Poverty Identity and Environmental Moral disengagement

This study investigates the causal impact of poverty identity salience on environmental moral disengagement. While a significant body of research explores the structural determinants of environmental behavior, the psychological mechanisms, particularly those linked to social identity, remain less understood. This research addresses this gap by examining whether activating a poverty identity influences how individuals attribute environmental responsibility. We conducted lab-in-Field experiments in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo, with 138 participants randomly assigned to either a poverty identity priming condition or a neutral control group. Following the priming task, we measured environmental moral disengagement using a newly developed scale. Our exploratory factor analysis identified two primary dimensions of disengagement: (1) externalizing blame ("Not my fault") and (2) anthropocentric prioritization ("Human First (only)"). The results show that priming poverty identity had a large and statistically significant positive effect on the "Not my fault" dimension ($\beta = 3.747, p < 0.01$), indicating that participants were more likely to attribute responsibility for environmental problems to external actors like governments and wealthy nations. This effect was particularly pronounced among younger participants. Conversely, the treatment had a small, negative, and marginally significant effect on the "Human First (only)" dimension ($\beta = -0.256, p < 0.1$). These findings suggest that activating a poverty identity can causally increase specific forms of environmental moral disengagement, highlighting an important psychological barrier that may prevent pro-environmental action in disadvantaged populations. The study underscores the need for environmental campaigns and policies to consider the influence of identity-related cognitive frames.