Make the Environment Great Again: Extending Past-focused Environmental Comparisons for Conservatives

Conservatives are typically less pro-environmental than liberals. Promisingly, Baldwin and Lammers (2016) suggested conservatives may be swayed by pro-environmental messages promoting a return to a pristine past environment, instead of promoting avoidance of a degraded future environment. This study aimed to replicate and extend these findings by including nuanced political measures (SDO and RWA), and a third temporal comparison that focused simultaneously on the past and future, for wider political appeal. Participants (N = 563) viewed pro-environmental messages, images, and charities that were focused on either the past, the future, or both (combined). Unlike previous research, none of the conditions, impacted participants’ general environmental attitudes. Although, supporting Baldwin and Lammers (2016), individuals higher in RWA (typically more conservative) preferred pastfocused appeals and donated more to past-focused charities. Encouragingly, the combined condition was often just as, or more appealing than the other conditions to participants across the political spectrum.