Cultural worldviews and climate change: A view from China

Abstract

We investigated the association between cultural worldviews and climate change risk perceptions, support for climate friendly policies and climate change mitigation behaviours in a large Chinese sample. Items from Dake's cultural theory scales and Kahan's cultural cognition scale were presented to a Qualtrics online panel consisting of 515 Mandarin-speaking residents of Beijing. A series of factor analyses revealed that the combined item sets were best represented by four-dimensions: hierarchism, individualism, egalitarianism and fatalism. Mediation analysis revealed that respondents with egalitarian and non-fatalist worldviews perceived greater risk associated with climate change, which in turn predicted greater support for policies to manage climate change and increased mitigation behaviour. In addition, respondents who scored high on individualism were less likely to support climate change policies, but this effect was not mediated by risk perceptions. Overall, our results suggest cultural worldviews may influence policy support both directly and indirectly through risk perceptions.