Don't get too radical! Don’t disturb the status quo! Perception of environmentalists is related to the difficulty of environmental behaviors, but not to gender

Individuals who adopt an environmental identity are more likely to behave pro-environmentally. However, citizen's willingness to identify as an environmentalist is influenced by social perception of this group, which can be positive or negative. In a quasi-experimental study, I aimed to investigate how gender and different types of pro-environmental behaviors influence the perception of environmentalists. The following variables were taken into account: the gender of the environmentalists and the gender of the perceivers, the level of environmental identity of perceivers, and the types of behavior: easy vs. difficult and individual vs. collective. Using an online survey design a total of 313 participants (166 = Female) evaluated the warmth and competence of eight profiles of environmentalists and assessed social distance to them. The results demonstrate that the perception of environmentalists is contingent upon the characteristics of both the perceiver and the perceived individual. Environmentalists are perceived more favorably when not associated with radical actions, the necessity of a systemic change, or high effort. Individualistic behaviors are perceived as more competent and socially closer than collective behaviors. As the cost of the behavior increases, the participants perceive the environmentalists as less competent, warm, and socially distant. These findings align with previous studies on activists, System Justification theory, and do-good derogation. Interestingly, the gender of the environmentalists did not influence the perception, contrary to expectations. Further research is needed to confirm these results and explore additional factors affecting the perception of environmentalists.