The effect of climate change threat on public attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate refugees

TY - JOUR

T1 - The effect of climate change threat on public attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate refugees

AU - Shanaah, Sadi

AU - Fritsche, Immo

AU - Osmundsen, Mathias

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2025/1

Y1 - 2025/1

N2 - How does climate change threat affect attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate change refugees? We show that threatening climate change can have deep psychological effects even among social majority groups in relatively prosperous and peaceful societies. Using three survey experiments with self-identified White British participants (N = 616, N = 587, and N = 535), we demonstrate that social majority members who are exposed to threatening information about climate change (vs. neutral information) and, at the same time, feel little national efficacy over climate change, evaluate more negatively certain ethnic and religious minorities, especially Muslims and Pakistanis. We found the same trend in the evaluation of climate refugees, although it reached statistical significance only in one of the experiments. We explain these reactions as pertaining to groups that are perceived as threatening the salient ingroup and its collective agency. Our research significantly contributes to the literature on the social and political implications of (climate change) threat, especially by focusing on boundary conditions, namely the perception of collective control in case of complex and large threats.

AB - How does climate change threat affect attitudes towards ethnic and religious minorities and climate change refugees? We show that threatening climate change can have deep psychological effects even among social majority groups in relatively prosperous and peaceful societies. Using three survey experiments with self-identified White British participants (N = 616, N = 587, and N = 535), we demonstrate that social majority members who are exposed to threatening information about climate change (vs. neutral information) and, at the same time, feel little national efficacy over climate change, evaluate more negatively certain ethnic and religious minorities, especially Muslims and Pakistanis. We found the same trend in the evaluation of climate refugees, although it reached statistical significance only in one of the experiments. We explain these reactions as pertaining to groups that are perceived as threatening the salient ingroup and its collective agency. Our research significantly contributes to the literature on the social and political implications of (climate change) threat, especially by focusing on boundary conditions, namely the perception of collective control in case of complex and large threats.

KW - climate change

KW - collective control

KW - experiment

KW - minorities

KW - refugees

KW - threat

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85199888463&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/13684302241262252

DO - 10.1177/13684302241262252

M3 - Journal article

AN - SCOPUS:85199888463

SN - 1368-4302

VL - 28

SP - 67

EP - 96

JO - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations

JF - Group Processes and Intergroup Relations

IS - 1

ER -