ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Environmental Psychology
Towards an understanding of the impact of micro and macro manifestations of religiosity on climate change risk perception: a cross-national study
Provisionally accepted
- Cardiff University, Cardiff, United Kingdom
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This study examines the relationship between religion and climate change risk perception at both individual and national levels across 28 countries. Firstly, we develop a new framework to understand the relationship between a wide range of religions and climate change risk perception. Secondly, through data analysis of the ISSP Environment IV module (2023), we find that regular attendance of religious services is generally associated with lower climate change risk perception, while the effects of religious affiliation are limited to a handful of countries. Multilevel analysis of majority religion and proportion of Christians indicate that Christianity, particularly Protestantism, may carry historical, institutional and discursive legacies, which lead to lower climate change risk perception compared to Buddhist countries amongst their respective populations. Cross-level interactions reveal an asymmetric role for religion based on national wealth, with religious affiliation influencing risk perception more significantly in lower-income countries. This research contributes to socio-psychological and sociological understandings of risk perception, illustrating how religiosity shapes individual beliefs through practice. It also provides evidence that the effects of religiosity are, in part, contingent upon country-level material wealth.
Keywords: Christianity, Climate Change, Cross-National, multilevel, Psychology, Religion, Risk Perception, Sociology
Received: 05 Nov 2025; Accepted: 22 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Saunders, Pomati and Pidgeon. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Richard Saunders
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