Environmental nonprofit organizations (ENPOs) now play central roles in public policy debates by running information campaigns to attract attention and build support. Yet the credibility of the policy information ENPOs disclose has received little attention. This study applies Douglas and Wildavsky’s cultural theory (CT) to examine how ENPOs’ public faces and citizens’ worldviews jointly shape perceived credibility.

🔎 What Was Asked:

• How do different ENPO public faces affect public perceptions of the credibility of the policy information they release?
• How do members of the public’s worldviews alter trust in information issued by ENPOs with differing public faces?

📊 How This Was Tested:

• Analysis relies on evidence from an online survey that measures respondents’ cultural worldviews and their trust in policy information released by ENPOs presenting different public faces.
• CT (Douglas and Wildavsky) provides the theoretical expectations linking worldview types to differential trust in information depending on the messenger.

🔑 Key Findings:

• Hierarchs are more likely to trust information released by policy actors who convey legitimate authority or institutional standing.
• Individualists are more likely to trust information from actors who signal a preference for economic growth over environmental protection.
• Egalitarians tend to endorse pro-environmental policy information regardless of the perceived credibility of the messenger, favoring the substance of environmental claims even when the source appears less credible.

🌍 Why It Matters:

• The credibility of ENPO policy information depends not only on message content but also on who presents it and who receives it. These findings show that matching organizational public faces to target audiences’ worldviews can shape public trust, with implications for how ENPOs design outreach and advocacy campaigns.