The effects of socioeconomic and sociocultural mitigation threat on climate change denial

Despite close to unanimous scientific agreement regarding humanity’s role in causing climate change (Cook et al., 2016; IPCC, 2018), research suggests that many people still deny human involvement in climate change and its consequences, specifically right-wing political adherents in Anglosphere nations (e.g. Australia and the U.S.; Hornsey, Harris, & Fielding, 2018). It appears that specific components of right-wing ideology are associated with climate change denial. Right-wing adherents - particularly those with high levels of Conventionalism and Anti-Egalitarianism - appear to perceive climate change mitigation policies as threatening to the socioeconomic status quo (Clarke, Ling, Kothe, Klas, & Richardson, 2019). This perception of threat then leads to a denial of climate change, at least in the U.S. context (Clarke et al.). Findings from study one of this project suggest that in the Australian context, higher perceived threats to the sociocultural and socioeconomic systems by mitigation policy at least partially explained the relationships between Conventionalism (RWAc; defined as a tendency to adhere to and uphold traditions and social norms) and two types of climate change denial (Human Cause and Impact). In most cases, these threat types also partially mediated the relationships between Anti-Egalitarianism (SDOe; a preference for hierarchy and group-based inequality) and both climate change denial types. These findings provide evidence that perceived threat of climate change mitigation policies to the sociocultural and socioeconomic status quo in Australia at least partially explain right-wing climate change denial. However, the data is correlational, which prevents us from implying causality. Therefore, this study proposes to experimentally test the role of mitigation threat on the right-wing tendency to deny aspects of climate change, as well as whether perceived mitigation threat reduces support for climate mitigation policies. We plan to recruit a maximum of 600 Australian participants to complete a short online survey.