Abstract

While environmental issues are becoming more significant and frequent, concern for the environment varies. Research has shown a gender gap in environmental concern, particularly in that males see helping the environment as compromising their masculinity (Brough et al. 2016, 568). My I.S. examines whether and how gendered frames shape public support for the United States’ environmental air pollution policy, the Clean Air Act. In order to connect an issue to a frame, an individual will draw upon a relevant schema and apply elements from that schema in order to understand the issue. Gender is an accessible schema that strongly shapes individuals’ notions about expected gender roles and gender personalities for each sex (McDermott 2016; Winter 2008). I hypothesize, based on Nicholas Winter’s (2008) implication theory, that when a frame matches the attitudes or elements within a participant’s gender schema then he/she will be more supportive of the Clean Air Act. I conducted a survey on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk (MTurk), where participants were asked to read a news article about the Clean Air Act. The news article could contain no gendered notions (control), notions about gender traditional roles and personalities, or notions about gender non-traditional roles and personalities. I found that an individual’s gender schema does not interact with a gendered frame to produce statistically significant differences in the support for the Clean Air Act. An implication of my study is that gender notions should continue to be looked at as a means to communicate about environmental issues.

Advisor

Bos, Angela

Department

Political Science

Disciplines

American Politics | Environmental Policy

Keywords

Framing, Gender Roles, Gender Personality, Gender Schemas, Clean Air Act, Environmental Concern, MTurk

Publication Date

2020

Degree Granted

Bachelor of Arts

Document Type

Senior Independent Study Thesis Exemplar

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© Copyright 2020 Grace Montgomery