity and we need to act more pro-environmentally to mitigate its consequences. Past literature has found that whilst there is a gap, beliefs and concern about climate change influence the likelihood that individuals will carry out pro-environmental behaviour. In addition, social and demographic factors have been found to influence these beliefs and concern, including political orientation, religious identification and age. Based on this, the current study aims to examine whether political orientation, religious identification and religious liberalism, as well as a number of demographic factors, predict science-consistent beliefs about climate change and whether there is a gap between these beliefs and concern and frequency of pro-environmental behaviour. Multiple regression analyses found that higher levels of knowledge about climate change significantly predicted the belief that climate change is happening, higher concern about climate change and higher frequency of pro-environmental behaviour. In addition, younger age significantly predicted higher concern and females reported carrying out pro-environmental behaviour more often than males. Finally, higher levels of concern, but not science-consistent beliefs, about climate change did significantly predict more frequent pro-environmental behaviour, supporting the belief-behaviour gap. These findings are compared to research carried out in the USA and expands our knowledge on the role of social identities on pro-environmental behaviours as well as having practical implications for groups such as education organisations and political groups.