Challenging social systems under the threat of pollution: Replication and extension of Eadeh and Chang (2019)

I replicated and extended Eadeh and Chang (2019; Study 2) who found that reading a story about pollution harming a child increased self-reported liberalism and increased support for environmental regulation policies through greater negative affect (i.e., anger and disgust). Online participants (n = 429) read a story about pollution, which increased liberal attitudes and collective action through disgust and anger (for more conservative individuals) and empathy (for more liberal individuals) and decreased liberal attitudes through fear (for more liberal–moderate individuals). Empathy also moderated negative affect, and system-level cognition and political orientation further mediated the effect of environmental threat on liberal responses. Unexpectedly, the direct effect of environmental threat increased conservative political orientation and failed to shift political attitudes; thus, we only partially replicated Eadeh and Chang (2019, Study 2). I discuss explanations for the inconsistent results and the role of affect and cognition in predicting political attitude shifts to perceived threat.