Abstract
Climate change is a divisive issue in the United States, and most research has focused on partisan differences, thereby leaving the impact of social identities on climate change attitudes underexplored. However, research has shown that the strength of varying and overlapping identities is key to understanding political attitudes. In this paper, we introduce Millennial Generation/Generation Z (“MillZ”) as a meaningful social identity that influences political attitudes. Moreover, we contend that Latino*MillZ is an identity that has explanatory value for understanding climate change beliefs. While Latino and Millennial/Generation Z identities are not perfectly aligned, members of the Millennial Generation and Generation Z include a relatively high proportion of Latinos. Furthermore, since Latinos are disproportionately affected by climate change (i.e. the “climate gap”) the MillZ identity should generate increased concern for the environment. We utilize an original national survey to explore the interplay of Latino and MillZ identities on attitudes about climate change. Results show that Latino and MillZ identities are both associated with heightened climate change concern and that strong attachment to one identity is sufficient to induce concern when the other is weak. These findings point to the importance of exploring multiple identities and offer evidence that social identities are activated in different ways to influence climate change attitudes.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The Millennial Generation comprises those born between 1981 and 1996; Generation Z are those born after 1996. Below we explain both theoretical and methodological reasons for combining these generations.
Twenty one percent of Latinos belong to the Millennial Generation and 25% belong to Generation Z. These percentages are as of 2018.
See Online Appendix A for a table that reports Pew Research Center data on selected political beliefs and attitudes across generations.
We acknowledge that conducting an English-only survey that gauges the opinions of Latinos is not ideal, given that a portion of the Latino population in the U.S. are not English proficient. However, English proficiency among Latinos has been significantly on the rise; 68% of all Latinos reported speaking English proficiently in 2013, compared to 59% in 2000 (Krogstad et al. 2015). Increase in English proficiency among Latinos coincides with rise of native-born Latinos who now make up the majority of Latinos in the U.S. and are much younger than immigrant Latinos (Flores 2017)—a segment of the Latino population we are particularly interested in for this study.
See Online Appendix B for a comparison of sample (with weights applied) and population proportions on selected demographic parameters.
The scale points assigned to these categories were chosen for conceptual neatness. On the 11 point scale the mid-point is 5, thereby making the points of 8–10 the highest while 0–7 represents low to moderate degrees. We adopt the label “low” to represent the points that are none, low, and moderate.
We considered including in the analysis other Christian groups, in particular Evangelical Protestants. However, studies have shown that global warming skepticism among Evangelicals may be attributed more to worldviews than theology (Smith and Leiserowitz 2013). For this reason among others, we opted to exclude Evangelicals from the analysis. For more details on religion measurement and modeling choices, see Online Appendix C.
Data and replication code are accessible at the Political Behavior Dataverse, available at: https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/IOX23B.
The marginal effects (with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses) for the outcome “climate change is personally important” are: a Latino with high ethnic identity—76.34% (lower ci: 0.664; upper ci: 0.863); a Latino with low ethnic identity—58.78% (lower ci: 0.476; upper ci: 0.699); a non-Latino—57.40% (lower ci: 0.544; upper ci: 0.604).
The marginal effects (with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses) for the outcome “climate change is personally important” are: a MillZer with a strong generational identity—68.12% (lower ci: 0.630; upper ci: 0.732); a MillZer with a low generational identity—57.42% (lower ci: 0.528; upper ci: 0.621); and a non-MillZer—57.10% (lower ci: 0.534; upper ci: 0.608).
The marginal effects (with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses) for the outcome “climate change is personally important” are: a Republican with strong attachment to party—41.05% (lower ci: 0.337; upper ci: 0.484); a Republican with weak attachment to party—41.38% (lower ci: 0.356; upper ci: 0.472); and a non-Republican—68.11% (lower ci: 0.648; upper ci: 0.714).
We also ran the regression with Democrat identity. See Online Appendix D for the results.
The marginal effects (with 95% confidence intervals in parentheses) for the outcome “climate change is personally important” are: a Catholic with strong attachment to religion—68.26% (lower ci: 0.594; upper ci: 0.771); a Catholic with weak attachment to religion—57.51% (lower ci: 0.499; upper ci: 0.651); and a non-Catholic—57.10% (lower ci: 0.540; upper ci: 0.602).
References
Baker, R., Michael Brick, J., Bates, N. A., Battaglia, M., Couper, M. P., Dever, J. A., et al. (2013). Summary report of the AAPOR task force on non-probability sampling. Journal of Survey Statistics and Methodology, 1(2), 90–143.
Ballew, M. T., Goldberg, M. H., Rosenthal, S. A., Cutler, M. J., & Leiserowitz, A. (2019a). Climate change activism among Latino and White Americans. Frontiers in Communication, 3, 58.
Ballew, M., Marlon, J., Rosenthal, S., Gustafson, A., Kotcher, J., Maibach, E., et al. (2019b). Do younger generations care more about global warming? June 11. Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.https://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/do-younger-generations-care-more-about-global-warming/.
Battaglia, M. P. (2008). Nonprobability sampling. In P. J. Lavrakas (Ed.), Encyclopedia of survey research methods (pp. 524–537). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Bergmann, M. (2011). IPFWEIGHT: Stata module to create adjustment weights for surveys. https://econpapers.repec.org/software/bocbocode/s457353.htm.
Brewer, M. B., & Pierce, K. P. (2005). Social identity complexity and outgroup tolerance. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 31(3), 428–437.
Cohen, G. L. (2003). Party over policy: The dominating impact of group influence on political beliefs. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85(5), 808–822.
Conover, P. J. (1984). The influence of group identification on political perception and evaluation. Journal of Politics, 46(3), 760.
Dunlap, R. E., & McCright, A. M. (2008). A widening gap: Republican and democratic views on climate change. Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development, 50(5), 26–35.
Esposo, S. R., Hornsey, M., & Spoor, J. R. (2013). Shooting the messenger: Outsiders critical of your group are rejected regardless of argument quality. British Journal of Social Psychology, 52(2), 386–395.
Fielding, K. S., & Hornsey, M. J. (2016). A social identity analysis of climate change and environmental attitudes and behaviors: Insights and opportunities. Frontiers in Psychology, 7, 121.
Flores, A. (2017). How the U.S. Hispanic population is changing. Pew Research Center. September 18. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/09/18/how-the-u-s-hispanic-population-is-changing/.
Fry, R. (2016). Millennials match Baby Boomers as largest generation in U.S. electorate, but will they vote? Pew Research Center. May 16. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/05/16/millennials-match-baby-boomers-as-largest-generation-in-u-s-electorate-but-will-they-vote/.
Fry, R., & Parker, K. (2018). Early benchmarks show ‘Post-Millennials’ on track to be most diverse, best-educated generation yet. Pew Research Center. November 15. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2018/11/15/early-benchmarks-show-post-millennials-on-track-to-be-most-diverse-best-educated-generation-yet/.
Gallup. Party Affiliation. n.d. https://news.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx.
Garcia-Rios, S., Pedraza, F., & Wicox-Archuleta, B. (2018). Direct and indirect xenophobic attacks: Unpacking portfolios of identity. Political Behavior, 41, 633–656.
Goldenberg, S., Vidal, J., Taylor, L., Vaughan, A., & Harvey, F. (2015). Paris climate deal: Nearly 200 nations sign in end of fossil fuel era. The Guardian. December 12. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/12/paris-climate-deal-200-nations-sign-finish-fossil-fuel-era.
Halberg, S. (2017). Hispanics more likely to be affected by climate change. The Nation’s Health, 46(10), E56.
Hamilton, L. C. (2011). Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects. Climatic Change, 104(2), 231–242.
Huddy, L. (2003). Group identity and political cohesion. In D. O. Sears, L. Huddy, & R. Jervis (Eds.), Oxford handbook of political psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hulme, M. (2009). Why we disagree about climate change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012). Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431.
Jesdale, B. M., Morello-Frosch, R., & Cushing, L. (2013). The racial/ethnic distribution of heat risk-related land cover in relation to residential segregation. Environmental Health Perspectives, 121(7), 811–817.
Kahan, D. M., Jenkins-Smith, H., & Braman, D. (2011). Cultural cognition of scientific consensus. Journal of Risk Research, 14(2), 147–174.
Krogstad, J. M. 2015. Hispanics more likely than whites to say global warming is caused by humans. Pew Research Center. February 27.https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/02/27/hispanics-more-likely-than-whites-to-say-global-warming-is-caused-by-humans/.
Krogstad, J. M., Stepler, R., & Lopez, M. H. (2015). English proficiency on the rise among Latinos. Pew Research Center. https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2015/05/12/english-proficiency-on-the-rise-among-latinos/.
Leiserowitz, A., Cutler, M., & Rosenthal, S. (2017). Climate change in the Latino mind. Yale University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Macias, T. (2016). Environmental risk perception among race and ethnic groups in the U.S. Ethnicities, 16(1), 111–129.
Maibach, E., Leiserowitz, A., Roser-Renouf, C., Myers, T., Rosenthal, S., & Feinberg, G. (2015.) The Francis effect: How Pope Francis changed the conversation about global warming. George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/2015-Nov-The_Francis_Effect.pdf.
Mannion, G. (2019). Pope Francis Contra twenty-first-century capitalism. In D. O'Hara, M. Eaton, M. T. Ross (Eds.) Integral ecology for a more sustainable world: Dialogues with Laudato Si’, p. 57. Lexington Books.
Mason, L. (2016). A cross-cutting calm: How social sorting drives affective polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377.
Mason, L. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McCright, A. M., & Dunlap, R. E. (2011). The politicization of climate change and polarization in the American public’s views of global warming, 2001–2010. The Sociological Quarterly, 52(2), 155–194.
Mohai, P., & Bryant, B. (1998). ‘Race’ effect on concern for environmental quality? The Public Opinion Quarterly, 62(4), 475–505.
Norman, J. (2017). Democrats drive rise in concern about global warming. March 17. Gallup. http://news.gallup.com/poll/206513/democrats-drive-rise-concern-global-warming.aspx?g_source=link_newsv9&g_campaign=item_234314&g_medium=copy.
Parker, K., Graf, N., & Igielnik, R. (2019). Generation Z looks a lot like Millennials on key social and political issues. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/.
Pew Research Center. (2010). A pro-government, socially liberal generation. February 18. https://www.pewresearch.org/2010/02/18/democrats-edge-among-millennials-slips/.
Pew Research Center. (2014). Millennials in adulthood: Detached from institutions, networked with friends. March 7. https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2014/03/07/millennials-in-adulthood/.
Pew Research Center. (2019). In U.S., decline of Christianity continues at rapid pace. October 17. https://www.pewforum.org/2019/10/17/in-u-s-decline-of-christianity-continues-at-rapid-pace/.
Phinney, J. S., & Ong, A. D. (2007). Conceptualization and measurement of ethnic identity: Current status and future directions. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 54(3), 271–281.
Quintero, A., Constible, J., Declet-Barreto, J., & Madrid, J. (2016). Nuestro Futuro: Climate Change and U.S. Latinos. October. National Resources Defense Council. https://www.nrdc.org/sites/default/files/nuestro-futuro-climate-change-latinos-report.pdf.
Roccas, S., & Brewer, M. (2002). Social identity complexity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 6(2), 88–106.
Ross, A. D., & Rouse, S. M. (2015). Economic uncertainty, job threat, and the resiliency of the Millennial Generation’s attitudes toward immigration. Social Science Quarterly, 96(5), 1363–1379.
Rouse, S. M., & Ross, A. D. (2018). The politics of Millennials: Political beliefs and policy preferences of America’s most diverse generation. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Smith, N., & Leiserowitz, A. (2013). American evangelicals and global warming. Global Environmental Change, 23(5), 1009–1017.
Stokes, B., Wike, R., & Carle, J. (2015). Global concern for climate change, broad support for limiting emissions. Pew Research Center. November 5. https://www.pewglobal.org/2015/11/05/global-concern-about-climate-change-broad-support-for-limiting-emissions/.
Tajfel, H. (1981). Human groups and social categories. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. (1979). An integrative theory of intergroup conflict. In M. Hogg & D. Abrams (Eds.), Intergroup relations: Essential readings. New York: Psychology Press.
Tajfel, H., Billing, M. G., Bundy, R. P., & Flament, C. (1971). Social categorization and intergroup behaviour. European Journal of Social Psychology, 1(2), 149–178.
The White House. (2017). Statement by President Trump on the Paris Climate Accord. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/statement-president-trump-paris-climate-accord/.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2015). CB15-113: Millennials outnumber Baby Boomers and are far more diverse, Census Bureau reports. June 25. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2015/cb15-113.html.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2019). Annual estimates of the resident population by sex, age, race, and Hispanic origin for the United States and States: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2018.
Valenzuela, A. A., & Michelson, M. R. (2016). Turnout, status, and identity: Mobilizing Latinos to vote with group appeals. American Political Science Review, 110(4), 615–630.
Wike, R. (2016). What the world thinks about climate change in 7 charts. Pew Research Center. April 18. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/04/18/what-the-world-thinks-about-climate-change-in-7-charts/.
Zogby, J., & Kuhl, J. S. (2013). First globals: Understanding, managing, & unleashing the potential of our Millennial Generation.
Acknowledgements
We thank Lilliana Mason, Michael Hanmer, and participants at Brigham Young University’s 2019 Civic Engagement Research Conference for helpful feedback on earlier versions of this article. Comments from Political Behavior editor, Geoffrey Layman, and the anonymous reviewers significantly improved the manuscript.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ross, A.D., Rouse, S.M. (Young) Generations as Social Identities: The Role of Latino*Millennial/Generation Z in Shaping Attitudes About Climate Change. Polit Behav 44, 1105–1124 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09649-8
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-020-09649-8