Open AccessWhich Moral Foundations Predict Willingness to Make Lifestyle Changes to Avert Climate Change in the USA?
Author(s) -
Janis L. Dickinson,
Poppy Lauretta McLeod,
Robert J. Bloomfield,
Shorna B. Allred
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0163852
Subject(s) - compassion , loyalty , ingroups and outgroups , climate change , social psychology , empathy , action (physics) , psychology , prosocial behavior , environmental ethics , political science , law , ecology , philosophy , physics , quantum mechanics , biology
Jonathan Haidt’s Moral Foundations Theory identifies five moral axes that can influence human motivation to take action on vital problems like climate change. The theory focuses on five moral foundations, including compassion, fairness, purity, authority, and ingroup loyalty; these have been found to differ between liberals and conservatives as well as Democrats and Republicans. Here we show, based on the Cornell National Social Survey (USA), that valuations of compassion and fairness were strong, positive predictors of willingness to act on climate change, whereas purity had a non-significant tendency in the positive direction ( p = 0.07). Ingroup loyalty and authority were not supported as important predictor variables using model selection (ΔAICc _ _). Compassion and fairness were more highly valued by liberals, whereas purity, authority, and in-group loyalty were more highly valued by conservatives. As in previous studies, participants who were younger, more liberal, and reported greater belief in climate change, also showed increased willingness to act on climate change. Our research supports the potential importance of moral foundations as drivers of intentions with respect to climate change action, and suggests that compassion, fairness, and to a lesser extent, purity, are potential moral pathways for personal action on climate change in the USA .