The Association of Income inequality with Environmental Attitudes.

This study analyses how income inequality moderates the relation the income-gradient has on environmental attitudes, specifically worries about climate change and personal responsibility to reduce its effects. Previous studies noted that environmentalism tends to increase with the income gradient. A higher level of income inequality will likely make this relation more pronounced, since the society will be more pronouncedly stratified according to income. I study this moderating effect by predicting environmental attitudes through a random slopes and intercepts model, based on income scale, the national Gini-coefficient and several control variables. Results were non-significant in the case of environmental worries. In the case of Personal Responsibility, I found a negative independent association at a p-value of .029, and a positive moderation of the income gradient at a p-value of .048.