Abstract
Some previous work suggests that older adults, relative to younger adults and teenagers, are less engaged with climate change; yet, this pattern is not consistently found across all countries or populations. Here, we consider whether temporal orientation might act as a boundary condition for age effects on climate change engagement. We assess whether cultural (study 1) and inter-individual (study 2) differences in temporal orientation moderate the tendency for older adults to be less engaged with climate change than younger adults. Study 1 (N = 44,387) reveals that among European countries, countries with a greater long-term orientation tend to show a weaker (i.e., less negative) relationship between age and the salience of climate change (i.e., cognitive engagement with the topic). Study 2 (N = 798) demonstrates that in the USA, the negative relationship between age and climate action intentions becomes smaller in magnitude (i.e., less negative) among those higher in consideration of future consequences, but increases in those higher in consideration of immediate consequences. These findings support the notion that it is a confluence of age and present orientation (and low future orientation) that that drives age-related declines in climate engagement.
Highlights
MethodsCountry-level data on temporal orientation was collected using long-term orientation from Hofstede’s cultural values index (Hofstede, 2013; Hofstede & Minkov, 2013)
The number of countries available in the dataset was too small to permit adequate statistical power for a between-country analysis, a preliminary analysis conducted at the country level showed that salience of climate change was marginally higher amongst countries with an older average age (e.g., France, the “oldest” country, has an average sample age of 52 vs. the Czech Republic, the “youngest” country, has an average sample age of 46), In supplemental analyses, we considered the following additional country-level moderators: 1)
There was an overall negative relationship between age and climate engagement in both studies, this relationship was moderated by cultural- and individual-level temporal orientation, such that there was no significant relationship between these two variables among those living in highly future-oriented countries (Study 1) or who were themselves highly future-oriented or not very present-oriented (Study 2)
Summary
Country-level data on temporal orientation was collected using long-term orientation from Hofstede’s cultural values index (Hofstede, 2013; Hofstede & Minkov, 2013). Measures from Hofstede’s index have been previously used by cross-cultural researchers assessing cultural differences in environmental engagement (e.g., Eom et al, 2016). Other measures were taken from European Social Survey data (European Social Survey Round 8 Data, 2016), which examines 23 countries (all in Europe plus Israel, total N = 44,387). In order to maximize representativeness of the teenage and adult public residing in private households for each country, European Social Survey researchers conduct face-to-face interviews with samples selected by multistage strict random probability methods based on sampling frames of individuals, households and addresses. Focusing solely on European countries (and Israel) reduces variance in other country-level cultural predictors which could confound the results, such as collectivism and socio-economic status (Eom et al, 2016, 2018)
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