Cited by 928Pro-Environmental Behavior and AttitudesPsychology of Moral and Emotional JudgmentClimate Change Communication and Perception

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 8 of the 8 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes

Feinberg, Matthew, Willer, Robb·2013·Psychological Science

DOI 10.1177/0956797612449177

Open this paper in CoChat — free account

Abstract

Americans' attitudes about the environment are highly polarized, but it is unclear why this is the case. We conducted five studies to examine this issue. Studies 1a and 1b demonstrated that liberals, but not conservatives, view the environment in moral terms and that this tendency partially explains the relation between political ideology and environmental attitudes. Content analyses of newspaper op-eds (Study 2a) and public-service announcements (Study 2b) found that contemporary environmental discourse is based largely on moral concerns related to harm and care, which are more deeply held by liberals than by conservatives. However, we found that reframing proenvironmental rhetoric in terms of purity, a moral value resonating primarily among conservatives, largely eliminated the difference between liberals' and conservatives' environmental attitudes (Study 3). These results establish the importance of moralization as a cause of polarization on environmental attitudes and suggest that reframing environmental discourse in different moral terms can reduce the gap between liberals and conservatives in environmental concern.

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1177/0956797612449177

Cites

0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Recomputing p-values needs the paper’s full text.

Claims the paper makes

This paper’s full text isn’t openly available, so its claims and self-check weren’t run. The registry and citation checks still apply.

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Asymptotic and resampling strategies for assessing and comparing indirect effects in multiple mediator models
Preacher, K. J., & Hayes, A. F. (2008) · Behavior Research Methods · doi:10.3758/brm.40.3.879 · Cited by 34,117
The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment.
Haidt, J. (2001) · Psychological Review · doi:10.1037/0033-295x.108.4.814 · Cited by 8,048
Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations.
Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009) · Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · doi:10.1037/a0015141 · Cited by 4,560
All Frames Are Not Created Equal: A Typology and Critical Analysis of Framing Effects
Levin, I. P., Schneider, S. L., & Gaeth, G. J. (1998) · Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · doi:10.1006/obhd.1998.2804 · Cited by 2,592
System justification, the denial of global warming, and the possibility of “system-sanctioned change”
Feygina, I., Jost, J. T., & Goldsmith, R. E. (2010) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/0146167209351435 · Cited by 720
Conservatives are more easily disgusted than liberals
Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., & Bloom, P. (2009) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699930802110007 · Cited by 574
Politics and environment in America: partisan and ideological cleavages in public support for environmentalism.
Dunlap, R. E., Xiao, C., & McCright, A. M. (2001) · Environmental Politics · doi:10.1080/714000580 · Cited by 432
Misperceptions in Intergroup Conflict: Disagreeing About What We Disagree About
Chambers, J. R., Baron, R. S., & Inman, M. L. (2006) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2005.01662.x · Cited by 155

Show all 0 references

Research works printed but not linked: 28

Bazerman M. H., 1999, Research in Organizational Behavior, 21, 39
10.1111/j.1467-9221.2011.00826.x · DOI
Boote A. S., 1981, Journal of Advertising Research, 21, 29
10.1177/1368430208098783 · DOI
10.1080/10463280240000082 · DOI
10.1177/0956797610391911 · DOI
10.1111/j.1559-1816.1992.tb01523.x · DOI
10.1162/0011526042365555 · DOI
10.1177/1086026611404336 · DOI
10.1111/j.1467-6494.1976.tb00132.x · DOI
10.1037/a0017423 · DOI
10.1177/0013916596281006 · DOI
Lakoff G., 1996, Moral politics: What conservatives know that liberals don’t
10.1017/S0022381608080742 · DOI
10.1111/j.1559-1816.1991.tb00475.x · DOI
10.1525/sp.2003.50.3.348 · DOI
10.1111/j.1533-8525.2011.01198.x · DOI · Paper page
10.1111/j.1530-2415.2010.01204.x · DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.90.4.629 · DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.89.6.852 · DOI
10.1177/0022022198294003 · DOI
10.2307/1598934 · DOI
10.1016/S0065-2601(08)60358-5 · DOI · Paper page
10.1111/j.1467-9221.2007.00611.x · DOI
10.1037/0022-3514.88.6.895 · DOI · Paper page
Stern P. C., 1999, Human Ecology Review, 6, 81
10.1111/j.1559-1816.1978.tb00775.x · DOI
Wardekker A., 2008, Communicating climate change: Discourses, mediations, and perceptions, 53

Sorted by citations

Items 501–600 of 777

Defensive Confidence and Certainty in Unchanged Attitudes: The Role of Affect–Cognition Matching
Ng, W. J. R., Bu, C., & See, Y. H. M. (2022) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/01461672221074102 · Cited by 4
Pictures Matter: How Images of Projected Sea-Level Rise Shape Long-Term Sustainable Design Decisions for Infrastructure Systems
Milovanovic, J., Shealy, T., Klotz, L. E., Johnson, E. J., & Weber, E. (2022) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su14053007 · Cited by 4
“Other studies have pointed out the strong effect of ideology on willingness to engage with the anthropogenic impacts of climate change, regardless of the psychological distance of climate change related events [55,56].”
Background
Not out of MY bank account! Science messaging when climate change policies carry personal financial costs
Swim, J. K., Geiger, N., & Guerriero, J. G. (2021) · Thinking & Reasoning · doi:10.1080/13546783.2021.1957710 · Cited by 7
Strange Frame Fellows: The Evolution of Discursive Framing in the Opt-Out Testing Movement
Morel, R. P. (2021) · Teachers College Record The Voice of Scholarship in Education · doi:10.1177/016146812112300507 · Cited by 5
A story induces greater environmental contributions than scientific information among liberals but not conservatives
Byerly, H., Ferraro, P. J., Li, T.-Z., Messer, K., & Weigel, C. (2021) · One Earth · doi:10.1016/j.oneear.2021.03.004 · Cited by 4
Moral intuitions predict pro-social behaviour in a climate commons game
Ertör-Akyazi, P., & Akçay, Ç. (2020) · Ecological Economics · doi:10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106918 · Cited by 4
“Moral arguments also motivate individual pro-environmental behaviour (Axelrod and Lehman, 1993; Feinberg and Willer, 2013; Frey and Stutzer, 2008; Gifford and Nilsson, 2014), which can shape new social norms towards more climate-friendly action when they spillover to other individuals (Kraft-Todd et al.”
BackgroundResult
Values Influence Public Acceptability of Geoengineering Technologies Via Self-Identities
Moynihan, A. B., & Schuitema, G. (2020) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su12114591 · Cited by 4
Saving “Little Sister”: A Test of the Effectiveness of Kinship Appeals in Conservation Marketing
Morris, D. S. M., & Qirko, H. (2019) · Environmental Communication · doi:10.1080/17524032.2019.1687102 · Cited by 6
Quantifying Latent Moral Foundations in Twitter Narratives: The Case of the Syrian White Helmets MisinformationPreprint
Mutlu, E., Oghaz, T. A., Tütüncüler, E., Jasser, J., & Garibay, I. (2020) · arXiv.org · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2004.13142 · Cited by 4
Introduction: Agency in Earth System Governance
Betsill, M. M., Benney, T. M., Gerlak, A. K., Brown, C., Chan, S., Enechi, O., Mitchell, R. B., Möller, I., Patterson, J., Scobie, M., et al. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.001 · Cited by 5
Intuitive biology, moral reasoning, and engineering life: Essentialist thinking and moral purity concerns shape risk assessments of synthetic biology technologies.
Swiney, L. (2018) · Cognition · doi:10.31234/osf.io/pzy98 · Cited by 4
Responsible Environmental Attitudes as Recipe for Sustainable Environment in Nigeria
Oladiti, A. A., & Kamarise, B. T. (2014) · International Letters of Natural Sciences · doi:10.18052/www.scipress.com/ilns.20.28 · Cited by 4
An audience segmentation study of native plant gardening behaviors in the United States
Champine, V. M., Tamlyn, K. A., Jones, M. S., Balgopal, M. M., Bruyere, B. L., Solomon, J. N., & Niemiec, R. M. (2024) · Landscape and Urban Planning · doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2024.105272 · Cited by 5
Caring for Creation: The Evangelical’s Guide
Hescox, M. C. (2020) · Health of People, Health of Planet and Our Responsibility · doi:10.1007/978-3-030-31125-4_21 · Cited by 4
Expanding the scope and content of morality policy research: lessons from Moral Foundations Theory
Tatalovich, R., & Wendell, D. G. (2018) · Policy sciences · doi:10.1007/s11077-018-9329-1 · Cited by 3
Liberals and Conservatives See Different Victims: Moral Disagreement Is Explained by Different Assumptions of Vulnerability
Womick, J., Kubin, E., Goya‐Tocchetto, D., Ochoa, N. R., Rebollar, C., Kapsaskis, K., Pratt, S., Devine, H., Payne, B. K., Vaisey, S., et al. (2026) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/01461672261422957 · Cited by 13
To share or not to share, that is the (moral) question: How moral frames and bystander cues shape health misinformation correction sharing on social media
Dong, Y., & Li, W. (2025) · Computers in Human Behavior · doi:10.1016/j.chb.2025.108900 · Cited by 4
Competing moral minds? Estimating moral disagreement in American politics
Johnston, C. D., Ciuk, D. J., & Lopez, J. (2025) · Political Psychology · doi:10.1111/pops.70078 · Cited by 3
“…strong predictors of political ideology (Graham et al., 2009) and are important to policy-relevant beliefs on issues such as foreign affairs (Kertzer et al., 2014), stem-cell research (Clifford & Jerit, 2013), the environment (Feinberg & Willer, 2013), and the culture wars (Koleva et al., 2012).”
Understanding Support for Cycling Infrastructure Through Moral Foundations Theory
Kinman, L., Laviolette, J., Manaugh, K., & Waygood, O. (2025) · Journal of Cycling and Micromobility Research · doi:10.1016/j.jcmr.2025.100095 · Cited by 3
Emotions moderate the influence of moral values on attitude stability
Phillips, S. C., Ng, L. H. X., Zhou, W., & Carley, K. M. (2025) · Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory · doi:10.1007/s10588-025-09407-3 · Cited by 2
“These automatic intuitions underlie attitudes towards topics like foreign policies (Kertzer et al. 2014), the environment (Feinberg and Willer 2013), and COVID-19 vaccines (Schmidtke et al. 2022).”
Moral foundations of energy transitions in the United States: A cross-sector discourse analysis
Ba, Y.-H., & Tan, H.-Y. (2025) · Energy Research & Social Science · doi:10.1016/j.erss.2025.104090 · Cited by 3
Why is the Southeastern United States late to adopt electric vehicles? Analyzing trends in social media conversation to form marketing recommendations
DiRusso, C., Kabir, M. E., Hagan, A. H., & Boatwright, B. (2025) · Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives · doi:10.1016/j.trip.2025.101509 · Cited by 3
Community attitudes towards advancing climate justice with climate aid
Stanley, S. K., Ghasemi, O., Kerr, J. R., Ross, R. M., Marques, M. D., Mede, N. G., Berger, S., Alfano, M., Levy, N. L., Ferreira, M., et al. (2025) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102679 · Cited by 3
Environmental framing and left-wing political orientation promote sustainability in a US-based common-pool resource dilemma
Hansen, R. R. S. F., Koomen, J. A., Buck, B., Betts, J. M., Bliuc, A., & Koomen, R. M. (2025) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2025.102663 · Cited by 4
Framing in Climate Change Communication and its Influence on Ideological Divides
Romeu, H. C. (2025) · Glocality · doi:10.5334/glo.99 · Cited by 2
“Environmental polarisation is worsened by when it is framed in moral terms (Feinberg & Willer, 2012).”
Toward adaptive climate communication and an expanded frame theory: lessons from environmental organizations
Rawlyk, M., & Willness, C. R. (2025) · Sustainability Science · doi:10.1007/s11625-025-01685-9 · Cited by 3
“…socio-ecological settings, including public health frames (Kotcher et al. 2018; Myers et al. 2012), moral frames aligned with conservative values (Feinberg and Willer 2013), patriotic frames (Feygina et al. 2010), in-group loyalty (Kidwell et al. 2013), and identity-based appeals (Sapiains et…”
“Climate Change is Real, but I Don't Wanna Talk About It”: Unraveling Spiral of Silence Effects Regarding Climate Change Among Midwestern American Farmers
Vu, H., Nguyen, N., Izhar, N., & Diwanji, V. (2025) · Environmental Communication · doi:10.1080/17524032.2025.2477260 · Cited by 3
How does Social Trust Shape the Politicization of America’s Climate Change Perception?—A Study of Two National Surveys in 2022 and 2023
Hao, F., & Doyle, J. (2025) · Sociology Compass · doi:10.1111/soc4.70035 · Cited by 4
Integrating dance with the AIDA framework: Advancing sustainable behaviors through dynamic marketing communications for environmental sustainability
Hung, C.-N., Fu, C., & Silalahi, A. D. K. (2025) · Heliyon · doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2025.e42958 · Cited by 10
Vulnerability to natural disasters and sustainable consumption: Unraveling political and regional differences
Chae, R. L., Siddiqui, R. A., & Yan, X. (2025) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.2409851122 · Cited by 5
“…changing the beliefs of group leaders (e.g., politicians) ( 39 ), providing science - based information that is free from partisan cues ( 40 ), or framing environmental behavior in a way that resonates with right - wing morals by emphasizing in - group protection or patriotism ( 9 , 32 – 35 ).”
From environmentalism to activism: comparing environmentalist students and Fridays for Future protesters in Hungary
Mikecz, D. (2024) · Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe · doi:10.1080/25739638.2024.2433912 · Cited by 3
“Moreover, environmentalism has been linked to prosocial attitudes (Kaiser and Byrka 2011), although it’s worth noting that moral-based arguments can sometimes lead to the polarization of environmental attitudes (Feinberg and Willer 2013).”
“Not Only a Matter of Personal Interest”—Vaccination Narratives and the Model of Moral Motives in China and Germany
Müller, S., Wachinger, J., Jiao, L.-R., Bärnighausen, T., Chen, S.-M., & McMahon, S. (2024) · Qualitative Health Research · doi:10.1177/10497323241277107 · Cited by 3
“Hence, deeper understanding of moral motives on vaccination, gained through this study, might guide development of future information campaigns to increase vaccination rates (Feinberg & Willer, 2013; Schmidtke et al., 2022).”
Beauty Builds Cooperation by Increasing Moral Concern for the Environment
Kirkland, K., van Lange, P., Charalambous, N., Strauss, C., & Bastian, B. (2024) · Environment and Behavior · doi:10.1177/00139165241291700 · Cited by 3
“Purity perceptions have also been considered a possible causative factor for people’s moral concern for the environment (Rottman et al., 2015) and framing pro-environmental rhetoric in terms of purity has been found to increase pro-environmental attitudes (Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
Stated purchase of bio-based products: Personal and regional factors in Germany
Goerg, S. J., Hempel, C., & Pondorfer, A. (2024) · Cleaner and Circular Bioeconomy · doi:10.1016/j.clcb.2024.100087 · Cited by 3
The Greek crisis as a “morality tale”? An empirical assessment
Nones, N. (2024) · European Union Politics · doi:10.1177/14651165241234483 · Cited by 19
“Second, I validate the combined dictionary on a data set of newspaper articles, whose moral content was manually coded in Feinberg and Willer (2013).”
The effect of moral framing on attitudes towards offshore wind farms in Turkey
Göral, E., & Hannum, C. M. (2024) · Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics · doi:10.1016/j.socec.2024.102189 · Cited by 3
Primacy effects in the formation of environmental attitudes: The case of mineral exploration
Poluektova, O., Julienne, H., Robertson, D. A., Braiden, A., & Lunn, P. D. (2024) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102248 · Cited by 3
Constructing Vec-tionaries to Extract Message Features from Texts: A Case Study of Moral Content
Duan, Z., Shao, A., Hu, Y., Lee, H., Liao, X., Suh, Y. J., Kim, J., Yang, K.-C., Chen, K., & Yang, S. (2025) · Political Analysis · doi:10.1017/pan.2025.6 · Cited by 3
“A growing body of research demonstrates that moral foundations play a crucial role in fueling partisan disagreements on environmental attitudes (Feinberg and Willer 2013), candidate trait evaluations (Clifford 2014), and voting choices (Jung 2020).”
Reassuring Pro-Environmental Behaviour: A Goal-Framing Theory Perspective
Noor, N. H. M., & Nordin, N. B. (2023) · Bioresources and Environment · doi:10.24191/bioenv.v1i3.36 · Cited by 3
“Moreover, the normative goal emerges as the most significant predictor of pro-environmental behaviour, which is consistent with the findings from the previous studies (e.g., Feinberg and Willer, 2013; Grolleau et al., 2023; Liobikienė and Minelgaitė, 2021).”
Perceptions of Self-Motives and Environmental Activists’ Motives for Pro-Environmental Behavior
Geiger, N. (2022) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su141710656 · Cited by 3
“Research on moral foundations theory suggests that the harm/care moral foundation is usually more appealing to US political liberals than conservatives, while the purity moral foundation is usually more appealing to US conservatives than liberals [4,6,25] (but also see [44]).”
Background
[Retracted] Green human resource management and green environmental workplace behaviour in the eThekwini municipality of South Africa
Adewumi, S. A., Ajadi, T. H., & Ntshangase, B. A. (2022) · International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science (2147-4478) · doi:10.20525/ijrbs.v11i4.1720 · Cited by 5
“The influence of globalisation on trade, economics and business has increased two-folds, especially with the increasing rate of natural resources among organisations which has continued to rouse concerns (Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
Background
The turnout myth and referendum voting in the United States
Simon, C. A., & Tatalovich, R. (2022) · Politics & Policy · doi:10.1111/polp.12483 · Cited by 3
The Role of Religiosity on Deontological Climate Message Acceptance: A U.S. Survey
DePalma, V. (2022) · Human Ecology · doi:10.1007/s10745-022-00307-7 · Cited by 5
Do Source cues or frames matter? Convincing the public about the veracity of climate science
Gainous, J., Payne, R. A., & Merry, M. K. (2021) · Social Science Quarterly · doi:10.1111/ssqu.13033 · Cited by 4
Can the partisan divide in climate change attitudes be bridged?
Rode, J. B., & Ditto, P. H. (2021) · doi:10.4324/9781003042433-12 · Cited by 3
“For example, Feinberg and Willer (2013) provided participants with a neutral message, a message describing the harm of environmental degradation and need to care for the earth (targeting liberal morality), or a message emphasizing the need to keep the earth pure and sacred (targeting conservative…”
Background
A tale of two hashtags: An examination of moral content of pro‐ and anti‐government tweets in Turkey
Bayrak, F., & Alper, S. (2021) · European Journal of Social Psychology · doi:10.1002/ejsp.2763 · Cited by 3
Evidence of Psychological Targeting but not Psychological Tailoring in Political Persuasion Around Brexit
Walker, C., O'Neill, S., & Lee, D.-W. (2020) · Experimental Results · doi:10.1017/exp.2020.43 · Cited by 3
Public perceptions of the hybridization of polar (Ursus maritimus) and grizzly bears (Ursus arctos horribilis)
Macdonald, C., & Wester, J. (2019) · Human Dimensions of Wildlife · doi:10.1080/10871209.2019.1581859 · Cited by 3
How Do Money and Time Restrictions Influence Self-Constraining Behavior in Polluting the Commons?
Arbuthnott, K. D., & Scerbe, A. (2016) · Organization & Environment · doi:10.1177/1086026616652667 · Cited by 4
“In addition to including consumption and disposal commons dilemmas, future studies could also emphasize either harm/care or purity/sanctity foundations (as in Feinberg & Willer, 2012) and observe whether these manipulations influence constraint behavior differently for the two commons types.”
Background
Improving Skeptics' Reasoning When Evaluating Climate Change Material: A Cognitive Intervention
Johnson, D. R. (2017) · Ecopsychology · doi:10.1089/eco.2017.0012 · Cited by 6
“…climate change beliefs is re-framing how the climate change material is presented (Bain, Hornsey, Bongiorno, & Jeffries, 2012; Bain et al., 2016; Feinberg & Willer, 2013; Feygina, Jost, & Goldsmith, 2010; Kahan, Jenkins-Smith, Tarantola, Silva, & Braman, 2015; Koger, Leslie, & Hayes, 2011;…”
Endorsing both sides, pleasing neither: Ambivalent individuals face unexpected social costs in political conflicts
Siev, J. J., Philipp-Muller, A. Z., Durso, G. R. O., & Wegener, D. T. (2024) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2024.104631 · Cited by 4
Moral Narratives Around the Vaccination Discourse on the Facebook Platform
Prado, M. F., Bustos, V. P., Kalimeri, K., & Beiró, M. G. (2022) · arXiv.org · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2206.01598 · Cited by 3
Beyond one-size-fits-all: Personalising health communication to drive real behaviour change
Avenel, J., Chevallier, C., & Dubourg, E. (2026) · La Presse Médicale · doi:10.1016/j.lpm.2026.104370 · Cited by 1
How moral brand transgressions impact perceptions of social media message credibility
Connors, S., & Hingston, S. T. (2026) · Journal of Business Research · doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2026.116067 · Cited by 2
Are green influencers persuasive among eco-content followers on China's major social media platforms? An exploration of emotions, attitudes, and discourse.
Yin, M.-J., Wang, L., Gui, J., Yang, Z., Zhou, G.-Q., & Su, C. (2026) · Acta Psychologica · doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2026.106596 · Cited by 2
Understanding reactions to alternative labels for diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives
Bell, E. A., Johnson, J. A., Traylor, A., Desing, L., Lander, A., & Mastro, M. D. (2026) · Equality Diversity and Inclusion An International Journal · doi:10.1108/edi-04-2025-0235 · Cited by 3
The Price of Beauty: assessing an environmental education program about traded songbirds in Indonesia
Mirin, B. H., Thomas, M., Smith, M. K., Pratiwi, A. R., Imron, M., Semedi, P., Firdaus, F. I., & Klinck, H. (2025) · Environmental Education Research · doi:10.1080/13504622.2025.2593363 · Cited by 2
“They can imbue the songbird trade with greater meaning by emphasizing its moral aspects (Kaiser et al. 1999; omran 2014), while taking care to avoid polarizing environmental discourse (Feinberg and Willer 2013).”
Are eco-labels able to go beyond signaling environmental benefits? using eco-labels to communicate the economic value of sustainability in food products
Langaro, D., Loureiro, S. M. C., & Brântuas, M. (2025) · Journal of Strategic Marketing · doi:10.1080/0965254x.2025.2584043 · Cited by 2
“…role of symbolic benefits in purchase behavior, with direct effects moderated by the level of eco-label understanding and indirect effects mediated by moral convictions toward sustainable consumption (Feinberg & Willer, 2013; Heddy et al., 2022; Ramos et al., 2024; Yaprak & Prince, 2019).”
Moral expansiveness and pro-environmentalism: the mediating role of moral emotions
Takamatsu, R., Rottman, J., & Crimston, C. R. (2025) · Cognition & Emotion · doi:10.1080/02699931.2025.2578301 · Cited by 2
“In the U.S., attitudes toward environmental issues can be polarised, but framing the protection of nature through the moral concept of purity, which relates to disgust, appeals to both conserva-tives and liberals (Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
Beyond Message Framing: Comparing the Role of Environmental Values in Conservation Behavior Across the U.S. and India
Stepchenkova, S. O., Baniya, R., Kirilenko, A., & Chen, T. (2025) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su17219631 · Cited by 2
More than scientists: How message and messenger attributes influence viewers’ climate change intentions
Hine, D. W., Phillips, K. L., Hine, M. J., Bhattacharya, O., Phillips, W. J., Driver, A., Marks, A. D. G., & Phillips, G. (2025) · PLoS ONE · doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0331672 · Cited by 2
“Feinberg and Willer [27] found that conservatives who were exposed to a sanctity/purity frame (e.g., depicting pollution) reported greater belief in climate change, pro-environmental attitudes, and support for policies than did conservatives exposed to a harm/ care frame (e.g., emphasizing harm to…”
The Moral Gap of Large Language Models
Skorski, M., & Landowska, A. (2025) · arXiv.org · doi:10.13140/rg.2.2.26221.70880 · Cited by 2
Mental Models Matter: Conceptualizations of the Human–Nature Relationship Predict Pro-Environmental Attitudes and Behavioral Intentions
Kim, J. J. H., & Coley, J. D. (2025) · Sustainability · doi:10.3390/su17094242 · Cited by 2
“These findings also suggest that conservatism may influence pro-environmentalism through a different cognitive pathway than the mental model components, potentially emphasizing other values, such as moral foundations of care and fairness [95] or purity [96,97].”
Moral foundations and political ideology in the UK
Stoneman, P., & Wright, J. (2024) · The British Journal of Politics and International Relations · doi:10.1177/13691481241291426 · Cited by 2
“In theory, support for the government taking a pro-environment stance should be partly driven by both care and equality foundations (Feinberg and Willer, 2013; Graham et al., 2011).”
Framing of Civil Society Organizations’ Communication on Facebook: Examining the Impact on Audience Engagement in Norway
Enjolras, B. (2024) · Nonprofit Policy Forum · doi:10.1515/npf-2023-0013 · Cited by 4
“In the U.S., Feinberg and Willer (2012) found that liberals tend to view the environment in moral terms, while conservatives do not, and that this di ﬀ erence partially explains the relation between political ideology and environmental attitudes.”
Refining and expanding applications of Moral Foundations Theory in consumer psychology
Johnson, W., Ramos, G. A., VanEpps, E. M., & Graham, J. (2024) · Journal of Consumer Psychology · doi:10.1002/jcpy.1442 · Cited by 2
“For instance, past research has investigated whether moral framing – that is, framing a message in terms of different moral foundations – promotes persuasion (e.g., Day et al., 2014; Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015; Kidwell et al., 2013; Winterich et al., 2012).”
The Effects of Morally Reframed Messages on White Individuals’ Attitudes Toward White Privilege
Deamer, S. K., Sonnentag, T. L., & Wadian, T. W. (2024) · Psychological Reports · doi:10.1177/00332941241265316 · Cited by 2
“…topics, such as recycling and legalization of marijuana (Luttrell et al., 2019), political candidates (Voelkel & Feinberg, 2018), environmental policies (Feinberg & Willer, 2013), and political opinions (e.g., same-sex marriage, universal health care; Feinberg & Willer, 2015; Koleva et al., 2012).”
Morality meets menu: investigating the impact of moral appeals on vegetarianism through a conjoint survey experiment
Mrchkovska, N., Dolšak, N., & Prakash, A. (2024) · Climatic Change · doi:10.1007/s10584-024-03695-5 · Cited by 3
“Scholars of climate psychology note that individuals are more willing to support climate action when climate issues are framed in moral terms (Grasso and Markowitz 2015; Corner et al. 2014; Feinberg and Willer 2013; Shwom et al. 2010) as opposed to scientific logic (Rozin et al. 1997).”
Influential
Religion and Climate Change Indifference: Linking the Sacred to the Social
Hirschl, T. A., Booth, J., & Glenna, L. (2023) · Review of European Studies · doi:10.5539/res.v15n1p11 · Cited by 2
“The hypothesized link from political ideology to climate change indifference is consistent with the proposition that the range of climate change attitudes correlate with the package of cognitive beliefs defined by conservative versus liberal ideology (Feinberg and Willer, 2013).”
Result
Engaging faith-based communities in pro-environmental behavior using soft regulations: The case of single-use plastics
Kaufmann, D., Tikotsky, A., Yoreh, T., & Tchetchik, A. (2023) · Frontiers in Environmental Science · doi:10.3389/fenvs.2022.1019904 · Cited by 2
“Instead, conservative-leaning communities gravitate towards language such as cleanliness and purity (Feinberg and Willer, 2012; Yoreh, 2020).”
Background
The effects of ideological value framing and symbolic racism on pro-environmental behavior
Makovi, K., & Kasak-Gliboff, H. (2021) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-021-00329-z · Cited by 2
Analogies Offer Value Through the Struggle to Make Them Work: Making Sense of the Psychological Immune System
Vaz, A., Mata, A., & Critcher, C. R. (2021) · Psychological Inquiry · doi:10.1080/1047840x.2021.2004815 · Cited by 3
Why Ecological Footprint Calculators Should Move beyond Information Provision – An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Environmental Knowledge and Ecological Footprint
Kok, A., & Barendregt, W. (2021) · doi:10.20944/preprints202102.0578.v1 · Cited by 2
Welfare, Politics, and Folklore: Overcoming the Narrative Bias Against Public Assistance in the U.S.
Mould, T. (2020) · Journal of Folklore Research · doi:10.2979/jfolkrese.57.2.01 · Cited by 2
“Further, the purity essay also made conservatives much more likely to acknowledge the danger of global warming, despite the fact that the issue 1) was not addressed in any of the essays, and 2) is highly politicized as a liberal rather than conservative belief (Feinberg and Willer 2013).”
Background
An Experimental Test of the Effects of Hurricane News about Human Behavior on Climate-Related Attitudes
Myrick, J., & Conlin, J. (2020) · Environmental Communication · doi:10.1080/17524032.2020.1736115 · Cited by 2
“In their research, Feinberg and Willer (2013) found that conservatives and liberals responded differently to environmental information because environmental information is typically framed in terms of harm and care, a “moral foundation” more important to liberals than conservatives (see also Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 20…”
Background
Agency in a Multiscalar World
Scobie, M., Betsill, M. M., & Park, H. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.009 · Cited by 5
Theories and Methods of Agency Research in Earth System Governance
Benney, T. M., Orsini, A. J., Cantwell-Chavez, D., & Iozzelli, L. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.003 · Cited by 2
Conclusion: Policy Implications of ESG–Agency Research and Reflections on the Road Ahead
Gerlak, A. K., Betsill, M. M., Patterson, J., Chan, S., Benney, T. M., Brisbois, M. C., Eimer, T. R., & Scobie, M. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.015 · Cited by 1
Agency and Knowledge in Environmental Governance: A Thematic Review
Milkoreit, M., Bansard, J. S., & van der Hel, S. (2020) · Cambridge University Press eBooks · doi:10.1017/9781108688277.007 · Cited by 4
The role of schools in building student awareness of environment through adiwiyata program
Ali, A., Akbar, A., Kamarudin, Manan, Safiuddin, & Noer, E. (2019) · IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environment · doi:10.1088/1755-1315/343/1/012134 · Cited by 2
Inferences on Improving Integrative Sustainability Governance
Monkelbaan, J. (2018) · Sustainable development goals series · doi:10.1007/978-981-13-0475-0_6 · Cited by 4
Communicating Conservation Status: How Different Statistical Assessment Criteria Affect Perceptions of Extinction Risk
Song, H., & Schuldt, J. P. (2017) · Risk Analysis · doi:10.1111/risa.12714 · Cited by 2
“For example, recent work(37) suggests that environmental messaging that is evocative of the moral dimensions of”
Background
Moral Foundations of Welfare Attitudes: The Role of Moral Intuition and Reasoning in Pursuing Social Justice
Findor, A. (2015) · Central European Journal of Public Policy · doi:10.1515/cejpp-2016-0013 · Cited by 2
“This reframing successfully reduced the gap between the environmental attitudes of liberal and conservatives and make environmental protection an almost equally acceptable policy position for both opposite groups (Feinberg & Willer, 2012).”
Moral conviction: A challenge in the age of science politicization
Bayes, R. (2022) · Progress in molecular biology and translational science · doi:10.1016/bs.pmbts.2021.11.003 · Cited by 3
Integrating behaviour change strategies to enhance construction and demolition waste management practices
Khyalia, P. K., Kaur, R., Eneizan, B. M., Gupta, A., & Rupal, A. (2026) · Property Management · doi:10.1108/pm-12-2025-0182 · Cited by 1
Moral Semantics Survive Machine Translation
Skórski, M. (2026) · International Conference on Information Technology for Social Good (GoodIT) · doi:10.1145/3794786.3830756 · Cited by 1
“Lexicon-based approaches [10] and, more recently, fine-tuned language models [13, 17, 19, 22] have been applied to political discourse [18], social media analysis [9], and moral dilemmas [14] — building on foundational cross-cultural findings in moral psychology [4, 7].”
Vaccine communication: a critical review of foundations, challenges, and future directions
Nan, X. (2026) · npj Vaccines · doi:10.1038/s41541-026-01487-9 · Cited by 3
“…contested issues using ideologically compatible moral language can reduce defensive processing and increase openness to opposing viewpoints 65 . or changes in recommendation categories — regardless of intent — can be interpreted as evidence that prior guidance was unstable or politically…”
Nature Relatedness as an Orientation in Moral Psychology
Janhonen, J., Kähönen, J., & Salmi, I. (2026) · Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science · doi:10.1007/s12124-026-09996-x · Cited by 3
“Among conservatives, environmental messages framed to evoke sanctity and purity concerns appear to work best (Feinberg & Willer, 2013) .”
Navigating ideological divides in digital spaces: How political ideology and moral rhetoric shape the promotion of causes online
Gamez-Djokic, M., Mooijman, M., Rocklage, M. D., & Kouchaki, M. (2026) · Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2026.104893 · Cited by 1
Prosocial Persuasion at Scale? Large Language Models Outperform Humans in Donation Appeals Across Levels of PersonalizationPreprint
Caffier, J., Stavrova, O., & Kleinberg, B. (2026) · arXiv (Cornell University) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2604.03202 · Cited by 1
“For example, LLMs may be more often able to trigger moral values such as "fairness," and, in doing so, could make the appeals feel more normatively compelling and increase engagement (Puklavec et al., 2024; Brady et al., 2017; Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
Negative partisanship, positive partisanship, and variation in climate policy attitudes on the political right
Kennedy, E. H., Silva, T. J., Muzzerall, P., & Druckman, J. N. (2026) · PNAS Nexus · doi:10.1093/pnasnexus/pgag094 · Cited by 2
“First, many experimental studies testing interventions to increase climate policy support estimate average treatment effects for liber-als and conservatives, implicitly treating ideological groups as internally uniform with respect to climate policy responses (60 – 63 ).”
The Politics of Social Categorization: The Case of Transgender Women’s Athletic Participation in the United States
Druckman, J. N., & Sharrow, E. A. (2026) · Political Research Quarterly · doi:10.1177/10659129261433979 · Cited by 1
“For instance, Feinberg and Willer (2013) demonstrate that considering environmental issues in terms of conservative values of purity and sanctity leads conservatives, who typically oppose environmental legislation, to become more supportive — the frame aligns with their cherished values.”
Hostile Frame Takeover: Co-Opting the Security Frame in the Nuclear Energy Debate
Bohn, S., Lohmeyer, N., Jha, H. K., & Reinecke, J. (2026) · Academy of Management Journal · doi:10.5465/amj.2024.0656 · Cited by 2
Support for climate change adaptation over climate change mitigation in the United States depends on political party identification and how adaptation is framed
Bayes, R., Molden, D. C., & Druckman, J. N. (2026) · Journal of Environmental Psychology · doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2026.102987 · Cited by 1
Stereotyping vegans, vegetarians, meat-reducers, omnivores, and meat-eaters: How are they seen and by whom?
Silfver, M., Salmivaara, L., Niva, M., & Vainio, A. (2026) · Food Quality and Preference · doi:10.1016/j.foodqual.2026.105917 · Cited by 1
For Whom Do Labels Work? Heterogeneous Effects of Popularity and Environmental Information in Coffee Choice
Long, D.-D., Gómez-Miñambres, J., & Liu, H.-X. (2026) · Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics · doi:10.1016/j.socec.2026.102523 · Cited by 1
Integrating sociocultural theories to inform public health response: unique relationships between moral foundations, cultural cognition worldviews, and COVID-19 attitudes and behaviors
Wolsko, C. V., & Marino, E. K. (2025) · Frontiers in Public Health · doi:10.3389/fpubh.2025.1606229 · Cited by 3
“As pro-environmental discourses have been largely reliant on appeals to the moral dimensions of care and fairness (46, 47), so too has vaccination messaging been focused on invoking such altruistic and egalitarian perspectives (48–50).”
Valuing the Upper Floridan Aquifer: Exploring public preferences for ecosystem service values and problem framing to support aquifer conservation.
Klizentyte, K., Lai, J., Hundemer, S., Susaeta, A., & Adams, D. C. (2025) · Journal of Environmental Management · doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.128026 · Cited by 1
Rival as Villain – How Moral and Threat Language in American News Coverage Relates to American Attitudes Toward China
Liao, X. (2025) · Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications · doi:10.1027/1864-1105/a000494 · Cited by 1
When the Shot Backfires: Demonstrating How Science Communication Can Fail
Seetahul, Y., & Greitemeyer, T. (2025) · Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · doi:10.1177/01461672251370004 · Cited by 1
“Social identity threats can be alleviated by using in-group messengers and aligning messages with the audience’s cultural or moral worldview—a strategy known as moral reframing (Feinberg & Willer, 2013, 2015).”

Authors: Feinberg, M., & Willer, R.
Affiliations: Stanford University (US)
University of California, Berkeley (US)
Corresponding author: Feinberg, Matthew
ORCID: Feinberg, Matthew
Willer, Robb
Venue: Psychological Science
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Published: 2012-12-10
Volume: 24
Issue: 1
Pages: 56-62
ISSN: 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
1467-9280
DOI: 10.1177/0956797612449177
OpenAlex: W2120107374
Cited by: 928
References: 0
Citations by year: 2026: 74 · 2025: 85 · 2024: 70 · 2023: 80 · 2022: 89 · 2021: 101 · 2020: 116 · 2019: 88 · 2018: 50 · 2017: 52 · 2016: 41 · 2015: 41 · 2014: 24 · 2013: 17
FWCI: 81.04
Type: journal article
Language: en
Open access: closed
Licence: journals.sagepub.com/page/policies/text-and-data-mining-license (tdm)
Locations: Psychological Science (publishedVersion)
PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics: Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Pro-Environmental Behavior and Attitudes
Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment
Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
Keywords: environmental attitudes, moralization, political ideology, moral foundations, purity, reframing, environmental discourse, public service announcements
MeSH terms: Attitude, Conservation of Natural Resources, Female, Humans, Male, Mass Media, Morals, Persuasive Communication, Politics, Public Policy, Surveys and Questionnaires, Students, Recycling

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review

The Moral Roots of Environmental Attitudes

Abstract

Overview

Integrity signals

Verification

Claims the paper makes

Claims other papers make about this one

Citations

Cites

Cited by

Metadata

Record

About these checks