Meaning systems under secularisation: Political ideology, but not self-assessed religiosity, is associated with civic pro-environmental behaviour in eight European coastal case studies
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Religiosity has been linked to pro-environmental behaviour, but evidence concerning religiosity and civic pro-environmental behaviour (CPEB) in Europe is scarce. In a preregistered analysis of stakeholder surveys from eight European coastal case studies (n = 569), we used Bayesian multilevel models with site-specific random slopes to test whether self-assessed religiosity is associated with CPEB and whether political ideology, operationalised as anti-diversity attitude (primary) or left–right self-placement (additional check) moderates the association. Religiosity showed no association with CPEB. Political ideology was negatively associated with CPEB (anti-diversity: β = −0.21; left–right: β = −0.30) but did not moderate the religiosity-CPEB association. Between-site variation in these associations was uncertain, precluding country-level conclusions, but likely to be relatively low. In these secularised European stakeholder contexts, political orientation was more closely associated with CPEB than broad self-assessed religiosity, suggesting that political orientation may be more relevant to understanding CPEB in these contexts.
Language: English
Subfield: Religious studies
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7225806344
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