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Why do some people see the shift toward a sustainable society as a promise while others see it as a threat? This article adopts a sociological perspective on the cultural foundations of support for the green transition, focusing on life conceptions, which are motivational orientations toward the ‘good life’ shaped by responses to existential challenges. We distinguish five such orientations towards tradition, status, experiences, emotional comfort, and ecology, each aligning differently with cultural logics of expansion versus limitation. Using cross-sectional data from Germany (GESIS Panel, N = 4,399), we estimate OLS regression models to examine how these orientations relate to support for the green transition, operationalized by environmental concern. Results show that ecology orientation strongly predicts support, tradition orientation shows moderate negative associations, and status, experience, and emotional comfort orientations show weak or ambivalent patterns. Polarization analyses reveals polarization between eco-seekers and tradition-oriented individuals, highlighting cultural and political divides in the transition towards sustainability.
Gercke et al. (Mon,) studied this question.