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Temporal pessimism and spatial optimism in environmental assessments: An 18-nation study
Abstract
The personal assessments of the current and expected future state of the environment by 3232 community respondents in 18 nations were investigated at the local, national, and global spatial levels. These assessments were compared to a ranking of each country's environmental quality by an expert panel. Temporal pessimism (“things will get worse”) was found in the assessments at all three spatial levels. Spatial optimism bias (“things are better here than there”) was found in the assessments of current environmental conditions in 15 of 18 countries, but not in the assessments of the future. All countries except one exhibited temporal pessimism, but significant differences between them were common. Evaluations of current environmental conditions also differed by country. Citizens' assessments of current conditions, and the degree of comparative optimism, were strongly correlated with the expert panel's assessments of national environmental quality. Aside from the value of understanding global trends in environmental assessments, the results have important implications for environmental policy and risk management strategies.
... Cross-cultural temporal pessimism in environmental assessment is not limited to young people (Dunlap et al., 1993;Dunlap & Mertig, 1995;Gifford et al., 2009). For example, Gifford et al. (2009) conducted a cross-cultural study in 18 nations to specifically investigate spatial optimism and temporal pessimism. ...
... Cross-cultural temporal pessimism in environmental assessment is not limited to young people (Dunlap et al., 1993;Dunlap & Mertig, 1995;Gifford et al., 2009). For example, Gifford et al. (2009) conducted a cross-cultural study in 18 nations to specifically investigate spatial optimism and temporal pessimism. Spatial optimism refers to the view that environmental conditions are better here than there, while temporal pessimism refers to the view that environmental conditions will get worse. ...
... Spatial optimism was also observed in a number of other studies (Dunlap et al., 1993;Milfont, Abrahamse, & McCarthy, 2011;Uzzell, 2000). Gifford et al. (2009) also performed country-level analysis by correlating assessments of current national conditions and spatial optimism scores with the 2005 Environmental Sustainability Index. They found that countries with higher sustainability scores were those in which respondents had more spatial optimism and had a more positive assessment of their country's current environmental conditions. ...
This handbook is the first to comprehensively study the interdependent fields of environmental and conservation psychology. In doing so, it seeks to map the rapidly growing field of conservation psychology and its relationship to environmental psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on environmental perceptions, attitudes, and values; research on specific environments, such as therapeutic settings, schools, and prisons; environmental impacts on human well-being; and ways to promote a more sustainable relationship between people and the natural environment. This handbook presents an extensive review of current research and is a thorough guide to the state of knowledge about a wide range of topics at the intersection of psychology and the physical environment. Beyond this, it provides a better understanding of the relationship between environmental and conservation psychology, and some sense of the directions in which these interdependent areas of study are heading.
... We posit that the four-dimensional construct of psychological distance-humans respond differently when they perceive an object/event to be psychologically close or far away (Maiella et al., 2020)-may help explain observed and hypothesized differences. First, regarding spatial distance, in studies conducted primarily with WEIRD populations, people tend to perceive climate change as worse in developing areas and occurring remotely (Gifford et al., 2009;Reser et al., 2012). Second, regarding temporal distance, while WEIRD populations may have more recently experienced direct impacts, they may consider its more severe impacts far in the future (Leiserowitz, 2005). ...
... within the first aim. We operationalized the former by measuring personal assessments about environmental issues encompassing: (1a) the current state of the environment, (1b) the future/projected state of the environment, based on Gifford et al. (2009), and (1c) the environment/nature more generally, consistent with our planetary eco-emotions framework. ...
Emotions play a critical role in human health and behavior yet have largely been overlooked in the context of the global environmental crisis (GEC). Despite recent emphasis on climate anxiety and eco-anxiety, there is a lack of psychometric or dimensional measures assessing the fuller range of GEC-associated emotions, especially beyond Western, educated, industrialized, rich, and democratic (WEIRD) contexts. Further conceptual gaps hinder structured inquiry and generalizability. This exploratory study applies a new planetary affective science framework to holistically and systematically address these issues. We used a circumplex model to map core affect and structured interviews with 15 Turkish environmentalists to explore the range of eco-emotions. Our findings suggest the prevalence of eco-anger and eco-grief over the eco-anxiety most often assessed in WEIRD contexts. Similar findings in post-disaster situations underscore participants’ heightened vulnerability to cumulative stressors and the dangers of emotion-specific omissions (e.g., anger) in assessment tools. We identified environmental justice, developing country tension, self-efficacy dimensions, and responsibility attributions to the Turkish government and Global North as key contextual factors in these differentiated eco-emotional patterns. Findings constitute the first step toward more holistic, diverse, and conceptually rigorous eco-emotions research, urgently needed for more effective pro-environmental health and behavioral interventions amidst the intensifying GEC.
... Other studies have also found evidence that peopleespecially from the global North -tend to think of environmental changes happening to people in the distant future and in distant locations (Leiserowitz 2006;Spence et al. 2012). They perceive that those social consequences are more serious than the likely impacts on their own individual lives (Uzzel 2002;Gifford et al. 2009). Another aspect of psychological distancing is uncertainty and scepticism. ...
... Optimism bias refers to the tendency of individuals to presume that they are facing detrimental future risks to a lesser degree than others (Weinstein 1980). Optimism bias has been proven to dominate individual beliefs with regard to environmental hazards as well (Gifford et al. 2009). Optimism bias has even been shown to moderate pro-environmental action taken based on media coverage of environmental issues (Jiménez-Castillo -Ortega-Egea 2015). ...
In a research study among university students regarding technological change, equality and environmental sustainability, deep-seated dichotomies were found in the students' mental images of the future. This study aims to present these dichotomies as well as propose explanations for them, adding to our understanding of what kind of behavioural barriers inhibit sustainability transformations. The results show that the interviewees truly struggle to decide if the world really is on fire regarding environmental change, if technology is capable of solving the situation, if inequality is truly a problem, and how they can relate to all this. The dichotomies that we found suggest that on the one hand, they find no comfort in the dominant techno-optimistic, eco-modernisation narratives and, on the other hand, they are not aware of any alternatives. The results underline the existence of psychological phenomena such as optimism bias or psychological distancing. In our paper, we also address whether dichotomous thinking poses a problem or whether we may have to accept that dichotomies can become the norm when contemplating the world in its increasing complexity.
... In terms of PEB, optimism can stimulate participants' contribution to activities with sustainable goals, believing that their behaviours can make significant improvements in the future of the environment (Ojala, 2012). Moreover, people can also be optimistic about the state of the environment (at a local, national or global level), this being the conceptualization used in this study (Gifford et al., 2009). In the present study, the authors consider that individuals' attitudes, their adherence to specific sets of beliefs, their connectedness with nature and optimism regarding local environment are intervening variables in the relationship between the use of an environmental gamified mobile app and PEB. ...
... The environmental futures scale (EFS; Gifford et al., 2009) measures spatial and temporal optimism based on the participants assessment the current and future state of 20 aspects of the environment. The scale measure optimism for the current or future state of the natural or build environment, at a local, national or global level, resulting in six dimensions. ...
Purpose
Pro-environmental education incorporates digital technologies to enhance the level of pro-environmental behaviours (PEB) in young adults. Guided by gamified learning and self-directed informal learning theories, this study aims to examine the potential for the use of a gamified mobile app to increase students’ PEB. Also, it explores whether various pre-existing environmental attitudes and beliefs can moderate the effects.
Design/methodology/approach
This quasi-experimental study proposed an eight-weeks intervention for undergraduate students based on using a mobile app. The authors evaluated the post-intervention differences in PEB between the intervention group and a control group. The effects of multiple moderators were also tested.
Findings
Using the mobile app for eight weeks significantly improves the levels of PEB in the intervention group compared to the control group. None of the proposed interactions showed significant moderator effects.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first one to verify the potential moderators accounting for the success of an environmental education approach using a mobile app. Also, it provides strong empirical support for the use of such educational strategy. Based on these findings, the authors suggest the use of gamified mobile apps as suitable tools for pro-environmental education, especially when targeting young adult or student populations. Moreover, using mobile apps providing self-directed informal learning, combined with gamification, can be used to enhance other desirable behaviours.
... Some researchers proposed that spatial optimism might be a cause of spatial bias. Many probably have a deeply held opinion that environmental conditions are "better here than elsewhere" (Gifford et al., 2009). For instance, Milfont et al. (2011) observed that New Zealanders' deeply held belief that their country is clean and green is an example of spatial optimistic bias. ...
... One may be more inclined to consider that the impact of environmental issues will not appear until the distant future, leading to the neglect of immediate issues. Some scholars, on the contrary, regarded temporal pessimism as one's pessimism about environmental issues in the temporal dimension, and suggested that it is precisely due to one's keen awareness of the existing environmental issues (Gifford et al., 2009;Jakovcevic et al., 2013;Zhang et al., 2019). In this case, environmental issues are perceived as proximal in the temporal dimension. ...
Environmental issues are major global risks that call for urgent pro-environmental actions. The current literature suggested that many perceive environmental issues as psychologically distant. This perception is considered as one important psychological barrier that limits the public from adopting sustainable pro-environmental actions. The perception of environmental issues has ignited discussion of Construal Level Theory (CLT) as a theoretical framework to understand how perceived psychological distance influences attitude towards environmental protection. Our review suggested that the public may perceive environmental issues as psychologically distant on both social and spatial dimensions. We proposed that optimism bias might be one of the reasons for this. Our review highlighted the important role of psychological proximity in arousing concerns and eliciting positive attitudes toward the efforts of addressing existing environmental issues. Inducing a proximal psychological distance may elicit stronger positive attitudes towards pro-environmental behavior intention. We discussed moderators including efficacy of policy and social pressure that elucidate the role of psychological distance on attitude. Skepticism may cause one to perceive environmental issues as psychologically distant, reducing support for environmental policies. We recommended CLT as a useful theoretical framework to improve current methods on motivating and promoting actual pro-environmental behavior. We proposed that narratives of personal experiences and objective scientific reports could complement each other in communicating environmental risks. Many are often not keenly aware of environmental issues. For this reason, using a variety of approaches and tools to proximise environmental issues is important and beneficial in raising environmental concerns and promoting sustainable actions.
... The temporal perception of climate change is a critical component of the cognitive element of ACCRs and concerns when its effects are felt and who will feel them (e.g., Poortinga et al., 2011). Spatial perception is also important and may produce biases based on self-other comparisons (i.e., if the individual perceives that they are less likely to experience the effects of climate change than others are; Pahl et al., 2005) and geographic distance (i.e., local conditions are better than global conditions, Gifford et al., 2009). Hence, people do not always view climate change as personally threatening or relevant to them. ...
... For the Sceptical cluster, climate change seems distant, happening mostly in the future and to other people. This is potentially indicative of optimistic temporal and spatial biases in their perception of climate change threats and therefore appear to dampen enthusiasm for tackling climate change (see Gifford et al., 2009 for a discussion of optimistic temporal and spatial biases). Given that pessimistic affective messages in climate change appeals could increase risk perception and facilitate engagement with climate issues more than optimistic affective messages (Morris et al., 2020), future studies examining the effect of possible optimism bias on sceptical thinking about climate change risk may prove valuable. ...
Strategies for achieving carbon emissions goals presuppose changes in individual behaviour, which can be indirectly nudged by interventions or tailored information but ultimately depend upon individual attitudes. Specifically, the perception that climate change is low risk has been identified as a barrier to participation in climate change adaptation and mitigation efforts. Therefore, understanding public attitudes towards climate change risk is an important element of reducing emissions. We applied k-means cluster analysis to explore attitudes to climate change risk in the UK population using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study, a national survey running from 2009 to present. We identified three distinct attitude clusters: “Sceptical”, “Concerned”, and “Paradoxical” in both waves 4 (from 2012 to 2014) and 10 (from 2018 to 2020) of this survey. The Sceptical cluster tended to deny the seriousness of climate change and the urgency or even the necessity of dealing with it. The Concerned cluster displayed anxiety about climate change risks and supported action to reduce them. The Paradoxical cluster acknowledged the reality of climate change impacts but did not support actions to mitigate them. We further observed statistical associations between cluster membership and the social characteristics of the participants, including sex, age, income, education, and political affiliation. We also found a temporal stability of cluster structure between the two waves. However, the transition matrices indicated a general transition away from the Sceptical and Paradoxical clusters, and toward the Concerned cluster between wave 4 to wave 10. The findings suggest that more tailored public information campaigns regarding climate change risk may be necessary.
... Specific to the cognitive sub-component of connection to nature, future studies could assess whether the strength of the relationship between experiences of nature and NR-Perspective could be influenced by perception bias (i.e. perceived distance of causes and consequences; Stokols et al., 2009;Gifford et al., 2009). People tend to perceive environmental problems to be more severe with greater detrimental consequences at the global (and not local) scale (Fleury-Bahi, 2008;Milfont et al., 2011;Uzzell, 2000;Gifford et al., 2009;Schultz et al., 2014). ...
... perceived distance of causes and consequences; Stokols et al., 2009;Gifford et al., 2009). People tend to perceive environmental problems to be more severe with greater detrimental consequences at the global (and not local) scale (Fleury-Bahi, 2008;Milfont et al., 2011;Uzzell, 2000;Gifford et al., 2009;Schultz et al., 2014). Given that nature experiences in this context are defined within a local, urban context, an extended definition of nature experiences at a regional or global context might result in a different association with NR-Perspective. ...
A person’s health and wellbeing are contingent on the amount of social support that they receive. Similarly, experiencing nature has been shown to improve people’s health and wellbeing. However, we do not know how relationships between social cohesion, nature experiences and nature connection could interrelate and vary across different types of urban green spaces, and in non-Westernised cultures. We conducted a study on 1,249 residents in Singapore, a tropical city-state, and measured three dimensions of social cohesion (i.e. general social cohesion; trust and sense of community; and social interactions), various types of nature experiences (i.e. amount of green space around one’s residence; frequency and duration of urban green space visits; frequency and duration of visits to gardens), and three dimensions of one’s connection to nature: self-identity with nature, desire to experience nature, and environmental concern (using the nature relatedness scale). We found that people who strongly identify with nature, who enjoy being in nature, and who had more frequent gardens visits were more likely to have a stronger sense of social cohesion across two dimensions. However, those with stronger environmental concern reported an overall weaker sense of social cohesion, possibly due to the perception that society’s contributions to conserve environmental problems was insufficient. Further, people who gardened more frequently were also more likely to visit green spaces, self-identify with nature and exhibit a stronger desire to experience nature. We propose that strategies targeted at encouraging people to engage in nature-related, collaborative activities at the local community level, such as spending time in local gardens, will increase urban residents’ daily nature experiences and its associated benefits such as improving social cohesion.
... Yet despite decades of increasingly dire reports from the scientific community, and increasing public concern (Leiserowitz et al., 2020), large-scale action to confront challenges such as climate change-along with other pressing issues including biodiversity loss, habitat destruction, spreading zoonotic diseases-remains woefully inadequate (Stocker, 2013). Numerous scholars have argued that this lack of urgency-on the part of both governments and many individuals-is a result, in part, of a perception that the worst impacts of such issues will be felt far in the future (Gifford et al., 2009;Markowitz & Shariff, 2012). Importantly, recent evidence suggest that such perceptions of psychological distance (in the context of climate change) are less prevalent than previously thought, with 50% of respondents of recent polls reporting that the impacts of climate change are occurring presently (Valkengoed et al., 2023). ...
... It seems that spatial distance influences the perception of severity of climate change effects. Several studies, including large-scale cross-cultural studies, suggest that greater distance is linked to the perception of lower environmental quality in general and of greater severity of adverse environmental effects [31,50,51]. The direction of this link is, however, challenged by the finding of Zhang et al. [52], who found that water pollution was judged as more severe by the Chinese study participants, when it was presented to affect their local area or people in remote China than when people living on a fictional distant island were affected. ...
Adverse consequences of climate change often affect people and places far away from those that have the greatest capacity for mitigation. Several correlational and some experimental studies suggest that the willingness to take mitigation actions may diminish with increasing distance. However, the empirical findings are ambiguous. In order to investigate if and how socio-spatial distance to climate change effects plays a role for the willingness to engage in mitigation actions, we conducted an online experiment with a German population sample (n = 383). We find that the willingness to sign a petition for climate protection was significantly reduced when a person in India with a name of Indian origin was affected by flooding, as compared to a person in Germany with a name of German origin. Distance did not affect donating money to climate protection or approving of mitigation policies. Our results provide evidence for the existence of a negative effect of distance to climate change consequences on the willingness to engage in low-cost mitigation actions. Investigating explanations for such an effect, we find that it can be attributed to the spatial rather than the social dimension of distance. Moreover, we find some cautious evidence that people with strong racist attitudes react differently to the distance manipulations, suggesting a form of environmental racism that could also reduce mitigation action in the case of climate change.
... One possible explanation is that individuals hold greater optimism for their local region than at other scales and for other places (e.g. (Gifford et al., 2009),), and thus may perceive the status quo or minimal intervention as preferable for water resource issues. This is a potential avenue for further research, and a reason to explicitly consider how water problems are framed (as local and personal or distant and impersonal) in existing and future projects. ...
The role of the individual is increasingly a focus in sustainability discourses. We develop and operationalize indicators to measure individual attitudes as they relate to social-ecological resilience, using water systems (or ‘water resilience’) as a focusing concept. We developed a questionnaire instrument and use a vignette technique for addressing the complexity of social-ecological resilience. The instrument was pilot tested in three stages and through this process we Results from the pilot study (Stage 3) indicated that endorsement of the principles of resilience was high overall, and that two factors emerged from the seven principles (one focused on the physical system and the other on governance) that could be considered in future studies. These indicators and the technique used to collect data for them is promising for the purpose of assessing individual level attitude alignment with social-ecological resilience of water systems, and further testing of this instrument in other settings is recommended.
... These findings are consistent with previous studies, such as Jamieson, (2015), which reported that individuals tend to anticipate more impacts of climate change in developing nations. Furthermore, residents of less developed or remote areas tend to perceive more degrading environmental conditions (Gifford et al., 2009). However, respondents from both settlements believed more in global climate change than regional or local level impacts. ...
Climate change adaptation planning involves adjusting to the impacts of climate change and taking action to mitigate its adverse effects. Psychological distance, the separation between one's self-perception and actual events, can play a significant role in an individual's readiness to adapt to climate change impacts. This study aims to investigate the socioeconomic factors associated with psychological distance to climate change in formal and informal settlements of Lahore, Pakistan. Using a literature review, data indicators were selected and grouped into the psychological distance dimensions of spatial, temporal, social, and hypothetical. A questionnaire survey was conducted in the study area, resulting in a total of 400 responses. Descriptive statistics and sampled paired t-tests were used to measure differences between responses from formal and informal communities, and multivariate regression models were developed to identify socioeconomic factors associated with psychological distance to climate change. The results of the study indicate a significant difference between formal and informal settlements in spatial distance and hypothetical dimensions. Additionally, household size, average household income, number of children, and past experiences with extreme weather conditions were found to be significant factors. The study recommends that these factors be taken into account when engaging with the public, communicating risks, and devising relevant policies for effective adaptation planning.
... Indeed, climate change is perceived to happen in places that are far away from us (Lorenzoni et al., 2007), to occur at a time distant in the future (Pahl et al., 2014) and to affect people who are socially different to ourselves (Spence, Poortinga, & Pidgeon, 2012). Further, a combination of spatial optimism ("things are better here than there") and temporal pessimism ("things will get worse") implies that climate change is still often perceived as something abstract rather than concrete (Gifford et al., 2009). Often, people tend to think others will be worse affected than they will be, which may prevent action (Pahl et al., 2005). ...
Engaging with the future to make better decisions in the present is key for sustainable development and climate change responses. In this conceptual paper, we suggest a scenario building approach that connects psychological principles of future thinking with future scenario development in order to advance the impact of scenarios. Future scenario work currently does not sufficiently consider processes of human communication, emotion, cognition and has only begun to focus on people’s local contexts in recent years. We argue that more understanding of psychological processes, such as cognitive biases and heuristics, as well as psychological distance, which typically occur in future thinking, can improve the impact of scenarios. Specifically, we provide a psychological basis for systematically integrating emotion-evoking aspects into future scenario development, using tailored narratives and visuals to make content tangible and meaningful for a broad spectrum of audiences, and adapting content temporally, spatially, and linguistically to audiences, in combination with inclusive and creative co-creation of scenarios and sustainable solutions. We explain why this approach has the potential to overcome some recognised cognitive biases hampering scenario impact and intended sustainable change processes, and can therefore support the co-development of sustainable and inclusive policies and solutions that empower and connect individuals, communities, and decision makers.
... This could help audiences understand the significance of tipping points in concrete terms. At the same time, reducing temporal uncertainty might also counter the widespread tendency to be unrealistically optimistic about the effects of climate change (optimism bias, e.g., Gifford et al. 2009). If temporal references are provided, laypeople might be less likely to categorize nonlinear shifts in the climate system as a distant, harmless threat. ...
We investigate whether communication strategies that portray climate change as a nonlinear phenomenon provoke increases in laypeople’s climate change risk perceptions. In a high-powered, preregistered online experiment, participants were exposed to linear or nonlinear predictions of future temperature increases that would be expected if global greenhouse gas emissions were not reduced. We hypothesized that the type of climate change portrayal would impact perceptions of qualitative risk characteristics (catastrophic potential, controllability of consequences) which would, in turn, affect laypeople’s holistic risk perceptions. The results of the study indicate that the type of climate change portrayal did not affect perceptions of risk or other social-cognitive variables such as efficacy beliefs. While participants who were exposed to a nonlinear portrayal of climate change perceived abrupt changes in the climate system as more likely, they did not perceive the consequences of climate change as less controllable or more catastrophic. Notably, however, participants who had been exposed to a linear or nonlinear portrayal of climate change were willing to donate more money to environmental organizations than participants who had not been presented with a climate-related message. Limitations of the present study and directions for future research are discussed.
... La actitud ambiental es una variable relevante a estudiar por el vínculo que tiene con las acciones proambientales de las personas. Asimismo, es importante lo señalado en el trabajo de Gifford et al. (2009, p.2): "Sin embargo, las actitudes del medio ambiente y la preocupación están lejos de ser uniformes en todos los países (…) y la mayor investigación es necesaria para entender las formas en que el medio ambiente y las actitudes difieren en todo el mundo". El fin de fomentar estos estudios es adquirir resultados que contribuyan a generar un conjunto de estrategias de formación, así como programas de educación ambiental a nivel universitario. ...
La pandemia de COVID-19 ha generado que el ser humano repiense su conexión con la naturaleza, porque este siglo XXI, aún con el mayor abordaje de los temas ambientales a nivel mundial, también es una realidad que las actitudes de los líderes políticos y sociales son insuficientes, lo que conlleva a que se siga rompiendo el equilibrio con la naturaleza. Por ello, la importancia de conocer las actitudes ambientales de la comunidad estudiantil, quienes asumirán las riendas de los futuros proyectos nacionales, incluyendo los ambientales. El propósito del presente estudio es identificar los niveles de actitud ambiental en estudiantes universitarios. La muestra estuvo constituida por 128 sujetos de las escuelas profesionales de Medicina Veterinaria y Ciencias del Deporte de una universidad privada de Lima Metropolitana. La investigación es de enfoque cuantitativo y de diseño descriptivo comparativo. Para medir la actitud ambiental se aplicó una escala de tipo Likert. Los resultados muestran que los estudiantes universitarios se ubican en el nivel medio de actitud ambiental. No se evidenciaron diferencias significativas entre los niveles de actitud ambiental según el género ni la edad [a excepción de escuela profesional]. Este trabajo científico permite que otras investigaciones lleven a cabo programas cuasi experimentales con un enfoque constructivista, basado en el uso del trabajo colaborativo que comprendan periodos semestrales, y así generar un afianzamiento y/o incremento de la actitud ambiental de estudiantes universitarios.
... The tendency to refuse such aspects can even come in a more compelling discourse when aligned to the judgmental discounting (another bias caused by limited cognition). Gifford et al. (2009) pointed out that the undervaluing of distant or future risks are two of the world's most common psychological barriers. Because of these biases, even in the presence of worse environmental conditions, when compared to other locations, people tend to believe that climate change is better and will occur later in their places. ...
Understanding the role of psychological science in shaping human
behaviour towards promoting and maintaining a healthy environment is
critical to a safe, sustainable, and balanced ecosystem in Africa. In addition
to addressing the negative impact of climate change on physical and mental
health, psychologists can help build resilience to mitigate the effects of climate
change. Against the backdrop of COVID-19, the Nigerian Psychological
Association has pursued environmental advocacy including focusing its 2021
national conference on ‘’global climate change, ecosystem and behaviour:
issues and action plans.” In addition, a number of psychology departments
in Nigeria have hosted pro-environment programmes. Similarly, the Ghana
Psychological Association has collaborated with corporate and religious
bodies to educate the public on climate change initiatives and has called for
an annual week-long celebration to promote climate change initiatives. And
additionally, in East Africa, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic,
the Uganda Council of Psychologists began working hand-in-hand with
local universities to create climate change awareness campaigns, planning to
organise field trips and conduct survey studies in the most impacted regions
of the country. Ultimately, this calls for behavioural and societal change to
avert future disasters. As scientist-practitioners, we need to adopt a multi-sectoral approach and tailored research to address climate change concerns in
Africa.
... The tendency to refuse such aspects can even come in a more compelling discourse when aligned to the judgmental discounting (another bias caused by limited cognition). Gifford et al. (2009) pointed out that the undervaluing of distant or future risks are two of the world's most common psychological barriers. Because of these biases, even in the presence of worse environmental conditions, when compared to other locations, people tend to believe that climate change is better and will occur later in their places. ...
The New Zealand Psychological Society, publisher of the Global Psychology Alliance Ebook 'Climate Action and Global Psychology', has opened access to the publication ahead of COP27, to allow for greater promotion and awareness of this important contribution to the field of climate psychology.
The book can now be downloaded free of charge from the Society's website here:
https://lnkd.in/gNHT2S2h
This is the PDF version that members of the profession and public can download as they wish. If people want the published E-book version, they can contact the Society's professional development officer whose email address is on the webpage and a copy will be sent to them.
We hope this contribution to the literature will be publicised widely across the professions and to those involved in climate action, policy development, teaching, research and professional practice.
Closer to COP27, we will be producing advertising material describing the book's contents in more detail. In the interim, this quote from the Editors' Preface provides an outline of the book:
"Climate Action and Global Psychology offers a unique, multi-national perspective on organised psychology’s nascent collaborative efforts to address the world’s climate crisis.
This volume is a combination of theoretical and empirical work, varying according to section and topic. Leadership models related to major global crises like climate tend to be more theoretical, while chapters on projects in specific countries are more empirically oriented. The efforts of global psychology and its constituent professional organisations must address the need to understand the imminent threats posed for Indigenous peoples by climate change and seek ways to ensure psychology empowers and supports the actions of their people."
We encourage groups to promote the Ebook to their members through their own communication networks.
Ngā mihi
Brian
Brian Dixon
Co-convenor, Climate Psychology Task Force
Executive member for Te Taiao/Environment
NZ Psychological Society
... To illustrate these biases, Gifford et al. [34] collated perceptions of general indicators of ecological quality and temporal trends, including future trends across 18 nations from a large sample of n = 3232 respondents. The authors state that community perceptions provided valuable insights and that they correlated closely with expert ratings of ecological quality. ...
... This accords with other findings demonstrating that people do not readily discuss human-relevant effects of climate change [59][60][61]; see also [34], Study 2. Although we tend to acknowledge humans' role in causing climate change, discussing the effects of climate change on humans may be more difficult for myriad reasons. For example, we may be biased towards optimism [117,118] or belief in a just world [119], which both contradict the notion that innocent people will be harmed or killed from climate-change-exacerbated natural disasters. Similarly, denial may play a protective role if it is too distressing to think about potential climate change impacts [120]. ...
Although global climate change poses a real and looming threat to both human societies and the natural world, large gaps in understanding exist between the general public and the scientific community. One factor contributing to such gaps could be the use of intuitive thinking to understand complex phenomena. In two studies, we explore climate change understanding and engagement through the lens of an intuitive pattern of thinking, human exceptionalism, which refers to the tendency to infer that humans are exceptional to, and separable from, the rest of the natural world. In both studies, undergraduates thought about global climate change in human exceptionalist ways that were orthogonal to accuracy—for example, they correctly think that humans uniquely contribute to climate change compared to other organisms, but incorrectly think that humans will be uniquely immune to the effects of global climate change. Moreover, human exceptionalist thinking has real-world consequences; it was negatively associated with eco-friendly attitudes and behaviors, and negatively predicted individuals’ attribution of damage from recent hurricanes (i.e., hurricanes Michael and Florence) to global climate change. Finally, we demonstrated that increasing the salience of connections between humans and global climate change reduced human exceptionalism. Findings suggest that intuitive thinking in general, and human exceptionalism in particular, make important contributions to how we understand and reason about global climate change, and may be promising targets for interventions aimed at increasing pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors.
... Estos antecedentes son importantes, pues las noticias que aparecieron sobre cambios en el ambiente presentan imágenes que podrían disponer positivamente a los individuos para su propia actuación. Sin embargo, es necesario conocer si realmente las personas en México están percibiéndolo de esa manera, ya que, aunque el estudio sobre la evaluación de la calidad ambiental presenta un efecto conocido como optimismo espacial (Acuña Rivera, 2002;Gifford et al., 2009), que se refiere a la percepción de menos problemas ambientales en el entorno cercano en comparación con el lejano (Uzzell, 2000), se ha encontrado en estudios de percepción de la calidad ambiental o la contaminación en México una valoración negativa del ambiente en general (Ímaz Gisper, 2015; Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la UNAM [IIJ_UNAM], 2012), sobre la calidad del aire (Reyes Baza, 2000) o las condiciones de localidades específicas (Perló Cohen y Zamora Sáenz, 2017). ...
Los cambios en la actividad humana a partir del confinamiento por COVID-19 han tenido un efecto concomitante en la calidad del ambiente. El propósito principal de este estudio fue conocer la percepción de la calidad ambiental durante el periodo de confinamiento, así como la percepción del grado de participación de las personas en el estado del ambiente. Se trabajó con una muestra no probabilística de 622 mexicanos que respondieron un cuestionario en línea de 13 reactivos en el 2020. El análisis mostró que, en ese momento, se percibió que el entorno ha mejorado en mayor medida en otras partes del mundo. Por otra parte, se percibió que las personas contribuyen poco en el entorno cercano y en el país, mientras que se percibe que las personas en otras partes del mundo contribuyeron un poco más. La evaluación más específica en el contexto próximo indica que percibieron una mayor contribución personal, así como de círculos afectivos cercanos (familia, amigos) en comparación con vecinos. A nivel personal, se reportó mayor frecuencia de acciones de separación de residuos. Se analizan las implicaciones del efecto de la percepción ambiental y del comportamiento de otros en la conducta personal.
... For personal use only. ronmental problems has been called "environmental hyperopia" (García-Mira et al. 2007) and "spatial optimism" (Gifford et al. 2009). ...
This selective review points to a rich body of literature on environmental perceptions, attitudes and place attachment in South Africa. Research works highlight that the global-North dominates in human-nature relations studies, with relatively less work done in less developed economies like sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa. Additionally, the review of the literature on these concepts points to the complexity of these aspects in terms of their conceptual distinctions, amorphous nature, and hence the difficulties surrounding their spatial characterisation. This selective review aims to provide a contrast between South African and international studies on these concepts. This review notes that human-nature studies in South Africa are dominated by place research, which is largely an influence of the country’s spatio-political setting, where social engineering was influenced by past policies that had substantial impacts on the arrangement of space, identity, and belonging. Additionally, the review notes the dearth of literature that has attempted to spatially characterise human-nature relations in the country. Spatially characterising these concepts could be beneficial for urban and environmental planners and policymakers in the country, and assist in initiatives meant to reduce spatial inequalities in the country
... However, in a comparative study of 18 countries, there were indications that respondents in developing countries were more concerned with local impacts than respondents from industrialised countries (Gifford et al., 2009), which contrasts with the statement by Spence et al. (2012). One potential reason behind this may be that developing nations tend to be more gravely affected by climate change and its long-lasting consequences. ...
The climate crisis is one of the largest global challenges that humanity has ever faced.
Despite the scientific consensus on the threat, action is not occurring on the pace or level
needed to stave off the consequences. As climate change is made up by complex and
conjoined causes and effects, the issue is also riddled with communicative challenges which
those calling for action need to tackle. Climate change communication research has,
however, mainly focused on how traditional news media frame the climate change issue
and overlooks climate activist and movement groups. This despite these actors being key
for shifting public perceptions and public opinion. Although research on other
communication actors exist, it is far from extensive and the research field overlooks the
publics perceptions of the sender in relation to the construction of climate messages.
Through survey data and an experiment, this doctoral thesis explores the public’s
inclination towards different protest action repertoires and addresses the research gap in
the climate movement message construction. Herein, the actions and words of three
subgroups within the larger environmental movement are considered as one part of a larger
message whole. The groups chosen action repertoires are viewed as part of the activists’
performed message and the linguistic communication styles created by lexical choices
related to emotional appeals are part of the activists’ verbal/textual message. The results
indicate that there is much to be gained from adhering to an alignment between lexical
choices and action repertoires. Alignment may be key for understanding why some
movement subgroups are successful in inspiring certain actions whilst others inspire other
actions. Communication-action alignment is a way to approach the interconnectedness of
actions and words for complex and abstract issues that require message recipients to
construct consonant mental models to break potential cognitive dissonance.
... When leaders (mis)perceive a crisis as a problem that affects foreign countries, they are unlikely to implement expensive preventive measures. In several highincome countries, the response of policymakers to climate change is biased by a spatial overoptimism (Gifford et al. 2009). This type of optimism bias only lasted a few weeks during the COVID-19 pandemic, when it was limited to Asia in January 2020. ...
Pandemics and environmental degradation are both deadly global crises, which often disproportionately impact the world’s most vulnerable populations. The scale of devastation for both pandemics and environmental problems can also be immense. The political science literature often assumes that policymakers rationally design governance systems according to the underlying problem structures they aim to address. This chapter argues that the problem structures of pandemics and environmental crises are similar on several accounts. Yet their governance systems differ in significant ways. The chapter explains this incongruity by pointing to systemic perceptions biases and structural power differentials. Addressing these biases and establishing new linkages could improve the global governance of both issue areas.
... To illustrate these biases, Gifford et al. [34] collated perceptions of general indicators of ecological quality and temporal trends, including future trends across 18 nations from a large sample of n = 3232 respondents. The authors state that community perceptions provided valuable insights and that they correlated closely with expert ratings of ecological quality. ...
Despite a growing interest in interdisciplinary research, systematic ways of how to integrate data from different disciplines are still scarce. We argue that successful resource management relies on two key data sources: natural science data, which represents ecosystem structure and processes, and social science data, which describes people’s perceptions and understanding. Both are vital, mutually complementing information sources that can underpin the development of feasible and effective policies and management interventions. To harvest the added value of combined knowledge, a uniform scaling system is needed. In this paper, we propose a standardized methodology to connect and explore different types of quantitative data from the natural and social sciences reflecting temporal trends in ecosystem quality. We demonstrate this methodology with different types of data such as fisheries stocks and mangrove cover on the one hand and community’s perceptions on
the other. The example data are collected from three United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere reserves and one marine park in Southeast Asia. To easily identify patterns of convergence or divergence among the datasets, we propose heat maps using colour codes and icons for language- and education-independent understandability. Finally, we discuss the limitations as well as potential implications for resource management and the accompanying communication strategies.
... To illustrate these biases, Gifford et al. [34] collated perceptions of general indicators of ecological quality and temporal trends, including future trends across 18 nations from a large sample of n = 3232 respondents. The authors state that community perceptions provided valuable insights and that they correlated closely with expert ratings of ecological quality. ...
Despite a growing interest in interdisciplinary research, systematic ways of how to integrate data from different disciplines are still scarce. We argue that successful resource management relies on two key data sources: natural science data, which represents ecosystem structure and processes, and social science data, which describes people's perceptions and understanding. Both are vital, mutually complementing information sources that can underpin the development of feasible and effective policies and management interventions. To harvest the added value of combined knowledge, a uniform scaling system is needed. In this paper, we propose a standardized methodology to connect and explore different types of quantitative data from the natural and social sciences reflecting temporal trends in ecosystem quality. We demonstrate this methodology with different types of data such as fisheries stocks and mangrove cover on the one hand and community's perceptions on the other. The example data are collected from three United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Biosphere reserves and one marine park in Southeast Asia. To easily identify patterns of convergence or divergence among the datasets, we propose heat maps using colour codes and icons for language- and education-independent understandability. Finally, we discuss the limitations as well as potential implications for resource management and the accompanying communication strategies.
This article is part of the theme issue ‘Nurturing resilient marine ecosystems’.
... A diferencia del estudio original, Colombia es un país de ingresos medios, de alta biodiversidad, en el que las condiciones de urbanización y de inclusión de la naturaleza en las actividades cotidianas difieren de las condiciones originales. De acuerdo con los hallazgos de los estudios sobre preocupación, actitudes y conocimiento ambiental en Colombia (Medina y Páramo, 2014b;Sandoval et al., 2019), Latinoamérica (Páramo et al., 2015) y países de Europa (Gifford et al., 2009) hay diferencias contextuales asociadas tanto a las experiencias individuales con la naturaleza como a las diferencias geográficas que pueden afectar los hallazgos de las intervenciones en psicología ambiental, de allí la importancia de las réplicas con propósitos de exploración de las condiciones de adaptación entre contextos. ...
Esta investigación tiene como objetivo replicar la intervención Tres cosas buenas sobre la naturaleza con una muestra de estudiantes universitarios de Colombia. La investigación corresponde a un diseño mixto de tres (grupo: experimental, experimental liberal y control) por dos (tiempo: línea base, postintervención); en la dimensión del análisis de los participantes corresponde a un cuasiexperimento (ex post facto) pretest–postest con condiciones manipulativas y de control de variables. A diferencia de la investigación original, este estudio incluye en el diseño la presencia del control de valores y creencias liberales de los participantes, establecido sobre la base del consumo recreativo de cannabis como uno de los criterios de asignación a uno de los grupos experimentales. Los otros dos grupos fueron conformados aleatoria- mente. Participaron de forma voluntaria 91 estudiantes universitarios de dos instituciones de educación superior en Neiva (Colombia). Para la medición de la conectividad con la naturaleza se utilizó la escala de conexión con la naturaleza en la versión adaptada a lengua española. No se encuentran diferencias estadísticamente significativas en la conectividad con la naturaleza entre e intragrupos tras la intervención. La no replicación de los hallazgos se deriva, entre otros, de las diferencias en los valores iniciales de la CN en las muestras (original y réplica) que fueron estadísticamente significativas. Esta investigación aporta en la exploración de los posibles efectos de los niveles basales de la conectividad con la naturaleza como variable relevante de las intervenciones en psicología y educación ambiental.
... Spatial biases have been linked to environmental communication when global environmental concerns are given dominance over immediate problems (Schultz et al. 2014;Nzau et al. 2018). Spatial biases impact conservation action in that when people underestimate the magnitude of environmental problems at their local scales, they are unlikely to implement timely solutions (Gifford et al. 2009;Schultz et al. 2014). In Kitui County and Taita Hills, the highest spatial bias was among part-time farmers and participants with higher incomes which may be explainable by their higher purchasing power (Stern, 2004;Mills & Waite 2009) for consistent access to mass media and the internet as well as circular migration which constantly exposes them to comparative environmental at locally and elsewhere (Nzau et al. 2021a). ...
Numerous conservation activities in Africa have been of little effect. In this study, we investigate socio-economic trade-offs that might have been overlooked, yet may undermine conservation action in discret pathways. Data was collected in three study sites with fragile forest ecosystems in south-eastern Kenya, through locally adapted structured surveys and semi-structured expert guides. These analyses are drawn from 827 structured surveys and 37 expert interviews, which were done during 2016–2018. We found general coherences between age, gender, ethnicity, indigenous knowledge, formal education, and higher incomes, which shapes forest conservation attitudes. Indigenous knowledge is marginal, and most people with formal education in the rural setting are likely to be young without legal land rights or among the minority with off-farm employment. The reluctance to address historical land injustices and inequitable sharing of entitlements and management authority overrides positive attitudes and intentions towards forest conservation in all three study sites. However, we found considerable discrepancies among the three study sites. For Arabuko Sokoke forest, the awareness of forest conservation was relatively low when compared with the other two study sites. Forests play a major role against the backdrop of resource use in all three regions. But, different ecosystem services are used among the three study sites. For environmental education and communication, internet plays a comparatively minor role. Strategies to preserve forest differ among the three study sites: Reforestation is proposed in cloud forests of Taita Hills and riparian forests, whereas off-farm employment and alternative income sources plays a major role in Arabuko Sokoke forest. Our findings underline that locally specific conservation management is needed to conduct efficient nature conservation, particularly in countries with very heterogeneous ethnicities and environments.
... Au-delà de l'âge ou de la période de cycle de vie que l'individu traverse, la durée passée à l'intérieur d'un lieu est un prédicteur récurrent de l'attachement au lieu (Gifford, Scannell, Kormos, Smolova, Biel et Boncu, 2009 ;Hay, 1998 ;Lewicka, 2010Lewicka, , 2011Scannell et Gifford, 2010 ;Zajonc, 1968). ...
Pourquoi les nouvelles enceintes sportives n’atteignent-elles pas les objectifs escomptés, notamment en termes de taux de remplissage ? Pour répondre à cette question, étudier le processus d’attachement au club et d’attachement au stade nous semble particulièrement porteur, notamment dans les chaînages conceptuels proximité → valeur perçue → attachement et attachement à l’ancien stade → proximité → valeur perçue → attachement au nouveau stade.Vingt-trois hypothèses sont formulées et testées auprès de 1 446 spectateurs de stade Yves-du-Manoir de Colombes, 668 spectateurs de la Paris La Défense Arena et 328 spectateurs des deux enceintes. Les résultats obtenus confirment la validité des deux chaînages conceptuels testés et offrent des pistes de réflexion managériale pour les professionnels de l’industrie du sport professionnel qui souhaiteraient améliorer le taux de remplissage de leur enceinte.
Bu çalışmada, 6 Şubat 2023 Kahramanmaraş depremleri sonrasında Antakya kentinin yeniden yapılanması sürecindeki yere bağlılık durumu incelenmiştir. Depremler başta olmak üzere doğal afetler sonrasında oluşan yere bağlılık durumlarını ortaya koyan akademik çalışmaların oldukça sınırlı olması, bu çalışmanın hazırlanmasındaki başlıca motivasyonu oluşturmuştur. Nicel analiz yönteminin kullanıldığı çalışmada, depremler öncesinde Antakya’da ikamet etmiş olan 368 kişiye 30 sorudan oluşan anket uygulanmıştır. Katılımcıların anket sorularına verdikleri cevaplar SPSS yazılımı ile analiz edilmiş ve analiz sonuçları tablo ve grafiklerle ortaya konulmuştur. Ayrıca bazı sorulara verilen ifadelerden hareketle görsel analizler yapılmış ve bunun için MQXQUDA programından yararlanılmıştır. Çalışmanın bulgularına göre; katılımcıların % 82,1’i Antakya’yı özlediklerini, % 65,2’si Antakya’da olup bitenleri kesinlikle merak ettiklerini, % 82,6’sı Antakya’ya kök saldıklarını belirtmişlerdir. “Bundan sonra, Antakya’da yaşamaya devam edeceğim” ifadesine katılımcıların % 54,6’sı kesinlikle katılıyorum ve % 20,1’i katılıyorum cevabını vermiştir. Katılımcıların % 71’i Antakya’yı hiç terk etmeyen, sık sık veya belirli aralıklarla Antakya’yı ziyaret edenlerden oluşmaktadır. Başka bir değişle, katılımcıların % 71’i kentle bağlantısını sürdürmektedir. Katılımcıların % 73,1’i deprem sonrasında Antakya’ya hala çok bağlı olduklarını ifade etmişlerdir. Tüm bu istatistiksel sonuçlar, yaşanan depremlere rağmen yere bağlılığın güçlü olduğunu göstermiştir. Anket sonuçlarından farklı olarak, arazi gözlemleri neticesinde kentin sokaklarında yüksek bir aidiyet düzeyini yansıtan duvar yazılarının ve işyeri tabelalarının varlığı yere bağlılığın mekânsal yansımalarını oluşturmuştur.
Introducción: La evaluación de intervenciones de educación ambiental aporta una valiosa información sobre el estado de la conciencia ambiental en el alumnado y diagnostica las cuestiones más motivadoras y aquellas en las que hay que incidir más. Este estudio se centra en la evaluación de la actitud ambiental en adolescentes antes y después de una intervención de educación ambiental de ámbito no formal diseñada por una entidad educativa durante 6 días en un campamento con jóvenes adolescentes de la ciudad de Córdoba, España. Se han utilizado instrumentos validados sobre la influencia de la intervención en la actitud ambiental y en el conocimiento subjetivo a través un cuestionario de 20 ítems compuesto por dos instrumentos validados: uno sobre actitudes ambientales en adolescentes (18 ítems) y otro sobre el conocimiento subjetivo (2 ítems). Además, se ha realizado una evaluación cualitativa sobre las emociones sentidas y preguntas abiertas sobre el aprendizaje.
Objetivos: Evaluar la influencia de una intervención educativa sobre educación ambiental con jóvenes adolescentes en el ámbito no formal en la actitud ambiental y el conocimiento subjetivo, y extraer los elementos pedagógicos clave para su éxito y su mejora.
Metodología: Tras obtener el consentimiento informado de las familias y de las personas participantes, se realiza la evaluación a 50 jóvenes (40% hombres y 60% mujeres; media edad: 15.70; sd: 1,53). Se responde de manera online al cuestionario, a través de una escala de 5 puntos Likert, el día 1 antes de la intervención y el día 6 una vez concluida.
Resultados: Los resultados muestran que la actitud ambiental mejora siendo significativa la diferencia antes y después de la intervención en ambos sexos y aumentando la media de un 3.956 a 4.443, con un alfa de Cronbach de 0.905 al inicio y 0.870 al final, lo que muestra que la fiabilidad interna es alta. En relación con la actitud ambiental mejoran las tres dimensiones que componen la escala destacando el factor comportamental que tiene que ver con las reacciones ante situaciones ambientales diversas, seguido por el emocional y afectivo compuesto por sentimientos hacia el medioambiente y, por último, la motivación al conocimiento de temas ambientales. Acerca del conocimiento subjetivo, aumenta el entendimiento de problemas y el aprendizaje de soluciones, este último en mayor medida.
Conclusiones: El uso de herramientas de evaluación de intervención educativa es útil para detectar elementos clave en la educación ambiental. El contacto con la naturaleza, el equilibrio entre análisis de problemas ambientales y la puesta en valor de alternativas individuales y colectivas, así como planificar una acción colectiva son importantes para generar esperanza y motivación hacia los temas ambientales y ganas de actuar para el cambio. Se concluye también el efecto positivo que tienen los procesos educativos de ámbito no formal en el interés por el conocimiento en la educación formal e informal. Por último, sería importante la inclusión de una evaluación antes y después de realizar la acción ambiental colectiva para detectar la consolidación de los resultados obtenidos hasta ahora y nuevos aprendizajes derivados de la acción.
This handbook is the first to comprehensively study the interdependent fields of environmental and conservation psychology. In doing so, it seeks to map the rapidly growing field of conservation psychology and its relationship to environmental psychology. The Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology includes basic research on environmental perceptions, attitudes, and values; research on specific environments, such as therapeutic settings, schools, and prisons; environmental impacts on human well-being; and ways to promote a more sustainable relationship between people and the natural environment. This handbook presents an extensive review of current research and is a thorough guide to the state of knowledge about a wide range of topics at the intersection of psychology and the physical environment. Beyond this, it provides a better understanding of the relationship between environmental and conservation psychology, and some sense of the directions in which these interdependent areas of study are heading.
The current study employs psychological distance theory and the co-benefit frame to explore message framing strategies on social media to promote public support in climate change mitigation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This online 2 × 2 × 2 experiment recruited 708 Chinese college students to examine the effect of temporal distance (2025 vs. 2050), spatial distance (China vs. the global), and the co-benefit frame (present vs. absent) on behavioral intentions to mitigate climate change and policy support in climate change mitigation. Unexpectedly, the MANOVA results showed that the co-benefit frame of COVID-19 and climate change did not have main or interaction that affect behavioral intention and policy support. However, close temporal distance increases support for climate change mitigation. Meanwhile, temporal and spatial distance have an interaction on behavioral intention. Our results suggest that strategies to reduce psychological distance on social media are effective, especially on temporal distance, but bonding two events through psychological distance to promote support for climate change mitigation must be reconsidered.
This paper argues that only by integrating the individual into the social and collective context in which people live may help us to move towards an essential transformational approach to bringing about change in society to address the climate emergency.
This research analyzes 57 Time magazine covers focusing on the construction of various environmental issues throughout its 97-year publication history and the discourse they represent. Through qualitative content analysis techniques, the research ascertains that Time symbolically annihilates environmental issues in three ways: negativity as the norm, absence of specifics, and the lack of connection to humans. These themes result in a discourse and overall presentation of environmental issues as shallow and non-ameliorative. The implication of these findings, following cultivation theory, have significance for society as the content can reflect the current state of discourse as well as shape public understanding. Given the ubiquity of mass media, the way they present environmental issues provides a substantial source of information to describe the current discourse and the status of environmental issues in the public domain.
Law's ideas of nature appear in different doctrinal and institutional settings, historical periods, and political dialogues. Nature underlies every behavior, contract, or form of wealth, and in this broad sense influences every instance of market transaction or governmental intervention. Recognizing that law has embedded discrete constructions of nature helps in understanding how humans value their relationship with nature. This book offers a scholarly examination of the manner in which nature is constructed through law, both in the 'hard' sense of directly regulating human activities that impact nature, and in the 'soft' manner in which law's ideas of nature influence and are influenced by behaviors, values, and priorities. Traditional accounts of the intersection between law and nature generally focus on environmental laws that protect wilderness. This book will build on the constructivist observation that when considered as a culturally contingent concept, 'nature' is a self-perpetuating and self-reinforcing social creation.
ABSTRAKT Praca ta miała na celu sprawdzenie, czy silne postawy ekologiczne powodują istotny wzrost lęku egzystencjalnego, a dokładniej lęku przed śmiercią. W części teoretycznej przedstawiono ogólną charakterystykę lęku i postaw na podstawie dostępnych źródeł. Wspomniano trójpoziomową teorię lęku przed śmiercią Feifela, teorię Kępińskiego czy Teorię opanowania trwogi Greenberga, Pyszczynskiego i Solomona. W części odnoszącej się do postaw przywołano teorię Kohlberga, Teorię pola Lewina czy koncepcję wartości Schwartza. Dane do badań uzyskano poprzez dwa kwestionariusze skale lęku i fascynacji śmiercią oraz narzędzie mierzące postawy proekologiczne. Dane zebrano dwiema ankietami, jedna w języku polskim, druga w języku angielskim, które zostały umieszczone na internetowych portalach: Uzyskano wyniki 794 osób badanych z różnych krajów, o różnym wieku. 229 mężczyzn oraz 567 kobiet. W części poświęconej analizie badawczej, sprawdzono korelację postaw do lęku oraz występowanie różnic międzypłciowych z poziomem lęku i postaw proekologicznych.
Many environmental scientists are predicting that the environmental pollution in the Anthropocene will lead to negative consequences, so it is becoming increasingly urgent to address human behaviors that affect Planet Earth. Among factors that likely contribute to delayed climate change mitigation efforts are psychological factors, including the lack of cooperation in addressing the cause, and the competition for diminishing resources. Personal values of self-transcendence (pro-social) and self-enhancement (pro-self) seem to be related to attitudes and behaviors of cooperation and competition. Furthermore, when faced with threatening negative scenarios, self-enhancing competitive values and attitudes may increase, although upon contemplating one’s own mortality, pro-social cooperative values and attitudes may increase. Examining the interactions between personal values and effects of perceived negative scenarios may improve our understanding of barriers to effective responses to climate change. In the current experiment, after measuring participants’ self-enhancement and self-transcendence values with Stern’s Brief Inventory of Values, participants wrote about dental pain, their own death, or extinction of life on Earth, to prime them into one of these negative scenarios. Following a series of distracting tasks, participants’ levels of cooperation and competition were measured using the Cooperation and Competition Personality Scale (CCPS) and a commons dilemma task. Results indicated that the hypotheses regarding the negative scenarios were not supported because the negative primes seemed to have no effect on the outcome variables. However, there was support for the predicted relationships between self-transcendence and cooperation and between self-enhancement and competition. These results suggest that personal values are more predictive of individual’s behaviors than surrounding negative scenarios, therefore it may be more important to focus environmental communication research on individuals and their values than on presenting the facts to the public.
Constructing a Persuasive Message to Fight Environmental Pollution This review seeks to create a message that persuades people to join the fight against environmental pollution (Also known as climate change, global worming, destruction of the biosphere, etc.) by taking into account the previous works in social and environmental sciences, mainly psychology. The review begins by summarizing different explanations as to why humans are failing so miserably in this commons dilemma. Afterwards, individual traits that affect an individual's perception of a message are discussed. Next, the review explores messages that do not work in the subject at hand and show how the interaction between the mentioned traits and the messages result in today's lack of cooperation. Finally, previous studies are juxtaposed to explain which types of messages do work. The review concludes with an example of an effective message, constructed using the basic structures and components of arguments that work, as discussed throughout the review.
This study analyzes the misperceptions of the Chinese public about air pollution levels and other potential predictors of participation in pro-environmental behaviors based on the 2013 Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS). In this paper, misperception is defined as the difference between subjective perceptions of air pollution and measurements through objective monitoring. We find that pessimistic respondents are more likely to participate in pro-environmental behaviors. The media use and evaluation of the environmental performance of the local government significantly stimulate pro-environmental participation. The results reveal that knowledge and concern about the environment can mitigate the negative effect of optimistic bias on pro-environmental behaviors. In regions where environmental information is widely available, environmental pessimists are especially more likely to participate in such activities. This finding suggests that the government should provide not only accurate information about environmental pollution but also relevant education to enhance the environmental awareness of the public and stimulate pro-environmental participation.
In this paper, we study the impact of countries’ subjective beliefs, i.e., pessimism and optimism, on international agreements to provide global public goods. Under symmetric beliefs, we find that while pessimism (optimism) could decrease (increase) signatories’ efforts, it can also increase (decrease) the coalition size. Under asymmetric beliefs, optimists entering the coalition may crowd out the more pessimistic countries. If a stable coalition exists, then while optimists are willing to participate even at rather small coalition sizes, the participation of more pessimistic types requires the coalition size to be larger. A stable coalition would consist of the most optimists and possibly some other types.
Global climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic that are among the most pressing societal crises share multiple links. It has been shown for instance, that the measures to fight against the coronavirus may impact (at least for a while) greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, the COVID-19 can serve as a prototypical example for climate change, demonstrating how global crises may become personally relevant and certain. Here, our aim was to investigate whether explicit reference to the COVID-19 crisis in communication messages on global climate change could enhance message effectiveness. Through two pre-registered studies (Ntotal = 651), we examined whether the use of factual elements stressing the certainty dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic (Study 1) or the use of arguments linking COVID-19 and climate change framed in terms of “positive” or “negative” outcomes (Study 2) could impact the effectiveness of climate messages. Results did not show that messages aiming to increase the certainty of the climate crisis by linking it to the COVID-19 pandemic increased perceived message effectiveness. However, we have found that emotional framing influenced perceived message effectiveness, but not pro-environmental behaviour. Results are discussed in terms of the impact of the concepts of certainty, message framing and emotions on climate change communication.
We introduce this special issue on Thinking about Climate Change by reflecting on the role of psychology in responding adaptively to catastrophic global threats. By way of illustration we compare the threat posed by climate change with the extinction-level threat considered in the recent film Don’t Look Up [McKay, A. (Director). (2021). Don’t Look Up [Film]. Hyperobject Industries]. Human psychology is a critical element in both scenarios. The papers in this special issue discuss the importance of clear communication of scientific information, the dangers of misinformation and the possible role played by motivated reasoning, all themes that are taken up in the film. Ultimately, though, it is not enough to consider psychological factors in isolation: we must also acknowledge that cognitive flaws and psychological motivations are exploited by vested interests that profit from delaying climate action. A global response to a global crisis requires us to ‘look up’ to recognise the threat and to ‘look around’ to go beyond specialist disciplines and national boundaries. © 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Studies examining climate change risk perceptions rarely differentiate between personal and general risk perceptions. Researchers could come to conflicting conclusions about what variables are important in predicting people’s perceptions of risk if they do not differentiate between perceptions of personal and general risk. In this study, we used data from a survey of residents in a Midwestern region of the United States to examine the relationship between two measures of knowledge and perceptions of the risk of climate change at personal and the global (i.e. general) levels. Knowledge of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic climate change significantly predicted perceptions of both types of risks, but was more strongly related to greater risk perceptions at the global level. Knowledge of climate change’s impact on regional flooding predicted greater climate change risk perception, and we did not find a difference in its association with risk perception at the global versus the personal level. Understanding how different types of knowledge influence peoples’ perception of climate change risks can foster a better understanding of related decision-making processes and used to support more strategic public education and communication on climate change.
Supplemental data for this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2022.2028883 .
According to conventional wisdom and many social science analyses, widespread concern about environmental quality is limited to industrialized nations. People in developing nations, the reasoning goes, are simply too occupied with obtaining the basics of food, clothing, and shelter to worry about environmental matters. The authors tested this theory in the largest environmental survey ever conducted by asking people in 24 developed and developing countries everything from what the most serious problem in their nation is to whether they would pay higher prices for improved environmental quality. The results of this unprecedented survey will surprise you.
A total of 613 subjects, including257 White American students, 312 mainland Chinese students, and 44 Chinese American students, completed the Attributional Style Questionnaire. It was found that (a) mainland Chinese were more pessimistic than Chinese Americans, who were more pessimistic than White Americans, (b) mainland Chinese were less self-blaming (i.e., attributed their failure less internally than the traditional Chinese culture expects) and attributed their success to other people or circumstances, and (c) White Americans had more lopsidedness or self-serving bias than Chinese Americans and mainland Chinese-that is, White Americans attributed their success to themselves and their failure to others or circumstances more often than did mainland Chinese. The authors also found that mainland Chinese optimism was associated more with academic and financial accomplishment, psychological confidence and persistence, and physical health.
This article compares self-reported and objectively measured physical features in a large-scale environment. Environmental perception has been studied through object perception research but little is known about perception in full-scale environments. Also, few studies examine differences between self-reported and objective environments including the potential effects of distance and content. In this study, a questionnaire, satellite imagery, and geographic information system data were used. Results indicate that self-reported environments are different from objective environments. In addition, self-reported responses separate natural and built environments into two different dimensions. Water combines self-reported and objective measurements into a single dimension. Further analysis revealed that content (natural vs. built) and distance (300 ft vs. 1,500 ft) are important factors influencing the relationships between self-reported and objective environmental measurements. By better understanding relationships between self-reported and objective environments, landscape planners and designers can choose the most appropriate data type for analyzing specific planning and design decisions.
This study examined the relationship of dispositional, unrealistic, and comparative optimism to each other and to personal risk beliefs, actual risk, and the knowledge and processing of risk information. The study included 146 middle-age adults who reported heart attack-related knowledge, beliefs, and behaviors and read an essay about heart attack risk factors. Dispositional optimism was correlated with comparative optimism (perception of low risk relative to peers) but not with a variable assessing accuracy of participants’ comparative risk estimates (unrealistic optimism). Individuals high in dispositional optimism and comparative optimism possessed an adaptive risk and belief profile and knew more about heart attacks, whereas unrealistically optimistic individuals exhibited the opposite pattern and also learned relatively less of the essay material. Evidently, perceptions of low comparative risk are relatively accurate, dispositional optimism is associated in an adaptive way with information processing, and unrealistic optimism may be associated with processing deficits and defensiveness, as well as higher risk.
Recent research has examined the relationship between values and attitudes about environmental issues. Findings from these studies have found values of self-transcendence (positively) and self-enhancement (negatively) to predict general concern for environmental problems. Other recent findings have differentiated between environmental attitudes based on concern for self (egoistic), concern for other people (social-altruistic), and concern for plants and animals (biospheric).This article reports the results from a study of the relationship between values and environmental attitudes in six countries: Brazil, Czech Republic, Germany, India, New Zealand, and Russia. Results show strong support for the cross-cultural generalizability of the relationship between values and attitudes and on the structure of environmental concern. In addition, analyses of the relationship between values and environmental behavior show evidence for norm activation only for self-transcendence; results for self-enhancement show a consistently negative relationship.
The effects of support for free-market ideology and environmental apathy were investigated to identify some bases for not believing in global climate change. A survey of community residents' (N= 185) beliefs about global climate change also assessed ecocentrism, anthropocentrism, perceived knowledge about climate change, and self-efficacy. The beliefs that global climate change is not occurring, is mainly not human caused, will also have positive consequences and that weaker intentions to undertake ameliorative actions were significantly associated with greater support for free-market ideology, greater environmental apathy, less ecocentrism, and less self-efficacy. About 40% of the variance in each belief and 56% of the variance in the behavioral intention was explained by these factors. The results suggest that the relation between support for free-market ideology and the beliefs about global climate change is mediated by environmental apathy.
Levels of unrealistic optimism were compared for Canadians (a culture typical of an independent construal of self) and Japanese (a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self). Across 2 studies, Canadians showed significantly more unrealistic optimism than Japanese, and Canadians' optimism bias was more strongly related to perceived threat. Study 2 revealed that Japanese were even less unrealistically optimistic for events that were particularly threatening to interdependent selves. The authors suggest that self-enhancing biases (such as unrealistic optimism) are, for the most part, absent from the motivational repertoire of the Japanese because the consequent attention to the individual that self-enhancement engenders is not valued in interdependent cultures.
Understanding differences in environmental risk perception and risk judgments might facilitate the development of effective environmental risk management strategies, including risk communication. Cultural theory holds that systematic individual differences exist in the perception of environmental risks based on four different myths of nature: nature benign, nature ephemeral, nature perverse/tolerant, and nature capricious. The myths of nature represent distinct perceptions toward environmental risks, which are assumed to be closely related to preferences for appropriate risk management strategies. The authors examined to what extent myths of nature are related to beliefs associated with problems of car use and preferences for strategies to manage these problems. As hypothesized, significant variations in perceptions, preferences, and policy evaluations were found among respondents favoring different myths of nature. Nature ephemeral was associated with a higher problem awareness and a more positive evaluation of policy measures, especially in comparison to nature benign.
In Study 1, over 200 college students estimated how much their own chance of experiencing 42 events differed from the chances of their classmates. Overall, Ss rated their own chances to be significantly above average for positive events and below average for negative events. Cognitive and motivational considerations led to predictions that degree of desirability, perceived probability, personal experience, perceived controllability, and stereotype salience would influence the amount of optimistic bias evoked by different events. All predictions were supported, although the pattern of effects differed for positive and negative events. Study 2 with 120 female undergraduates from Study 1 tested the idea that people are unrealistically optimistic because they focus on factors that improve their own chances of achieving desirable outcomes and fail to realize that others may have just as many factors in their favor. Ss listed the factors that they thought influenced their own chances of experiencing 8 future events. When such lists were read by a 2nd group of Ss, the amount of unrealistic optimism shown by this 2nd group for the same 8 events decreased significantly, although it was not eliminated. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examines the importance of local and national identity processes in predicting the perception of a threat to the local environment: pollution of British beaches defined in terms of European Union (EU) regulations concerning cleanliness. Place identity and social identity theories would predict that English people would exhibit positive discrimination when evaluating both their local and national beaches and would allow ingroup preferences to influence their estimates of beach pollution. The study involved administering questionnaires to 347 English students drawn from secondary schools in six seaside resorts (three with ‘polluted’ beaches, and three with ‘unpolluted’ beaches according to the EU criteria). It was hypothesized that degree of both local and national identification would predict variance in perceived levels of pollution independently of either the EU categorization or the physical evidence of pollution available. On the whole, results confirmed this main hypothesis: subjects who were more attached to their town or their nation tended to perceive their local and national beaches as less polluted. Traditional predictors of environmental evaluation (such as socio-demographic variables, environmental concern, use of the environment) did not play an important role in predicting beach pollution perception. Denial of physical assessments of pollution was interpreted as a strategy used to cope with the threat to place identity posed by the labelling of local beaches by a powerful outgroup (the EU).
There has been little research on the differential aspects of the local/global dichotomy, yet there is every suggestion that such a distinction could be crucially important in terms of understanding the public's perceptions and attitudes towards environmental problems as well as understanding their subsequent behaviour. This research sought to address three questions. First, are people only able to relate to environmental issues if they are concrete, immediate and local? Second, do people consider environmental problems to be more serious at a global or a local level? Third, what is the effect of the public's perceptions of the seriousness of environmental problems on their sense of responsibility for taking action?Three studies were undertaken in Australia, England, Ireland and Slovakia. The results of each study consistently demonstrate that respondents are not only able to conceptualize problems at a global level, but an inverse distance effect is found such that environmental problems are perceived to be more serious the farther away they are from the perceiver. An inverse relationship was also found between a sense of responsibility for environmental problems and spatial scale resulting in feelings of powerlessness at a global level. The paper concludes with a discussion of various psychological theories and perspectives which informs our analysis and understanding of what might be seen as environmental hyperopia.
Using weighted least-squares confirmatory factor analysis, support was found for the bi-dimensionality of optimism and pessimism defined as positive and negative outcome expectancies, thus, replicating previous findings (Chang, D'Zurilla & Maydeu-Olivares, 1994; Marshall et al., 1992). In addition, support was also found for the discriminant validity and utility of employing separate measures of optimism and pessimism for predicting individual differences in measures of life satisfaction and depressive symptoms. Moreover, significant predictive relations with these criterion measures were found even after controlling for the influence of positive and negative affectivity. Implications regarding the present findings for future research on optimism and pessimism are discussed.
Decisions where costs and benefits are spread over time are both common and important. Delayed outcomes are generally valued less than immediate ones. The degree of this devaluation is measured by a discount rate. Economic theory makes rather precise statements with respect to these discount functions. Experimental and field results, however, have revealed several anomalies to the standard model: observed discount rates vary over time, between objects, between situations and between people. This project investigates a) whether individual differences in discounting future outcomes are due to differences in socialization, b) whether hedonic goods are discounted more strongly than utilitarian goods, c) whether vividness influences discount rates for these goods, d) whether discount rates are influenced by the choice set from which an option has to be selected, and e) whether empirical results obtained in intertemporal choice can be generalized to other preference dimensions as well, e.g., risky choice, interspatial choice or interpersonal choice. To combine these streams of research framing theory is used.
Recent theoretical discussions of optimism as an inherent aspect of human nature converge with empirical investigations of optimism as an individual difference to show that optimism can be a highly beneficial psychological characteristic linked to good mood, perseverance, achievement, and physical health. Questions remain about optimism as a research topic and more generally as a societal value. Is the meaning of optimism richer than its current conceptualization in cognitive terms? Are optimism and pessimism mutually exclusive? What is the relationship between optimism and reality, and what are the costs of optimistic beliefs that prove to be wrong? How can optimism be cultivated? How does optimism play itself out across different cultures? Optimism promises to be one of the important topics of interest to positive social science, as long as it is approached in an even-handed way.
In a wide variety of cognitive tasks, people's expectations of what their own performance is, was, and will be are an overestimate of reality. After documenting a number of situations in which people exhibit such overconfidence, several reasons for it are discussed. It is suggested that in these situations, the optimistic bias is not attributable exclusively to self-deception or wishful thinking. Rather, the information yielded up by the cognitive system, in combination with the heuristics used for making judgments of future and past performance tailored to the specific questions asked of participants, produces a bias toward believing that one knows, knew, and will perform better than actual performance substantiates. Consequently, in the cognitive domain, the inflated beliefs that result in overconfidence also result in cessation of efforts before the correct solution of problems is ascertained, before accurate retrieval of memorial information is attained, or before adequate learning of new material has been accomplished. This effect seems in contrast to findings on people's moods and self-esteem in real-world or threatening situations that suggest that an optimistic bias in these domains be person protective and adaptive.
Policies designed to solve environmental problems are unlikely to succeed unless they have broad public support, but the motives for mass support are poorly understood. The problem is global in scope, but most of the relevant public opinion research done so far has been carried out in advanced industrial societies, usually Western democracies. Moreover, much of this research is limited to the tip of the iceberg, focusing on what people think about environmental problems without probing into why they think it or how deeply they are committed.
The analysis of mass attitudes toward environmental problems in this article uses evidence from representative national surveys of countries representing the entire developmental spectrum, from rich to poor nations, including not only Western democracies but authoritarian regimes and recently emerging democracies from the former communist bloc. The data come from the 1990–93 World Values survey, carried out in 43 countries containing 70% of the world's population. Our goal is to determine why given publics are—or are not—sufficiently concerned about environmental problems that they are willing to make financial sacrifices and undertake other actions in order to help protect the environment.
consider the ways in which people act to control and manage their affect through benign distortions of the stressful situations they face / argue that these are effective coping strategies that are reliably related to low or reduced negative affect, and that they do not appear to compromise other aspects of functioning / consider recent research on the cognitive illusions of unrealistic optimism and exaggeratedly positive perceptions of control / [include] the social comparisons that people make under conditions of distress and how they are geared toward the reduction of negative affect; and the processes by which people construe decisions with unfavorable outcomes in ways that avoid the distress or self-recrimination that might otherwise occur / consider some of the moderating situational and personal characteristics that may augment or interfere with the ability to construe information in a way that maintains positive affect and avoids negative affect (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Focuses on the influence of Eastern and Western culture on optimism and pessimism. The first part of the chapter looks at research findings associated with the examination of optimism and pessimism between Easterners and Westerners. Research from S. J. Heine and D. R. Lehman's (1995) study on unrealistic optimism, and Y.-T. Lee and M. E. P. Seligman's (1997) study on explanatory style is examined, followed by examination of findings from Chang's (1996) study on dispositional optimism. The second section includes some implications of these and other findings for assessment and intervention. In particular, A. T. Beck's (1976) cognitive model of psychological adjustment is used to consider culture-specific interventions for working with distressed Asian Americans and White Americans. Some pitfalls of viewing pessimism as a key marker of depression in others are discussed in light of recent findings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
The present research tested whether people display comparative optimism for environmental risks and the link between comparative optimism and pro-environmental activity. Study 1 found comparative optimism for water pollution, air pollution and nuclear energy in normal conditions, but not when participants were asked to think about pollution arising from a hypothetical accident. In Study 2, both environmental activists and nonactivists displayed comparative optimism for a list of 22 environmental risks. However, comparative optimism was not associated with self-reported pro-environmental behaviour. Instead, absolute perceived risk, ecological attitude and social value orientation were associated with behaviour. Furthermore, when controlling for group membership, the effect of absolute risk disappeared. These findings are used to address ways in which pro-environmental behaviour might be encouraged.
Levels of unrealistic optimism were compared for Canadians (a culture typical of an independent construal of self) and Japanese (a culture typical of an interdependent construal of self). Across 2 studies, Canadians showed significantly more unrealistic optimism than Japanese, and Canadians' optimism bias was more strongly related to perceived threat. Study 2 revealed that Japanese were even less unrealistically optimistic for events that were particularly threatening to interdependent selves. The authors suggest that self-enhancing biases (such as unrealistic optimism) are, for the most part, absent from the motivational repertoire of the Japanese because the consequent attention to the individual that self-enhancement engenders is not valued in interdependent cultures.
Optimism bias regarding environmental degradation may inhibit pro-environmental behaviour. Two studies established that optimism bias regarding environmental events exists and its determinants were investigated. In study 1 (n=86) optimism bias was observed regarding some aspects of environmental degradation (e.g. air pollution affecting the local area), but not others. These results are consistent with the egocentrism account of optimism bias; egocentric focus on personal precautions may not contribute to optimism bias if others are also perceived to benefit from one's own personal precautions. Study 2 (n=121) assessed this hypothesis employing a manipulation of the perceived range of impact of risk-relevant behaviours. Subjects judged the likelihood that they and their average peer would be affected by environmental hazards, phrased in either general terms (e.g. air pollution) or specific terms (e.g. respiratory problems due to air pollution). Control subjects made estimates about the specific outcomes not explicitly related to the environment (e.g. respiratory problems). Subjects identified behaviours which influence the likelihood of being affected by each hazard. As predicted, subjects asked about general environmental hazards nominated behaviours likely to benefit many people (e.g. reduced use of ozone-damaging chemicals) and demonstrated less optimism bias than subjects asked about specific consequences of the same hazards. Optimism bias was negatively correlated with range of impact of precautions. Thus, optimism bias regarding environmental degradation may be limited by a tendency to focus on pro-environmental behaviours with a wide range of impact.
This paper constitutes an attempt to clarify the relationship between “environmental hyperopia” (the discrepancy between environmental concern towards global and local targets) and cultural worldviews regarding nature. A 14-item scale was developed to assess the four views of nature identified by cultural theory. The results, obtained in a sample of 300 residents of an industrialized area, support the relationships predicted by the theory. Altogether, the results on environmental concern showed the “environmental hyperopia” effect: concern for local environmental issues was more attenuated than for global ones, risk perception of local sources of pollution was perceived as lower than distant threats, and global sources of information about the environment were considered more trustworthy than local ones. However, all these effects were influenced by the views people hold on nature. In particular, egalitarians were the ones who exacerbated these effects, and individualistic participants were the ones who were more immune to them. This last result indicates that individualistic residents may have the potential to be involved in local environmental issues. Egalitarian individuals also proved to be particularly responsive to the dimensions of social integration and belongingness to place attachment, and this can be the reason for their low sensitivity to local problems.
Recently more emphasis has been placed on the importance of variables that mediate person-environment relations. This paper describes the Environmental Appraisal Inventory (EAI), which is designed to measure three dimensions of environmental appraisal: (a) threat to self; (b) threat to the environment posed by environmental hazards, and (c) perceived control over environmental hazards. Hazards ranging from proximate indoor threats (e.g., office fumes) to large-scale outdoor threats (e.g., earthquakes) are included. Internal consistency of the EAI is more than adequate. Convergent and discriminant validity is explored using McKechnie's (1974) Environmental Response Inventory and Rotter's (1966) Internal-External Locus of Control scale. Perceived control over the physical environment as measured by the EAI appears to be distinct from Rotter's measure. The EAI has good psychometric properties, represents a previously untapped aspect of person-environment relations, and should prove useful as a mediating variable in several areas of environmental psychology.
A multinational study is reported on the relationship between values and attitudes. Environmental attitudes were measured using the revised New Environmental Paradigm (NEP: Dunlap et al., 1992) and Thompson and Barton's (1994) ecocentrism–anthropocentrism scales. Other measures included gender, SES, religion, and Schwartz's (1994) universal values scale. Survey data were obtained from college students in 14 countries. A sample of 2160 participants was obtained through university contacts in each country. Results found support for the distinction between different types of environmental attitudes. Regression analyses revealed a consistent pattern of findings across countries. Scores on the NEP scale and the ecocentrism scale were predicted by universalism (positively), power (negatively), and tradition (negatively). In contrast, anthropocentric concerns were significantly related to benevolence (negatively), power (positively), tradition (positively), and security (positively). Overall, these findings support the value-basis theory of environmental attitudes.
We sought to identify and correct inaccurate perceptions of risk among 1,317 adult patients in a primary care setting. Patients' perceived risks of heart attack, stroke, cancer, and motor vehicle crash were assessed and compared with a measure of risk derived from a health risk appraisal. Patients were then randomly assigned to receive computer-generated individualized risk feedback, risk feedback plus behavioral change feedback, or no feedback. Changes in perceived risk from baseline to a 6-month follow-up were compared across study groups. Results showed that individualized risk feedback was effective in increasing perceived stroke risk among patients who had underestimated their stroke risk at baseline and in reducing perceived risk of cancer among patients who had overestimated their cancer risk at baseline. Individualized risk feedback did not alter patients' perception of their heart attack and motor vehicle crash risks.
Objective. The goal of this article is to compare the concern for the natural environment between the citizens of 26 countries that participated in the 2000 International Social Survey Program (ISSP) and to explain the differences. Prior studies (e.g., Dunlap, Gallup, and Gallup, 1993; Brechin, 1999) suggest that the increase of environmental concern is a global phenomenon. However, Inglehart (1995), as well as Diekmann and Franzen (1999), argue that the level of environmental concern and knowledge is highly correlated with GNP per capita.
Method. The article analyzes new evidence obtained from the ISSP 2000 and compares it to the prior findings based on the ISSP 1993.
Results. It is shown that citizens in wealthier nations express greater concern for the global condition of the environment than those in poorer countries.
Conclusion. The new analysis of the ISSP 2000 confirms our original notion that support for global environmental protection is strongly correlated with wealth. However, the increase in real GDP between 1993 and 2000 did not lead to a further increase in environmental concern.
Yuzhong (Penny) Lin, Sara Malley Identity processes and environ-mental threat: the effects of nationalism and local identity upon perception of beach pollution
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- Nao Sugiura
- Cesar Takahashi
- Karine Weiss Tapia-Fonllem
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