A fuzzy clustering approach to understanding religious and socioeconomic determinants of public perceptions of environmental regulation in the United States.

Abstract

The study examines the socio-economic, ideological and religious factors influencing how likely Americans perceive the consequences of environmental regulation to be. Three perception-based items from the Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel Wave 106 (n = 10,156) are examined: higher fuel and electricity prices, gradual loss of individual freedoms, and fewer jobs or declining pay in fossil-fuel-dependent industries. These items are interpreted as subjective expectations rather than observed or causal effects of regulation. We use fuzzy hybrid TOPSIS to create a synthetic index of the perceived effects of environmental regulation on Americans (AP-ERE), and fuzzy clustering to classify respondents as extremely convinced, extremely unconvinced or intermediate. The results reveal significant disparities among ideological, socioeconomic, and religious groups. The convinced cluster is more prevalent among religious, conservative, older and male respondents, suggesting that they perceive a greater likelihood of economic and social costs. Overall, the results suggest that perceptions of environmental regulation are shaped not only by ideology and socio-economic characteristics, but also by religious identity and religiosity.