Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Two studies have discovered that if you tell people the entire world is threatened by climate change, they focus on protecting the people they care about.
HOW THE THREAT OF CLIMATE CHANGE SPURS ETHNOCENTRISM
Faced with a challenge that requires a global response, humans cling more tightly to their clan.
TOM JACOBS 9 HOURS AGO
The prospect of a dangerously warming planet inspires us to cling more tightly to our tribe. That is the discouraging finding of two newly published studies.
One reports that confronting people with climate-change warnings provoked higher levels of ethnocentrism among residents of a central European nation—and decreased their intentions of acting in Earth-friendly ways. The other finds the threat of global warming increases group conformity, leading people to more tightly endorse the truisms their circle subscribe to.
The results aren’t surprising, if you consider the long line of research that finds threat of any kind tends to foster this sort of solidarity. It’s just that this problem will require a globally coordinated response—not the insular, defensive crouch it apparently induces.
…
https://psmag.com/environment/how-the-threat-of-climate-change-spurs-ethnocentrism
The abstract of the first study;
Undesirable effects of threatening climate change information: A cross-cultural study
Isabella Uhl, Johannes Klackl, Nina Hansen, Eva Jonas
First Published October 30, 2017
Why is the fight against climate change so challenging? Research suggests that climate change information may trigger symbolic defense strategies such as derogative outgroup behaviors (e.g., ethnocentrism) instead of direct attempts to address the problem itself (e.g., proenvironmental behavior). Ingroup affirmation may help decrease symbolic responses. We conducted a 2 (Affirmation: ingroup vs. no affirmation) × 2 (Message: threat vs. control) × 2 (Nation: Austria vs. Argentina) experiment (N = 243) to assess responses to climate change information (direct and symbolic) in participants from individualist and collectivist cultures. Participants responded with higher levels of ethnocentrism and a lower intention to engage in proenvironmental behavior after reading climate change information. This effect was significant in Austria. Using ingroup affirmation as an intervention tended to foster rather than reduce ethnocentrism. Thus, across cultures people resolve climate change threat in symbolic ways rather than by trying to address the problem itself.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430217735577
The abstract of the second study;
Closing ranks: Ingroup norm conformity as a subtle response to threatening climate change
Markus Barth, Torsten Masson, Immo Fritsche, Carolin-T. Ziemer
First Published October 26, 2017 Research Article
We tested the hypothesis that climate change threat increases group-based cognition and action tendencies. As ingroups can provide extended primary control, we expected climate change threat to increase conformity with ingroup norms and group protective behavior. In three studies (N = 404), we experimentally manipulated climate change threat (Studies 1–3) and group norm content (Studies 2 and 3). We found that participants under climate change threat more strongly derogated group members who acted against the group’s interests (Study 1). When a specific group norm was made salient, both manipulated (Study 3) and perceived climate change threat (Studies 2 and 3) increased ingroup norm conformity. Importantly, this effect occurred for norms of radical left-wing behavior. This suggests that climate change threat does not necessarily induce a conservative shift. Instead, it elicits group-based defenses whose expression depends on which ingroup and which of its norms are salient.
Read more: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1368430217733119
Both studies are paywalled, so we are spared the details of how they frightened their test subjects with climate threats, then observed as test subjects “derogated” members of the group who refused to conform to perceived solutions to the threats.
Understand why these studies were paid for in the first place. I have seen such work on other issues. Pew Foundation does this type of work regularly. The idea is how do they make the propaganda and indoctrination more effective. They are trying to overcome common sense and normal human behavior/ reactions to threats among the targeted populations, in this case those they believe either are not paying attention or that are on the fence. They already know that they cannot sway critically thinking, moderately educated people, especially those that have learned from experience to question mainstream overplayed orthodoxy.
You guys are so lucky. My wife is petcentric. First argument we had started as a joke on my part: If the house were burning, who would you rescue first – me or the cats? I lost. 30+ years later, I still drill with “Don’t let the house catch on fire.”
“The prospect of a dangerously warming planet inspires us to cling more tightly to our tribe.”
If this were true, why are there so many ‘refugees’ attempting to leave their own communities and move to another (first-world generally) country?
It’s not the threat of a dangerously warming planet that inspires us to cling more tightly to our tribe. It is the threats of those who seek to threaten us with the threat of dangerously warming planet.
At school I got told off for making up words by stringing them together to mean what I wanted them to these people seem to have made it into an art form!
James Bull
GAAAAACK! please ; can we stop Sociologists from making pronouncements about weather !
They are stupider than the global warming true believers.
These are the people who invented Transgender-ism .