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Study: Everyone hates environmentalists and feminists

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
Study: Everyone hates environmentalists and feminists - Salon.com

New research suggests people tend to hold negative views of political and social activists
BY TOM JACOBS

Why don’t people behave in more environmentally friendly ways? New research presents one uncomfortable answer: They don’t want to be associated with environmentalists.

That’s the conclusion of troubling new research from Canada, which similarly finds support for feminist goals is hampered by a dislike of feminists.

Participants held strongly negative stereotypes about such activists, and those feelings reduced their willingness “to adopt the behaviors that these activities promoted,” reports a research team led by University of Toronto psychologist Nadia Bashir. This surprisingly cruel caricaturing, the researchers conclude, plays “a key role in creating resistance to social change.”

Writing in the European Journal of Social Psychology, Bashir and her colleagues describe a series of studies documenting this dynamic. They began with three pilot studies, which found people hold stereotyped views of environmentalists and feminists.

In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk—described both varieties of activists in “overwhelmingly negative” terms. The most frequently mentioned traits describing “typical feminists” included “man-hating” and “unhygienic;” for “typical environmentalists,” they included “tree-hugger” and “hippie.”

Another study, featuring 17 male and 45 female undergraduates, confirmed the pervasiveness of those stereotypes. It further found participants were less interested in befriending activists who participated in stereotypical behavior (such as staging protest rallies), but could easily envision hanging out with those who use “nonabrasive and mainstream methods” such as raising money or organizing social events.

The results of three additional studies suggested this aversion to perceived stereotypical behavior impacts people’s behavior. In one of them, 140 Americans (again recruited via Mechanical Turk) read an article about climate change and “the need for individuals to adopt sustainable lifestyles.”

For one-third of the participants, the writer was described as a stereotypical environmentalist (his “profile” stated, “I hold rallies outside chemical research labs”). Another third were told he was an atypical, less-abrasive environmentalist (“I’m involved in organizing social events … to raise money for grassroots-level environmental organizations”). For the final third, his profile did not mention environmental activism at all.

After reading the article, participants were asked whether it inspired them to do more recycling, or otherwise take more eco-friendly actions.

“Participants were less motivated to adopt pro-environmental behaviors when these behaviors were advocated by the ‘typical’ environmentalist, rather than by the ‘atypical’ environmentalist or the undefined target,” the researchers report.

This is, needless to say, frustrating news for activists, and not just the ones mentioned here. The researchers suggest this dynamic may very well apply across the board, such as to activities advocating gay rights or Wall Street reform.

“Unfortunately,” they write, “the very nature of activism leads to negative stereotyping. By aggressively promoting change and advocating unconventional practices, activists become associated with hostile militancy and unconventionality or eccentricity.”

“Furthermore, this tendency to associate activists with negative stereotypes and perceive them as people with whom it would be unpleasant to affiliate reduces individuals’ motivation to adopt the pro-change behaviors that activists advocate.”

So the message to advocates is clear: Avoid rhetoric or actions that reinforce the stereotype of the angry activist. Realize that if people find you off-putting, they’re not going to listen to your message. As Bashir and her colleagues note, potential converts to your cause “may be more receptive to advocates who defy stereotypes by coming across as pleasant and approachable.”

The ironic impact of activists: Negative stereotypes reduce social change influence - Bashir - 2013 - European Journal of Social Psychology - Wiley Online Library
 

Monk Of Reason

༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ
Lol. I'm a envromental femninist atheist. Hell if I was gay I might instantneously create mobs by walking outside.
 

Riverwolf

Amateur Rambler / Proud Ergi
Premium Member
Well, people need something or someone to hate. Kinda wired that way. Environmentalists represent a threat to everything we believe the world to be, and feminists (rather, the strawman feminists that everyone thinks we are) represent a threat to the egalitarian world we've built.

Sort of like how I consider the US government, along with many major companies, a threat to my freedom.

Still, it's like Churchill said: "Do you have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something in your life."
 

The Sum of Awe

Brought to you by the moment that spacetime began.
Which is why we tend to see more and more of them every day. Who doesn't want to be society's golden adversary?
 

Me Myself

Back to my username
This is precisely why I believe being a vegetarian that does not argue with other people about it is way better way to influence people that being one who goes in your face telling you what you should do.

I truly believe most meat eating is completely immoral. Its just useless to tell everyone that all the time, it beyond useless is damaging to the cause.

By the other side, the more the other person is the one active and making questions and the more passive my role is, the more they tend to go saying things like "yeah i totally respect that. I actually wanna eat less meat" ( and of course include things like "I could never be a total veg though" so they dont sound "extremists" or "radical" xD)
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
I truly believe most meat eating is completely immoral. Its just useless to tell everyone that all the time, it beyond useless is damaging to the cause.
Even saying it once is one time too many, but I'll forgive you this time and not hate you...:D
 

Alceste

Vagabond

"In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk"
"17 male and 45 female undergraduates"...

Hardly a comprehensive sample. I'll take it with a grain of salt. I already suspected Americans, dorky internetizens and ignorant young folks have irrational and ignorant views on feminism and environmentalism. ;)
 

Ben Dhyan

Veteran Member
"In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk"
"17 male and 45 female undergraduates"...

Hardly a comprehensive sample. I'll take it with a grain of salt. I already suspected Americans, dorky internetizens and ignorant young folks have irrational and ignorant views on feminism and environmentalism. ;)

I posted the article because I knew there are some conservationist minded folk here and I thought they would be interested that such a study was done and published. That the results of the study showed that non-conservationist folk found most activists unlikable is a no- brainer, but I thought the 'message' to them to be less rude and present a more friendly attitude to we non-activist types quite commendable. But I wish....:)
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
The ironic impact of activists: Negative stereotypes reduce social change influence - Bashir - 2013 - European Journal of Social Psychology - Wiley Online Library

What a load of b-ll-cks.

Feminism is mentioned four times, environmentalism 13 times, yet the two tenets are bundled together.

Oh.... what's the point......? :facepalm:

Rubbish in...... Rubbish out.
 

Alceste

Vagabond
I posted the article because I knew there are some conservationist minded folk here and I thought they would be interested that such a study was done and published. That the results of the study showed that non-conservationist folk found most activists unlikable is a no- brainer, but I thought the 'message' to them to be less rude and present a more friendly attitude to we non-activist types quite commendable. But I wish....:)

What you're feeling is psychological projection. People of conscience make thoughtless people feel guilty. The guilt inspires hostility, and the thoughtless project that hostility onto people of conscience, imagining them to be hostile.

We're not unfriendly. We've simply thought things through, and we're unapologetically critical of socially or environmentally destructive paradigms.

And in this case, I'm critical of the claim that two hundred Americans who are trying to glean a living income from mechanical Turk and a couple dozen American teenagers are a large enough sample size to make the pronouncement that people in general all around the world are put off by feminism and environmentalism.
 

dust1n

Zindīq
"In one, the participants—228 Americans recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk"
"17 male and 45 female undergraduates"...

Hardly a comprehensive sample. I'll take it with a grain of salt. I already suspected Americans, dorky internetizens and ignorant young folks have irrational and ignorant views on feminism and environmentalism. ;)

News flash! Small number of undergraduates subject to poor reasoning and suggestive wording!
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
News flash! Small number of undergraduates subject to poor reasoning and suggestive wording!
I'd wager that a better study would show that anti-fur activists & radical vegetarians are the most hated.
Personally, I most hate those who'd stop us from carnivorating.
(Yes, that's a real word.)
 

Alceste

Vagabond
I'd wager that a better study would show that anti-fur activists & radical vegetarians are the most hated.
Personally, I most hate those who'd stop us from carnivorating.
(Yes, that's a real word.)

I fail to see how not eating meat interferes with anyone else's right to eat meat.
 
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