The ideological divide and climate change opinion: “top-down†and “bottom-up†approaches
Open accessAbstract
The United States wields disproportionate global influence in terms of carbon dioxide emissions and international climate policy. This makes it an especially important context in which to examine the interplay among social, psychological, and political factors in shaping attitudes and behaviors related to climate change. In this article, we review the emerging literature addressing the liberal-conservative divide in the U.S. with respect to thought, communication, and action concerning climate change. Because of its theoretical and practical significance, we focus on the motivational basis for skepticism and inaction on the part of some, including "top-down" institutional forces, such as corporate strategy, and "bottom-up" psychological factors, such as ego, group, and system justification. Although more research is needed to elucidate fully the social, cognitive, and motivational bases of environmental attitudes and behavior, a great deal has been learned in just a few years by focusing on specific ideological factors in addition to general psychological principles.
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Belief in climate change has declined among Republicans and self-identified conservatives but not among Democrats and self-identified liberals.
“belief in climate change, which has declined among Republicans and self-identified conservatives but not among Democrats and self-identified liberals182,183.”
From Cognitive–motivational mechanisms of political polarization in social-communicative contexts (2022) · cites this paper as [182]
The ‘Ideological Divide: Public Opinion Data’ section reports rising polarization and lower climate-change belief among conservatives than liberals in a 2010 survey. It does not establish that belief declined over time among Republicans and conservatives while remaining stable among Democrats and liberals; the surveys quoted do not provide those group-specific trends. No page number is available in our copy. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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- Authors
- Jacquet, J., Dietrich, M., & Jost, J. T.
- Affiliations
- New York University (US)
- Corresponding author
- Jacquet, Jennifer
- Venue
- Frontiers in Psychology
- Publisher
- Frontiers Media SA
- Published
- 2014-12-18
- Volume
- 5
- Pages
- 1458-1458
- ISSN
- 1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC4270167
- OpenAlex
- W1554909313
- Cited by
- 56
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 7 · 2020: 6 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 6 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 11.95
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
- Social Sciences › Economics, Econometrics and Finance › Economics and Econometrics › Climate Change Policy and Economics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
- Keywords
- climate change attitudes, liberal-conservative divide, ideological divisions, climate change skepticism, environmental attitudes, environmental behavior, system justification, business strategy, top-down and bottom-up approaches, United States climate policy
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