Compensating personal climate response inefficacy with political conservatism?

Abstract People grapple with the reality that their individual actions are too insignificant to impact climate change—a phenomenon known as personal climate response inefficacy. The compensatory control theory articulates that people may turn to overarching social institutions or ideologies (e.g., conservatism) when they lack personal control. Inspired by this theory, the present research explored whether individuals experiencing personal climate response inefficacy are more likely to embrace political conservatism. Study 1 analyzed data from the European Social Survey ( N = 44,387) and provided preliminary evidence of a positive association between personal climate response inefficacy and political conservatism. Study 2 utilized four‐wave longitudinal data from 1008 American participants and identified a consistent within‐person cross‐lagged effect, where personal climate response inefficacy predicted increased political conservatism over time. Both studies ruled out the potential conflating effect of the perceived threat of climate change. Study 3 collected cross‐sectional data from 270 Americans and replicated the major findings while controlling for the potential confounding effect of general self‐efficacy. Study 4 ( N = 261) manipulated personal climate response inefficacy yet only provided partial supportive evidence for our main findings. These pieces of evidence suggest that psychological processes specific to climate change can have spillover effects on other domains.