A tricky link between prejudices and environmental action

The United States is home to powerful environmental movements, but that does not mean everyone is equally engaged, or believed to be so. When it comes to sustainable lifestyle choices, even the color of one’s skin can make a difference about other people’s perceptions, according to a new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The paper shows how skin color affects environmental predispositions and sustainable behaviors far beyond immediate concerns. Having surveyed over 1,200 adults in the US, researchers found a strong influence on people’s beliefs about social norms and opinions regarding the environment. And the key is not just what people think, but what they suppose about how other people think and behave, which often drives decisions and actions, and quite often not in the best of ways. Researchers asked simple questions about environmental concerns, age, socio-economic class, race and ethnicity and then, unexpectedly, how people would rate concern levels of other demographic groups.

Though environmental concern is not highly linked to education or income, all of the groups shared the common belief that rich, educated whites are the ones who care most. This often came together with the tendency of all racial groups to underestimate concern levels of economically disadvantaged people of color and to overestimate the opposites. Thus, while minorities and poor communities are the most concerned and most vulnerable to pollution and other environmental harms, decisionmakers and scientists usually perceive and portrait them as little interested in or knowing about those issues.

The norms also spread within the groups. Whites talk less to other whites of environmental issues because “everyone is already doing their share,” while other groups avoid the conversation since no one else (supposedly) cares. However, it is precisely what people believe about their group behaviours impacts their action most. And as perceived social norms easily overpower personal considerations, less concerned whites get into action, while the more concerned other groups are more likely to restrain from both action and discussion on the issue.

Not surprisingly, as workplace gender diversity stimulates environmental responsibility, similar imacts are also to be expected from racially diverse environments. While scientists emphasize the need for further research, it is already quite clear that societal diversity and inclusion are a must to get people on board for effective sustainability action.