The Psychology of Environmental Attitudes: Conceptual and Empirical Insights from New Zealand

Climate change profiles of New Zealanders over time: a one-year latent transition analysis of climate change beliefs and concern

Scientific evidence unequivocally shows that human activities cause climate change, but some people still deny it. Using New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study data from 2018 and 2019 (N = 34,733), we examined segmentation profiles regarding beliefs and concern about climate change ('Climate change is real', 'Climate change is caused by humans', 'I am deeply concerned about climate change'), the probabilities of transitioning to and from profiles over time, and the characteristics of individuals in each profile. Five profiles were identified with varying levels of climate change beliefs and concern. The largest profile (60.4% of respondents) had the highest levels of climate change beliefs and concern, while the smallest profile (3.7% of respondents) had the lowest. Over time, more people moved from profiles of lower into profiles of higher levels of climate change beliefs and concern. The profile with the highest levels was the most stable, with members having an 82.7% chance of staying in this profile over time. Compared to this group, members of the profile with the lowest levels of climate change beliefs and concern were more likely to be male, New Zealand European, parents, religious, and to endorse conservative and system-justifying ideologies. We discuss the implications of the findings.

Do Environmental Prompts Work the Same for Everyone? A Test of Environmental Attitudes as a Moderator

The extant literature has focused either on personal variables or on situational factors to explain pro-environmental behavior despite several calls to integrate both. The present research addresses this integration call by testing the interaction between environmental attitudes and situational prompts on pro-environmental behavior. Three experimental studies manipulate the presence/absence of pro-environmental prompts, measure environmental attitudes, and investigate the effect of both variables on behavior. Study 1 showed a simple effect: participants with higher levels of pro-environmental attitudes (compared to those with lower levels) performed more energy saving behavior in the presence of prompts. However, in the absence of prompt, none of the participants performed the behavior, which prevented us from statistically testing the interaction. Studies 2 and 3 were conducted with a similar design: main effects of attitude and prompts were obtained, but the interaction was not found. A Bayesian analysis of the data suggested more evidence toward the null hypothesis of no interaction between environmental attitudes and situational prompts.

Proximity to coast is linked to climate change belief

Psychologists have examined the many psychological barriers to both climate change belief and concern. One barrier is the belief that climate change is too uncertain, and likely to happen in distant places and times, to people unlike oneself. Related to this perceived psychological distance of climate change, studies have shown that direct experience of the effects of climate change increases climate change concern. The present study examined the relationship between physical proximity to the coastline and climate change belief, as proximity may be related to experiencing or anticipating the effects of climate change such as sea-level rise. We show, in a national probability sample of 5,815 New Zealanders, that people living in closer proximity to the shoreline expressed greater belief that climate change is real and greater support for government regulation of carbon emissions. This proximity effect held when adjusting for height above sea level and regional poverty. The model also included individual differences in respondents' sex, age, education, political orientation, and wealth. The results indicate that physical place plays a role in the psychological acceptance of climate change, perhaps because the effects of climate change become more concrete and local.