The Digester

A new seven study paper in the Journal of Consumer Psychology by Aylin Cakanlar and colleagues shows that conservatives tend to see sustainable actions as less impactful than liberals, which lowers their likelihood to act; communicating peer prevalence or exact impact can close the gap.

Conservatives judge common eco actions like recycling or eating plant based as less beneficial for the environment than liberals do.
This perception predicts lower engagement in sustainable behaviors across seven studies that included online surveys and a shopping mall field test.
Perceived prevalence of a behavior among one’s political peers largely explains the gap in perceived impact and behavior.
Framing actions around non environmental benefits or telling conservatives that their peers perform the behavior reduces the ideological difference.
Providing clear, specific impact information eliminates the gap in willingness to pay for an eco product between conservatives and liberals.
Results held after controlling for climate change belief, but are most relevant for actions whose environmental impact is hard for consumers to estimate.

Study finds conservatives undervalue the environmental impact of sustainable actions

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