Religion dampens conservative opposition.

• Position: Environmental Consumers

Some people have perceived that the combination of religion and political conservatism exacerbates environmental concerns in the U.S., but researchers from Rice University, Houston, Texas, and Baruch College, New York, have found evidence that religious identification and belief in a god dampen the otherwise strong negative effect that political conservatism typically has on whether people make purchasing decisions with concern for the environment in mind.

At first glance, the researchers' data shows that political liberals are eight percentage points more likely to say they identify as pro-environment consumers when compared with political conservatives. However, a closer look across levels of religiosity shows that this political gap is larger among the nonreligious (a difference of 12 percentage points between extreme political conservatives and extreme political liberals) and smaller among the very religious (a difference of three percentage points). The researchers say this suggests that religion can mute political differences when someone is being identified as a pro-environment consumer.

"We suspect that a religious identity tends to diminish political conservatism's negative impact on environmental consumption because religious identification encourages people to seek out visible behaviors (such as those...