scholarly journals Clarifying the nature of the association between social dominance orientation and environmentalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Samantha Kay Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
General Population ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Relative Preference ◽  
Over Time

<p>A small number of studies have reported a negative association between social dominance orientation (SDO: the relative preference for social inequality and intergroup dominance) and environmentalism. However, the existing research has yet to fully investigate the nature of this relationship. In this thesis, I develop a programme of research that aims to clarify how ideology relates to environmentalism, in several important ways.  I start by systematically reviewing the relationship between SDO, the related ideological construct of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA: the preference to submit to authority and tradition, and punish those who deviate), and environmentalism. I do this by meta-analysing the associations reported in the existing literature, and previously un-published datasets. These analyses show that both ideological constructs are important for understanding human-environment relations. Importantly, SDO is more strongly related to environmentalism in general population samples than in student samples, which helps to reconcile previous inconsistencies in the literature.  I then explore the ideology-environmentalism link over time, comparing the strengths of the associations with environmentalism and SDO and RWA. Consistent with the meta-analyses I show that, while RWA is more predictive of changes in environmental attitudes over time in student populations, SDO is the key predictor among general population samples. Therefore, dependent on sample, these findings indicate that endorsing these ideologies lead to changes in environmentalism over time.  Next, I elaborate on the SDO-environmentalism relationship by exploring whether and how the two facets of SDO (anti-egalitarianism and dominance) differentially relate to environment-relevant attitudes. Overall, I find that anti-environmental attitudes are largely driven by individual preference for inequality rather than for intergroup dominance.  Previous work, including my own, has focused exclusively on quantitative survey-based methods. I invited individuals scoring relatively high, moderately, and low on SDO to share their ideas on climate change. Interviews with these individuals revealed that many were concerned about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to climate change. Most participants were also armed with justifications excusing their, and others’, inaction on the problem. To establish how the ideas shared in the interviews related to SDO, I reworked them into statements for survey-based research. This research demonstrates that ideology (both SDO and RWA) also related to most of these interview-based statements, with those scoring higher on dominance attitudes more opposed to top-down action on climate change, and those more tolerant of inequality more opposed to individual action.  In sum, my work adds to the growing body of research that establishes ideology as a barrier to environmental engagement. My findings support the interpretation of SDO as a barrier to engagement through an environmental justice framework. If we are to stop the warming of the planet and increased social inequality that this brings, then we must also understand ideology as a barrier to belief and action on climate change.</p>

scholarly journals Clarifying the nature of the association between social dominance orientation and environmentalism

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Samantha Kay Stanley
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
General Population ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Environmental Attitudes ◽  
Individual Preference ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Relative Preference ◽  
Over Time

<p>A small number of studies have reported a negative association between social dominance orientation (SDO: the relative preference for social inequality and intergroup dominance) and environmentalism. However, the existing research has yet to fully investigate the nature of this relationship. In this thesis, I develop a programme of research that aims to clarify how ideology relates to environmentalism, in several important ways.  I start by systematically reviewing the relationship between SDO, the related ideological construct of right-wing authoritarianism (RWA: the preference to submit to authority and tradition, and punish those who deviate), and environmentalism. I do this by meta-analysing the associations reported in the existing literature, and previously un-published datasets. These analyses show that both ideological constructs are important for understanding human-environment relations. Importantly, SDO is more strongly related to environmentalism in general population samples than in student samples, which helps to reconcile previous inconsistencies in the literature.  I then explore the ideology-environmentalism link over time, comparing the strengths of the associations with environmentalism and SDO and RWA. Consistent with the meta-analyses I show that, while RWA is more predictive of changes in environmental attitudes over time in student populations, SDO is the key predictor among general population samples. Therefore, dependent on sample, these findings indicate that endorsing these ideologies lead to changes in environmentalism over time.  Next, I elaborate on the SDO-environmentalism relationship by exploring whether and how the two facets of SDO (anti-egalitarianism and dominance) differentially relate to environment-relevant attitudes. Overall, I find that anti-environmental attitudes are largely driven by individual preference for inequality rather than for intergroup dominance.  Previous work, including my own, has focused exclusively on quantitative survey-based methods. I invited individuals scoring relatively high, moderately, and low on SDO to share their ideas on climate change. Interviews with these individuals revealed that many were concerned about the causes, consequences, and potential solutions to climate change. Most participants were also armed with justifications excusing their, and others’, inaction on the problem. To establish how the ideas shared in the interviews related to SDO, I reworked them into statements for survey-based research. This research demonstrates that ideology (both SDO and RWA) also related to most of these interview-based statements, with those scoring higher on dominance attitudes more opposed to top-down action on climate change, and those more tolerant of inequality more opposed to individual action.  In sum, my work adds to the growing body of research that establishes ideology as a barrier to environmental engagement. My findings support the interpretation of SDO as a barrier to engagement through an environmental justice framework. If we are to stop the warming of the planet and increased social inequality that this brings, then we must also understand ideology as a barrier to belief and action on climate change.</p>

scholarly journals Evaluating Transformational Adaptation in Smallholder Farming: Insights from an Evidence Review

2022 ◽  
pp. 187-202
Author(s):  
Laura Silici ◽  
Jerry Knox ◽  
Andy Rowe ◽  
Suppiramaniam Nanthikesan
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Evidence Synthesis ◽  
Transformational Change ◽  
Smallholder Farming ◽  
Human Environment ◽  
Learning Domains ◽  
Evidence Review ◽  
International Fund ◽  
Transformative Adaptation ◽  
Over Time

AbstractThe literature on smallholder farming and climate change adaptation (CCA) has predominantly investigated the barriers to and determinants of farmer uptake of adaptation interventions. Although useful, this evidence fails to highlight the changes or persistence of adaptation responses over time. Studies usually adopt a narrow focus on incremental actions that provide limited insights into transformative adaptation pathways and how fundamental shifts in policy can address the root causes of vulnerability across different sectors and dimensions. Drawing on an evidence synthesis commissioned by the International Fund for Agricultural Development’s Independent Office of Evaluation, this chapter outlines how lessons from CCA interventions can be transferred via three learning domains that are essential for transformational change: scaling-up (in its multiple forms), knowledge management, and the human-environment nexus. We discuss the implications of our findings on monitoring, evaluation, and learning, highlighting the challenges that evaluators may face in capturing (a) the persistence or durability of transformational pathways, (b) the complexity of “super-wicked” problems, and (c) the relevance of context-dependent dynamics, within a landscape setting. We also address the contribution of evidence reviews to contemporary debates around development policy linked to climate change and agriculture, and the implications and value of such reviews to provide independent scientific rigor and robustness to conventional programmatic evaluations.

scholarly journals The Enterprising Self and Prejudices toward Unemployed Persons

2016 ◽  
Vol 45 (3) ◽  
pp. 162-180 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva Groß
Keyword(s):  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Process Models ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Guiding Principle ◽  
Enterprising Self ◽  
Governmentality Studies ◽  
The Protestant Work Ethic ◽  
The Relationship

Abstract: This research tries to build bridges between sociological and social psychological theoretical ideas for the study of social inequality in neoliberal societies. It adds to research on social inequality by examining amplifiers of prejudices toward unemployed persons. A conceptual model has been developed which draws upon social dominance theory and governmentality studies. The empirical analyses guided by this model assess the mediating effects of the enterprising self – a newly developed attitude measure based on sociological analyses of contemporary self-help literature – and the Protestant Work Ethic in the relationship between social dominance orientation and prejudices toward unemployed persons, both depending on social status. Conditional process models reveal the phenomenon of ideological asymmetry relevant for the enterprising self, indicating that this neoliberal guiding principle serves as a dominant driving force in reproducing social inequality through mechanisms at the intergroup-level.

scholarly journals Climate change threats increase modern racism as a function of social dominance orientation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Uenal ◽  
Jim Sidanius ◽  
Jon Roozenbeek ◽  
Sander van der Linden
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Collective Action ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Intergroup Threat ◽  
Modern Racism ◽  
Threat Perceptions ◽  
Ingroup Identification ◽  
Threat Cues

Processing information on the negative consequences of climate change can have unrelated side-effects such as increased outgroup derogation. Previous research suggests differing theoretical explanations for these “spill-over” effects such as buffering existential anxiety. Here, we test and compare two alternative explanations based on social dominance theory and the group-based control model. Across two pre-registered experiments (N = 1031; USA &amp; UK), we examine whether social dominance orientation (SDO) and/or ingroup identification moderate the relationship between experimentally induced collective threats (i.e., climate change and intergroup threat) and subjective threat perceptions, modern racism, and pro-environmental collective action support. In Study 1, SDO and ingroup identification were measured 2 years prior to our experiment as antecedents of threat perceptions. Our results suggest that informing individuals about negative consequences of climate change (e.g., wildfires, floods, resource scarcity, health etc.), leads to higher intergroup threat perceptions and modern racism. These spill-over effects, in turn, are moderated by SDO but not by ingroup identification. In Study 2, we successfully replicate our findings, measuring SDO and ingroup identification directly after the threat manipulation. Moreover, we use a behavioral measure of pro-environmental collective action to assess more direct stimuli-responses. In Study 2, again, we show that SDO moderates the spill-over effects. In contrast, ingroup identification showed only marginally significant spill-over effect moderation and did not increase in response to experimental threat-cues. Notably, we also find that intergroup threat-cues generalize onto higher climate change threat perceptions. No effects on behavioral collective action support were found.

People and the Place: Social Dominance Orientation Is Reciprocally Associated With Hierarchy-Enhancing Occupations Over Time

2021 ◽  
pp. 014920632110049
Author(s):  
Elena Zubielevitch ◽  
Gordon W. Cheung ◽  
Chris G. Sibley ◽  
Nikhil Sengupta ◽  
Danny Osborne
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Longitudinal Data ◽  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Occupational Socialization ◽  
Hierarchical Relations ◽  
Socialization Processes ◽  
Over Time

Social dominance orientation (SDO) is a widely researched construct that indexes a preference for hierarchical intergroup relations. However, it remains unclear whether this preference (a) motivates people to seek out occupations that enhance hierarchical relations between groups (i.e., occupational assortment), (b) develops as a result of working within hierarchy-enhancing occupations (i.e., occupational socialization), or (c) both. One reason for this gap is that the large-scale longitudinal data required to simultaneously model assortment and socialization processes are scarce. In this study, we analyzed data from two waves of longitudinal data (spaced either 1, 3, or 5 years apart) from a nationwide sample of adults ( N = 3,452–4,412) who were already working in either hierarchy-enhancing occupations (e.g., law enforcement) or hierarchy-attenuating occupations (e.g., social work). Results showed that SDO predicted an increased probability of working in a hierarchy-enhancing occupation 3 and 5 years later. Working in a hierarchy-enhancing occupation was also positively associated with SDO after 1 and 5 years. These patterns generally suggest that occupations both shape, and are shaped by, intergroup beliefs.

scholarly journals Social worldviews and social attitudes: Examining the psychological correlates for other-concern

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tosin Tunrayo Olonisakin ◽  
Sulaiman Olanrewaju Adebayo ◽  
Erhabor Sunday Idemudia
Keyword(s):  
Affirmative Action ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Social Dominance ◽  
Structural Equation ◽  
Social Dominance Orientation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Just World Beliefs ◽  
Just World ◽  
Self Transcendence ◽  
The University

Social inequality or inequity is existent in every society. As such, most societies dedicate efforts to ensuring fairness and justice for all its members. The university environment constitutes a miniature society on its own and everyday broader realities of the larger society are equally applicable within the university.  The attitude that students hold with regards to social inequality could be a function of their worldviews which act as guiding principles for social conduct. In this study, the worldviews of self-transcendence and just-world beliefs were examined in relation to support for affirmative action and social dominance orientation among students. The study employed a survey approach with data collected through questionnaires from a sample of 331 (62.8% female) undergraduate students in a public university. The authors hypothesized that self-transcendence and just-world beliefs would be positively associated with support for affirmative action and negatively with social dominance orientation. Result of data analysis using structural equation modelling confirmed the hypotheses in this study. However, the relationship between just-world beliefs and social dominance orientation was not significant. Results were discussed for their implications for acceptance of social policies that try to bridge the gap between dominant and marginalised groups. The implication of findings for understanding and managing interaction between groups in an educational setting were emphasised. Recommendations were made regarding how policy makers can use knowledge of worldviews held by student in designing strategies geared towards acceptance of policies targeted at ensuring positive outcomes for members of disadvantaged groups. Suggestions for future research were given.

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