In June, Christopher Stockus and collaborator, Dr. Ethan Zell (UNC Greensboro) published, “Political Differences in Climate Change Knowledge and Their Association with Climate Attitudes, Behavior, and Policy Support” in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, the premier journal in the field of environmental psychology.
The paper examines political differences in knowledge about climate change and whether knowledge is associated with political differences in climate attitudes, climate change mitigation behavior, and support for climate policies.
Across three studies, two conducted in the United States, and one conducted in the United Kingdom, results indicated political groups differ in their knowledge about climate change, and that knowledge about climate change is associated with political differences in climate attitudes, behavior, and support for climate policies. Although political differences varied somewhat across the United States and the United Kingdom, there was a robust political difference in climate change knowledge. That knowledge was associated with political differences in climate attitudes and support for climate policies both in the United States and United Kingdom.
Stockus joined Marietta College as an assistant professor last year. He earned his Ph.D. in Social Psychology at UNC Greensboro in May 2024.
Stockus’s research program examines social comparison, specifically, the big-fish-little-pond effect, which is the tendency for students with high-rank in low-rank schools to evaluate themselves more favorably than students with low-rank in high-rank schools. More broadly, Stockus studies the self and social perception, including political judgments, accuracy and bias, and the association between individual difference dimensions and consequential outcomes.