This dissertation aims to address the following puzzle: How does American national identity influence attitudes regarding pro-conservation energy policies? In this dissertation, I build on work showing that frames influence attitudes. I apply the perspective of SIT to the problem. My theoretical perspective is that national identity appeals may be important to explaining public responses to energy policies and issues. Nationalistic framing of energy policies, I will argue, may contextually prime for national identity salience. Specifically, my thesis is that the stronger a person's attachment to national identity, or national identity salience, the more susceptible a person is to pro-conservation energy policy messages that are framed nationalistically. In this way, I use SIT to illuminate some potentially key dynamics in public opinion surrounding energy policies.

To test my theory, I employ data from an original survey experiment, in order to examine how participant's national identity salience predicts responses to experimental primes on questions dealing with support for the federal gasoline tax, blame attribution for the BP oil spill, and support for a moratorium on offshore drilling. This survey experiment uses a student sample (n = 315). The treatment involved three nationalistic energy frames with varying in-group and out-group primes. A control group received no identity primes. I also employ data collected from a second original survey experiment using a national sample of adults (n = 246). The second study addresses a secondary research question, which examines the effect of global identity on participant's support for alternative energy options. The second study addresses the topic of this dissertation within the context of contemporary international relations theory.

However, the theoretical foundations of both studies are centered on the unifying theme of this dissertation, which is the application of SIT to explain how nationalism and/or nationalistic appeals may influence support for energy policies. The primary contribution of this dissertation is revealing the existence of a relationship between nationalism, framing, and individual-level support for pro-conservation energy policies.