Public Opinion Quarterly Advance Access originally published online on November 13, 2008
Public Opinion Quarterly 2008 72(4):651-676; doi:10.1093/poq/nfn051
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Social Movement Identity and Belief Systems
An Examination of Beliefs about Environmental Problems within the American Public
Address correspondence to Aaron M. McCright; e-mail: mccright{at}msu.edu
Using six years of Gallup data, we examine the effects of environmental movement identity on several characteristics of environmental problem belief systems within the general public. We find that the environmental problem belief systems of self-identified active participants in the environmental movement exhibit greater consistency, greater consensus, and less position extremity than do those of individuals unsympathetic to the environmental movement. Future research on identification with and involvement in movements may benefit from utilizing our self-reported measure of social movement identity. Such an analytical strategy not only complements the practice of studying members of movement organizations, but also provides a more efficient means for examining the full range of variation in public support for a movement and easily allows for the comparative analysis of multiple movements.
AARON M. MCCRIGHT is with the Lyman Briggs College, Department of Sociology, and Environmental Science and Policy Program, Michigan State University, E-185 Holmes Hall, East Lansing, MI 48825-1107, USA. RILEY E. DUNLAP is with the Department of Sociology, Oklahoma State University, 006 Classroom Building, Stillwater, OK 74078-4062, USA. An earlier version of this manuscript was presented at the August 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association in Atlanta, GA, USA. We have benefited from comments and suggestions from Robert Brulle, Beth Caniglia, and the editor and reviewers for Public Opinion Quarterly. We thank the Gallup Organization for making the data available for analysis.