Thread by @docrussjackson

#THREAD

How might we account for the highly disproportionate amount of anti-environmentalism among conservative white males, compared to any other group?

And might this help understand white conservative male opposition to lockdowns?

For many years now, risk perception scholars have found plenty of evidence to suggest a white male (WM) effect, whereby WMs are more accepting of a range of environmental, public health & technological risks than are other adults.

How do we account for this?

The ‘identity-protective cognition thesis’ is useful.

Much of this THREAD is based on Aaron McCright's 2013 research paper: ‘Bringing Ideology In: The Conservative White Male Effect on Worry about Environmental Problems in the USA'.

tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…

Researchers initially documenting the white male (WM) effect find that this phenomenon is due to a subgroup of only about one-third of WMs who, among other characteristics, are significantly more politically conservative than the others.

Conservative white males (CWMs) have had a disturbing & troubling effect on climate change denial in the US general public, & increasingly, across the world.

Imho, they are a danger to economy & society, & especially to the earth's climate & environment, & future generations.

Anthropogenic climate change/global warming, has become extremely politicized in the USA, driven by climate change denial promoted by CWMs in the Republican Party, conservative, Libertarian & free-market think tanks, outliers in the scientific community & the right wing media.

CWMs are significantly more likely to espouse climate change denial beliefs & attitudes than are other adults.

The 'identity-protective cognition thesis’, & work in political psychology on the system-justifying tendencies of political conservatives, help to account for this.

Climate change has clearly attracted the ire of conservative white males (CWMs) in elite circles, likely because of the mounting political & economic stakes of dealing with such an expansive, high-consequence risk.

Yet, CWMs in think tanks, industry associations, antiregulatory advocacy organizations, & right-wing media outlets denied or downplayed the risks of a wide range of environmental problems (eg acid rain, & ozone depletion) before the emergence of global warming as a major issue.

Indeed, simply accepting the significance of such environmental risks implicitly provides justification for governmental regulations, which have been vilified by CWMs since the early 1980s when Ronald Reagan labeled government as ‘the problem, not the solution’.

Early research showed white males tend to have an affinity for hierarchy, have greater trust in authorities, & oppose democratization of risk management, leading early researchers to emphasize the need to ‘move away from gender & toward sociopolitical explanations’.

They theorized that WMs see less risk because they create, manage, control & benefit from so much of it, & women/non-white men see the world as more dangerous because they are more vulnerable, benefit less from many of its technologies & institutions, & have less power & control.

So in 2007, Kahan & other researchers developed the ‘identity-protective cognition thesis’ was developed, which integrates insights from cultural theory & work on motivated cognition in social psychology.

“We propose that variance in risk perceptions–across persons generally, & across race & gender in particular, reflects a form of motivated cognition through which people seek to deflect threats to identities they hold, & roles they occupy, by virtue of contested cultural norms”.

"This proposition derives from the convergence of two sets of theories, one relating to the impact of culture on risk perception & the other on the influence of group membership on cognition.”

(Individual's perceptions about risk tend to be shaped by their cultural worldviews).

Individuals tend to adopt beliefs that are shared by members of salient 'in-groups', often resisting revision of such beliefs when they are confronted with contrary information from perceived 'out-groups'.

This reaction is termed ‘identity-protective cognition’.

'Identity-protective cognition’ serves to protect the status & self-esteem that individuals receive from group membership ‘as a means of identity self-defense': individuals appraise information in a manner that buttresses beliefs associated with belonging to particular groups.

White males with a hierarchical cultural worldview will be the most likely to downplay or ignore environmental risks, perceiving them as challenges to the existing social, political, and economic hierarchy: “to the extent that assertions of environmental risk are perceived as...

..symbolizing a challenge to the prerogatives & competence of social & governmental elites, it is hierarchical men (& particularly white ones, insofar as minorities are more likely to be disproportionately egalitarian in their outlooks) whose identities are the most threatened...

..and who are thus most likely to form an extremely dismissive posture toward asserted risks.”

Group membership affects individuals’ information processing, since individuals are motivated by a strong emotional & psychic investment in having their group’s beliefs confirmed.

A similar dynamic is at work with conservative white males (CWMs) & environmental risk perceptions: conservatives have much stronger system justification tendencies ie supporting maintenance of the societal status quo & resisting attempts to change it - than do liberals.

Indeed, variation on system-justifying attitudes explains much, but not all, of the ideological difference between conservatives & liberals, Right & Left.

System justification is associated with the *denial of problems*, such as climate change, that threaten system functioning.

The risk-accepting subgroup of WMs was significantly more politically conservative than were others in the national sample, justifying specific focus on Conservative white males (CWMs). CWMs perceive environmental problems as less risky than do other adults in the general public.

The Reagan Administration launched a major challenge to environmentalism, riding the crest of a new conservative tide dedicated to limiting government intrusion on deregulated free-market capitalism & 'free enterprise' by reducing regulations, especially environmental ones.

The public backlash against overt anti-environmentalism demonstrated that Americans had come to value governmental efforts to protect the environment, & the conservative movement learned from this that directly attacking environmental regulations was not an effective strategy.

By the early 1990s, the Right was producing a vast amount of material challenging environmental science & the environmental risk claims promoted by environmentalists, the scientific community, & policy-makers in an effort to undermine the rationale for environmental regulations.

Aided by funding from industry & conservative philanthropic foundations, leading conservative, Libertarian & free-market think tanks sponsored much of this work & used their sophisticated public relations apparatus to publicize it.

Thirty years later, they still do.

This dangerously irresponsible self-motivated anti-environmental countermovement aimed to delegitimize environmentalism in the eyes of the public & policy-makers & particularly to undermine the scientific basis for environmental regulations.

Conservative white male elites in the conservative movement & in much of corporate America have sent a consistent message - via conservative talk radio, tv news, newspapers, & websites–to the US & increasingly UK public for about three decades.

Their key message, largely unchanged, is that the environmental problems that environmentalists & liberals warn about are overblown, if not out-right hoaxes, designed to aid their campaigns to increase governmental regulations & controls over personal & corporate freedom.

This message, unmistakably associated with conservative political & media elites & corporate leaders, is remarkable for its constancy over the years - to the extent that conservative white males in the general public view their brethren within the elite sectors as an 'in-group'.

Conservative political & media elites, corporate leaders & CWMs (&, increasingly, conservative non-whites & conservative females) in the general public, tend to reject the environmental risk claims of the environmental movement, scientific community & environmental policy-makers.

In short, they tend to downplay the risks posed by environmental problems in order to defend the information disseminated within their self-defined in-group and to protect their cultural identity as conservative white males.

No wonder they deny & decry 'identity politics'!

More generally, conservative white males are very likely to favour protection of the industrial capitalist order which has historically served them well.

Indeed, they are extremely likely to want to return to an earlier era of significantly less governmental regulations.

Conservative white males have for a very long time disproportionately occupied positions of power within our economic system, controlling hedge funds, stocks & flows of various forms of capital & benefiting from ample amounts of prestige, status, & esteem - as well as wealth.

Given the challenge that many environmental problems pose to the industrial capitalist economic system, it makes sense that CWMs’ strong system-justifying attitudes - triggered by the anti-environmental claims - would dampen their willingness to acknowledge environmental risks.

Even controlling for salient & relevant variables, in terms of general environmental worry, & worry about specific environmental problems, self-identified liberals, non whites, & women express greater personal worry than do their respective conservative white male counterparts.

Conservative white males have lower worry about environmental problems than other adults in the general public due to identity-protective cognition & their system-justifying tendencies.

CWMs in the general public are very likely to view CWMs in elite sectors as an in-group.

And thus they promote & defend this in-group’s antienvironmental worldview in the service of disparaging & denigrating evidence justifying environmental regulations, & participate in demonizing 'out-groups' members calling for urgent action eg @GretaThunberg or @XRebellionUK.

Conservative white males in the general public are likely to deny that environmental problems pose a challenge to the continued functioning of the industrial capitalist economic system that historically has served them well - at least relative to other segments of society.

Risk perception scholars have documented a white male effect in the general public with respect to perceptions of technological risks, environmental problems, & public health threats.

This might help understand the disproportionate number of white male anti-lockdown proponents.

Conservative white males display strong tendencies to justify & defend the current social and economic system.

Conservatives generally (with the likely exception of hedge-funders & disaster capitalists) dislike change & uncertainty, & often attempt to simplify complexity.

Conservative white males have disproportionately occupied positions of power within our economic system. Given the challenges environmental problems pose to the industrial capitalist economic system, CWMs’ strong system-justifying attitudes encourage denying or downplaying them.

This CWM effect appears broadly antienvironmental, & not limited to climate change denial.

WMs who report atypically low environmental risk perceptions are more conservative than are other adults, suggesting that the well-established WM effect may in reality be a CWM effect.

A CWM model would be more powerful than a WM model in explaining perceived risks of those environmental, technological, & public health hazards whose solutions most clearly necessitate governmental regulations on industry & personal behaviour.

Knowledge is power.

"Power concedes nothing without demand. It never has and it never will... The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress".

"The thing worse than #rebellion is the thing that causes rebellion" - Frederick Douglass.

How did we get here?

The culture war is funded mainly by the rich Libertarian Right, in an attempt to destroy the Left & distract us from the incalculable harm to people & planet caused by forty years of uninterrupted deregulated free market #capitalism:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1359445197113950208

It's worth remembering that simply opposing or countering corporate/libertarian #propaganda with truth, on its own, is not an effective strategy.

We progressives & environmentalists have to carefully craft & clearly articulate our own vison & solutions:

https://twitter.com/docrussjackson/status/1376451860622630912