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The Relationship Between Right Wing Authoritarianism And Climate Change Beliefs

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Assessing the relationship between right wing authoritarianism and climate change beliefs.
As time goes by, Earth is becoming more at risk of climate change effects (Commoner, 1990, as cited in Schultz and Stone, 1994). Nearly all scientists agree that the change is caused by the acts of humans (Intergovernmental, 2007 as cited in Hakkinen and Akarami 2014). Though, with this being said, it seems that people are not that worried and it is not being discussed as much as it should be. (Maibach, Feinberg & Howe 2013, as cited in Hakkinen and Akarami 2014). Within this study I am going to be investigating the relationship between right wing authoritarianism and climate change beliefs. In previous studies such as Peterrson et all (1993), their data showed that with high levels of right wing authoritarianism can lead to negative social issues, but within the study there was nothing significant when it came to climate change beliefs. Following this was an investigation done by Shultz and Stone (1994). This study showed that there was data to suggest that there was a negative relationship between RWA and CC beliefs. In 2014, Hakkinen and Akrami’s study also found a negative relationship between the two but also found that when shown a news cast before answering can change a person’s answers about environmental issues. After looking over these readings, my hypothesis is that there will be a negative relationship between right wing authoritarianism and climate change beliefs. This

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