Capacity versus responsibility: Wealth and historical emissions as determinants of support for climate aid policy

IF 3 2区心理学 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL

British Journal of Social Psychology Pub Date : 2025-05-19 DOI:10.1111/bjso.12899

Christoph Klebl, Samantha K. Stanley

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Abstract

Across both wealthy and non-wealthy nations, research finds public support for wealthy countries taking greater climate action. However, it is unclear whether this is driven by a belief that wealthier nations have greater economic capacity to respond or a greater historic responsibility for causing climate change. We explore this idea in the context of climate aid policies, which direct support to those most affected by climate change. In a correlational study (N = 292, United Kingdom), individuals who believe their nation has greater historic responsibility for climate change showed stronger support for their country providing climate aid. Two experiments provide conflicting findings. In Study 2 (N = 366, United Kingdom), we experimentally manipulated national wealth and historical emissions using a fictional nation paradigm and found that wealth was the stronger predictor of support for their country providing climate aid. In Study 3 (N = 797, South Africa) we manipulated these factors about participants' own nation and found that neither predicted support for climate aid policy, but both predicted greater support for their country implementing climate mitigation policies. Although higher capacity and responsibility increased support for mitigation policies, further efforts are needed to understand their role in shaping support for climate aid.

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能力与责任：财富和历史排放作为支持气候援助政策的决定因素

研究发现，无论是富裕国家还是非富裕国家，公众都支持富裕国家采取更大的气候行动。然而，目前尚不清楚这是由一种信念驱动的，即富裕国家有更大的经济能力来应对气候变化，还是对造成气候变化负有更大的历史责任。我们在气候援助政策的背景下探讨了这一观点，这些政策直接支持受气候变化影响最大的国家。在一项相关研究中（N = 292，英国），认为自己的国家对气候变化负有更大历史责任的个人更支持自己的国家提供气候援助。两个实验提供了相互矛盾的结果。在研究2 （N = 366，英国）中，我们使用虚构的国家范式实验性地操纵了国家财富和历史排放，发现财富是对其国家提供气候援助的支持程度的更强预测因子。在研究3 （N = 797，南非）中，我们操纵了这些关于参与者自己国家的因素，发现两者都没有预测对气候援助政策的支持，但都预测了对其国家实施气候减缓政策的更大支持。虽然能力和责任的提高增加了对缓解政策的支持，但需要进一步努力了解它们在形成对气候援助的支持方面的作用。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

British Journal of Social Psychology PSYCHOLOGY, SOCIAL-

CiteScore

9.50

自引率

7.40%

发文量

期刊介绍： The British Journal of Social Psychology publishes work from scholars based in all parts of the world, and manuscripts that present data on a wide range of populations inside and outside the UK. It publishes original papers in all areas of social psychology including: • social cognition • attitudes • group processes • social influence • intergroup relations • self and identity • nonverbal communication • social psychological aspects of personality, affect and emotion • language and discourse Submissions addressing these topics from a variety of approaches and methods, both quantitative and qualitative are welcomed. We publish papers of the following kinds: • empirical papers that address theoretical issues; • theoretical papers, including analyses of existing social psychological theories and presentations of theoretical innovations, extensions, or integrations; • review papers that provide an evaluation of work within a given area of social psychology and that present proposals for further research in that area; • methodological papers concerning issues that are particularly relevant to a wide range of social psychologists; • an invited agenda article as the first article in the first part of every volume. The editorial team aims to handle papers as efficiently as possible. In 2016, papers were triaged within less than a week, and the average turnaround time from receipt of the manuscript to first decision sent back to the authors was 47 days.