Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Nationalism and national identity are often assumed to narrow the moral circle and obstruct cooperation on problems whose costs and beneficiaries cross borders. Climate change is the paradigmatic such problem, and a widely held view holds that only a globally scaled identity can motivate engagement with it, whereas national attachment depresses concern. This study tests that asymmetric, zero-sum assumption directly. Drawing on social identity theory, the psychometric paradigm of risk, and the theory of planned behavior, we analyzed survey data from a national sample of South Korean adults (N = 1,552), modeling climate-response intention and self-reported action as functions of sociodemographic controls, risk-related cognition and affect, planned-behavior constructs, and two distinct identities: a global identity encompassing concern for humanity as a whole and a national identity bounded by one's own country. Ordinary least squares regression showed that both identities were positively and independently associated with intention and action, and that the two were statistically orthogonal rather than opposite poles of a single dimension. Contrary to the cosmopolitan expectation, national identity was at least as strong a motivator as global identity and a stronger predictor of enacted behavior. Moderation analyses further revealed that the identities operate in distinct and partly counterintuitive ways: global identity decoupled engagement from institutional trust rather than amplifying other drivers, while national identity weakened the cognitive and affective predictors of intention yet reinforced moral obligation and, most strikingly, strengthened rather than suppressed the translation of global identity into action. These findings challenge the assumption that national and global identities are antagonistic and suggest that, in a strong-nation context, the two function as complementary psychological resources for climate engagement. Beyond climate politics, the results bear on wider debates over whether national identity is inherently exclusionary, indicating that a secure national attachment can enable rather than crowd out solidarity with humanity as a whole.</p>