On Wed, Oct 5, 2011 at 6:32 PM, Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> http://www.theawl.com/2011/10/white-males-scared
>
> White Males Scared
> Alex Balk @ 4:00 pm
>
> Science, why are conservative white males more likely to be climate change
> skeptics than other groups?
>
> > The white male effect could stem from the notion that, historically,
> white males have faced fewer obstacles in life, said McCright. But another
> school of thought sees the adoption of risk tied to personal values. "It has
> to do with their identity as an in-group," he said. "Something that would
> challenge the status quo is something [conservative white males] want to
> shun." According to the literature on "identity protective cognition,"
> people believe messages coming from the people they identify with most and
> ignore messages that are contrarian, Dunlap said. While all groups have a
> tendency to do this, he said, in the case the climate change, conservative
> white males are especially likely to exhibit this self-protecting
> characteristic... Conservative white males' motivation to ignore a certain
> risk — the risk of climate change in this case — therefore, has to do with
> defending the status of their identity tied to the white male establishment.
>
> There you go: conservative white males don't believe in climate change
> because they are afraid that Science wants to take their penises away. Now
> you know.
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