Konservative unterschätzen die Umweltauswirkungen nachhaltigen Verhaltens im Vergleich zu Liberalen. Konservative neigen dazu, Maßnahmen wie Recycling oder den Verzehr einer pflanzlichen Ernährung als weniger positiv einzuschätzen als Liberale, was darauf hindeutet, dass sie sich weniger für diese Verhaltensweisen engagieren.

**Conservatives underestimate the environmental impact of sustainable behaviors compared to liberals**

A new study published in the Journal of Consumer Psychology suggests that a person’s political leaning shapes how they view the environmental benefits of their own sustainable choices. The research provides evidence that **conservatives tend to view actions like recycling or eating a plant based diet as having less of a positive impact than liberals do, which predicts lower engagement in these behaviors**. These differences appear to stem from how common these behaviors are perceived to be within an individual’s own social circle.

The findings indicate that conservatives tended to underestimate the actual environmental impact of these behaviors. Liberals provided estimates that were much closer to the real environmental impact, especially for highly effective actions like flying less. Both groups struggled slightly with accuracy, but the ideological gap in perceived impact remained significant across nearly all tested behaviors.

The results suggest that conservatives perceived sustainable actions as less common in their group. This perception led them to view the donations as less impactful and ultimately resulted in lower donation amounts. The researchers tested alternative explanations, like a desire to justify existing social systems, but found that perceived impact was the strongest predictor of behavior.

When biking was framed as an environmental choice, conservatives reported lower perceived impact and a lower willingness to ride a bike. When biking was framed as a health choice, an area where conservatives and liberals show similar levels of engagement, the ideological differences in perceived impact and willingness to bike completely disappeared.

For those interested, here’s the link to the peer reviewed journal article:

https://myscp.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jcpy.70020

Yet imaginary man in the sky plans everyone’s life.

Conservatives have been trained to only consider the economy or to at least make that the ultimate priority. They don’t care about the environment. If you want them to adopt things like EVs or to recycle, you need to show them how it helps them and their personal table top economy. Ie, EVs cost less to operate and are not reliant on foreign fuel resources.

honestly not surprised.. it’s like people will ignore science if it doesn’t fit their politics. we’re all on the same planet tho??

Thing is the science is at best not settled and at worse skewed…

Do you know how a pasture compares to a soy plantation environmentally? It’s not how they tell you

Compared to pollution from private jets and corporate/industrial level pollution the average person essentially has zero impact.

Single use plastic production, the wealthy, industry, farming and mining cause the pollution. The average joe has no choice but be part of a system out of their control.