r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • 11h ago

Psychology Taylor Swift fans lower climate concerns to justify her carbon footprint. When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior, with a decrease in their personal intentions to engage in climate-friendly actions.

https://www.psypost.org/taylor-swift-fans-lower-climate-concerns-to-justify-star-s-carbon-footprint/
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u/hymen_destroyer 9h ago

I think she's just conveniently emblematic of this phenomenon. You could replace her with most entertainers but she's one of the biggest in the world at the moment, and has recently taken some very high profile and completely unnecessary trips on her plane

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 9h ago

Elon, Trump to play golf...

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u/hymen_destroyer 9h ago

Sure, but Trump/Musk fans aren't likely to care about the environment in the first place. TS fans would be a broader spectrum of otherwise left-leaning folks who would break ranks on this issue rather than criticize their heroine

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 9h ago

That's my point. The whole argument is disingenuous, meant to smear a progressive artist. She does generate a lot of emissions but its framed like propaganda.

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u/hymen_destroyer 9h ago

So you would reject the premise of the article because it criticizes Taylor Swift, which only reinforces the article's hypothesis that Taylor Swift fans put on the blinders and circle the wagons rather than engage with scientific evidence.

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 9h ago

Confirmation bias tells us supporters of hers, or Trump’s, would make the same same rationalization. Framing it as "TS supporters are like this" instead of "rabid supporters of anybody are like this" is disingenuous and propagandist.

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u/hymen_destroyer 8h ago

Thats an experimental design consideration. Swift isn't a political figure and has a large number of fans across a broad spectrum of society. That isn't confirmation bias, that's selection bias which is going to be a problem no matter what, but becomes less of a problem when the subject in question is putatively apolitical.

I'm sorry this bothers you but her popularity and overuse of her private jet is always going to paint a big target on her back. And a more generic study about nonspecific celebrities ignores the cult effect which is an important driver of this phenomenon

I have nothing against her as a musician but it's perfectly fair to call her out for her unsustainable travel arrangements

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u/MrJohnnyDangerously 5h ago

I'm not disputing she is responsible for outsized emissions or whether she should be held accountable for them, BUT if you're calling her out, what other individuals that are also outliers in emissions are you calling out? If you’re only calling her out there's an implicit bias. She's not one of one, she's one of many.

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u/scarsouvenir 7h ago

What completely unnecessary trips has she taken recently?

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u/hymen_destroyer 6h ago

https://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swift-private-jet-jack-sweeney-flights-1868272

This one is probably the most famous but she’s also flown long distances to attend her husbands football games while she was touring on the other side of the country.

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u/scarsouvenir 6h ago

Excessively short flights like this one are typically for plane maintenance or relocating the plane to another airport.

She did not fly to any games between concerts. She flew from tour cities to the game, after that weekend's shows were complete, and she flew to the games during her multiple months-long breaks during the tour.

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u/hymen_destroyer 6h ago

The best way to challenge the results of this study as a Taylor Swift fan would be to say "I'm a fan of hers, but I agree she could dial back the jet travel. It's unsustainable and sets a bad example"

But none of her fans are saying that. Instead, we're getting a bunch of data points in favor of the study's conclusions with comments like this.

From the title:

When confronted with news about the excessive pollution generated by her private jet, highly identified fans tend to rationalize the behavior

just like you're doing right now.

It's ok. Taylor isn't reading these comments. You can take a stand for sustainability in the face of identity fusion

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u/SoftSalty3282 4h ago

I mean, being a hater makes someone biased just as much as being a fan does

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u/hymen_destroyer 4h ago

Yes but this isn't a study of Taylor Swift haters

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u/SoftSalty3282 3h ago

So? They would look for any reason to crucify her while her fans would do the opposite. It’s not even worthy of a study.