In a nationally representative survey experiment, diverse segments of the US public underestimated the environmental concerns of nonwhite and low-income Americans and misperceived them as lower than those of white and more affluent Americans. Moreover, both whites and nonwhites and higher- and lower-income respondents associated the term “environmentalist” with whites and the well-educated, suggesting that shared cultural stereotypes may drive these misperceptions. This environmental belief paradox—a tendency to misperceive groups that are among the most environmentally concerned and most vulnerable to a wide range of environmental impacts as least concerned about the environment—was largely invariant across demographic groups and also extended to the specific issue of climate change. Suggesting these beliefs are malleable, exposure to images of a racially diverse (vs. nondiverse) environmental organization in an embedded randomized experiment reduced the perceived gap between whites’ and nonwhites’ environmental concerns and strengthened associations between nonwhites and the category “environmentalists” among minority respondents. These findings suggest that stereotypes about others’ environmental attitudes may pose a barrier to broadening public engagement with environmental initiatives, particularly among populations most vulnerable to negative environmental impacts.

在一项具有全国代表性的调查实验中，美国公众的不同群体低估了非白人和低收入美国人的环境问题，并错误地认为他们的环境问题低于白人和较富裕的美国人。此外，白人和非白人以及高收入和低收入受访者都将“环保主义者”一词与白人和受过良好教育的人联系起来，这表明共同的文化刻板印象可能会导致这些误解。这种环境信仰悖论——一种将最关心环境和最容易受到各种环境影响的群体误认为是最不关心环境的倾向——在不同的人口群体中基本上是不变的，并且也延伸到了气候变化的具体问题。这些信念是可塑的，在一项嵌入式随机实验中接触种族多元化（与非多元化）环境组织的图像，减少了白人和非白人环境问题之间的感知差距，并加强了非白人与少数族裔“环保主义者”类别之间的联系受访者。这些发现表明，对其他人环境态度的刻板印象可能会成为扩大公众参与环境举措的障碍，特别是在最容易受到负面环境影响的人群中。