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
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.
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“framing environmental issues in terms of conservative values such as purity, sanctity, commerce or patriotism might lead conservatives to express more support for pro-environmental legislation275–279.”
From Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts (2022) · cites this paper as [277]
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“• Stewardship of Nature reflects a belief that while humans hold a privileged position, they also bear an ethical responsibility for protecting the environment, often grounded in religious or moral duty (Feinberg & Willer, 2013 ).”
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“…was reframed to reflect purity values that resonate more strongly for conservatives (with images showing disgusting pollution or garbage landfills), this rendered the difference between liberal and conservative participants’ environmental attitudes as non-significant (Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
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“…Faraz et al., 2021; Robertson & Barling, 2013; Yuan et al., 2023), these broad frameworks often fail to address the moral nature inherent in EEGB (Feinberg & Willer, 2013) and the moral reasoning processes employees may engage in when navigating conflicts between performance pressures and moral…”
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“…with environmental protests (i.e., environmental justice discourse) while conservatives are more critical of the environmental movement and may be more likely to reject the movement's messages about the risks posed by hydraulic fracturing (Feinberg & Willer, 2013; McCright & Dunlap, 2010).”
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Nugroho, R., & Suwaryono, I. L. (2024) · Jurnal Informatika Ekonomi Bisnis · doi:10.37034/infeb.v6i4.969
“Saat ini, penelitian mengenai hal-hal yang mempengaruhi intensi perilaku wisatawan untuk memilih destinasi wisata berkelanjutan masih terbatas [20], terutama dengan lokus di Indonesia.”
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Waldhof, G. (2024) · Journal of Consumer Protection and Food Safety · doi:10.1007/s00003-024-01519-3
“…emotionality, and normative judgments − suggest a potential moralization of the issue (Ellemers et al. 2019; Feinberg et al. 2019; Skitka et al. 2005; Scott et al. 2016; Baron and Spranca 1997; Tetlock et al. 2000 ; Ditto and Koleva 2011; Feinberg and Willer 2013 ; Matthes and Kohring 2008).”
Status politics is the origin of morality policy
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Kitamura, S., & Ihara, A. S. (2023) · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2305.07369
“Previous studies found that moral (re)framing had a strong effect on conservatives [40, 41], whereas scientific framing backfired with them [42].”
Lau, E. H., Rattan, A., Romero‐Canyas, R., & Savani, K. (2022) · Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology · doi:10.1177/00220221221110465
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“Feinberg and Willer (2013) present evidence that politically conservative individuals demonstrate differential response to pro-environmental messaging depending on the rhetorical approach that messaging uses.”
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“Research in the USA demonstrated that the level of environmental concern of liberals and conservatives in response to environmental messages depended on the moral terms in which the issues were communicated (Feinberg & Willer, 2013).”
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A Change in Our Climate Perspective
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Metadata
- Authors
- Feinberg, M., & Willer, R.
- Affiliations
- Stanford University (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Corresponding author
- Feinberg, Matthew
- Venue
- Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2012-12-10
- Volume
- 24
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 56-62
- ISSN
- 0956-7976 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-9280
- 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
- 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
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