Denial of anthropogenic climate change: Social dominance orientation helps explain the conservative male effect in Brazil and Sweden

Abstract

Political conservatives and males are more likely to deny human influence on climate change. In this paper we examine the role of social dominance orientation (SDO) in explaining this “conservative male” effect by testing whether SDO mediates the influence of both political conservatism and gender on anthropogenic climate change denial. We use cross-sectional online-based data from Brazil (N=367) and Sweden (N=221) to test our mediation hypothesis. Results from path analysis showed that SDO partially or fully mediated the influence of political orientation and gender on anthropogenic climate change denial. The results provide insights about the role of SDO in the “conservative male” effect, and suggest that SDO could be considered more comprehensively in studies focusing on climate change denial and environmental attitudes/behaviors.