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Examining the relation between ideological variables and climate change denial, we found social dominance orientation (SDO) to outperform right-wing authoritarianism and left-right political orientation in predicting denial (Study 1 and 2). In Study 2, where we experimentally altered the level of denial by a newscast communicating supporting evidence for climate change, we demonstrated that the relation between the ideology variables and denial remains stable across conditions (newscast vs. control). Thus, the results showed that denial can be altered by communicating climate change evidence regardless of peoples' position on ideology variables, in particular social dominance. We discuss the outcome in terms of core elements of SDO - dominance and system-justification motives - and encourage researchers on climate change denial to focus on these elements. 

Extending previous research, we examined whether the relation between social dominance orientation (SDO) and climate change denial reflects group-based dominance (SDO and nature dominance) or general system justification. Moreover, we examined whether the relation between personality (domineering and empathy) and denial is mediated by group-based dominance variables. The results showed that the group-based dominance variables reduce the effect of system justification on denial to nonsignificant. Also, social dominance and nature dominance explain unique parts of the variance in denial. Moreover, path analyses showed that the relations between empathy and system justification with denial are mediated by both of the group-based dominance variables, while the relation between domineering and denial is mediated only by SDO. Together, these results suggest that denial is driven partly by dominant personality and low empathy, and partly by motivation to justify and promote existing social and human-nature hierarchies. We conclude by suggesting that climate change mitigation efforts could be more successful if framed as being clearly beneficial for everybody and nonthreateningto existing social order.

Political conservatives and males are more likely to deny human influence on climate change. In this paper we examine the role of social dominance orientation (SDO) in explaining this “conservative male” effect by testing whether SDO mediates the influence of both political conservatism and gender on anthropogenic climate change denial. We use cross-sectional online-based data from Brazil (N = 367) and Sweden (N = 221) to test our mediation hypothesis. Results from path analysis showed that SDO partially or fully mediated the influence of political orientation and gender on anthropogenic climate change denial. The results provide insights about the role of SDO in the “conservative male” effect, and suggest that SDO could be considered more comprehensively in studies focusing on climate change denial and environmental attitudes/behaviors.