Exploring short-term longitudinal effects of right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation on environmentalism

•Right-wing authoritarianism and social dominance orientation predict environmentalism.•Past research has relied on cross-sectional data, with SDO showing greater prediction.•Our data showed RWA to be the key longitudinal predictor of environmentalism.•SDO did not reliably predict change in environmentalism over time.

People who endorse right-wing authoritarianism (RWA) and social dominance orientation (SDO) tend to be less concerned about the environment. Yet, the extant literature has so far relied on cross-sectional data to examine the associations between RWA, SDO and environmentalism. We present cross-lagged panel analysis of the associations between RWA, SDO, pro-environmental attitudes and climate change denial using data from 674 undergraduates surveyed twice over five months. RWA and SDO were negatively related to pro-environmental attitudes while positively related to climate change denial in cross-sectional analysis. Notably, RWA predicted change in both environmental variables over time, while SDO did not. This suggests that change in general pro-environmental attitudes and climate change denial are motivated more by the desire to conform to traditional values, and less by the desire for human dominance over nature.