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The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological Barriers That Limit Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

May 2011
American Psychologist 66(4):290-302

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University of Victoria

Most people think climate change and sustainability are important problems, but too few global citizens engaged in high-greenhouse-gas-emitting behavior are engaged in enough mitigating behavior to stem the increasing flow of greenhouse gases and other environmental problems. Why is that? Structural barriers such as a climate-averse infrastructure are part of the answer, but psychological barriers also impede behavioral choices that would facilitate mitigation, adaptation, and environmental sustainability. Although many individuals are engaged in some ameliorative action, most could do more, but they are hindered by seven categories of psychological barriers, or "dragons of inaction": limited cognition about the problem, ideological worldviews that tend to preclude pro-environmental attitudes and behavior, comparisons with key other people, sunk costs and behavioral momentum, discredence toward experts and authorities, perceived risks of change, and positive but inadequate behavior change. Structural barriers must be removed wherever possible, but this is unlikely to be sufficient. Psychologists must work with other scientists, technical experts, and policymakers to help citizens overcome these psychological barriers.

Psychological Barriers to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation General psychological barrier Specific manifestation

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The Dragons of Inaction

Psychological Barriers That Limit Climate Change Mitigation

and Adaptation

Robert Gifford

University of Victoria

Most people think climate change and sustainability are

important problems, but too few global citizens engaged in

high-greenhouse-gas-emitting behavior are engaged in

enough mitigating behavior to stem the increasing ﬂow of

greenhouse gases and other environmental problems. Why

is that? Structural barriers such as a climate-averse infra-

structure are part of the answer, but psychological barriers

also impede behavioral choices that would facilitate miti-

gation, adaptation, and environmental sustainability. Al-

though many individuals are engaged in some ameliorative

action, most could do more, but they are hindered by seven

categories of psychological barriers, or “dragons of inac-

tion”: limited cognition about the problem, ideological

worldviews that tend to preclude pro-environmental atti-

tudes and behavior, comparisons with key other people,

sunk costs and behavioral momentum, discredence toward

experts and authorities, perceived risks of change, and

positive but inadequate behavior change. Structural barri-

ers must be removed wherever possible, but this is unlikely

to be sufﬁcient. Psychologists must work with other scien-

tists, technical experts, and policymakers to help citizens

overcome these psychological barriers.

Keywords: climate change, barriers, obstacles, global

warming, sustainability

It was our fault, and our very great fault—

and now we must turn it to use.

We have forty million reasons for failure,

but not a single excuse.

So the more we work and the less we talk

the better results we shall get...

—Rudyard Kipling, “The Lesson,” 1901

f so many people are concerned about climate change,

the environment, and sustainability, why are more of us

not doing what is necessary to ameliorate the problems?

Of course, many individuals and organizations have already

taken some steps in this direction, and some have taken many

steps. However, in the aggregate, humans continue to produce

massive quantities of greenhouse gases that will further drive

climate change, and we continue to engage in other environ-

mentally destructive behavior patterns.

In some cases, the reasons for this behavioral deﬁcit are

structural and therefore beyond an individual’s reasonable

control. For example, low income severely limits one’s ability

to purchase solar panels, living in a rural area usually means

public transport does not exist as an alternative to driving, and

living in a region with cold winters restricts one’s ability to

reduce home-heating-based energy use. However, for almost

everyone who is not severely restricted by structural barriers,

adopting more pro-environmental choices and behaviors is

possible, but this adoption is not occurring to the extent

necessary to stem the increasing ﬂow of greenhouse gases and

other environmental damage. Thus, the question remains:

What limits more widespread mitigation, adaptation, and sus-

tainability actions on the part of individuals for whom such

actions are feasible?

This article considers seven general psychological barri-

ers as inﬂuences that limit environmental behavior change.

These barriers are my suggested elucidation of the hoary

mystery surrounding the fabled gap between attitude (“I agree

this is the best course of action”) and behavior (“but I am not

doing it”) with regard to environmental problems. Some of the

barriers are recognized in one psychological research domain

or another, but others have not yet become part of our lexicon.

Some have been researched (in other domains) much more

than others. These barriers have not been considered as a

group, although a few social scientists have discussed some of

them (e.g., Gifford, 2008; Kollmuss & Agyeman, 2002;

Lorenzoni, Nicholson-Cole, & Whitmarsh, 2007).

Psychological Barriers to

Behavior Change

Once one begins looking, quite a large number of psycho-

logical obstacles to adequate (carbon-neutral) climate

change mitigation and adaptation may be found. This arti-

cle arranges 29 of the “dragons of inaction” into seven

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Robert

Gifford, Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria,

British Columbia V8S 2H1, Canada. E-mail: rgifford@uvic.ca

These barriers may well limit change in other troublesome behavior

domains, but a discussion of those domains remains for another time.

290 May–June 2011

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Vol. 66, No. 4, 290–302 DOI: 10.1037/a0023566

categories. The dragon

family of seven genera with their

29 species is displayed in Table 1.

Environmental or climate-related inaction seems to

have three broad phases. Genuine ignorance certainly pre-

cludes taking action. Then, if one is aware of a problem, a

variety of psychological processes can interfere with effec-

tive action. Finally, once some action is taken, it can be

inadequate because the behavior fades away, makes too

little a difference in the person’s own carbon footprint, or

is actually counterproductive. The seven categories of bar-

riers are offered as a preliminary taxonomy—a way to

begin their organization and group structure.

What, then, are these dragons of inaction that thwart

the widely accepted but elusive goals of anthropogenic

carbon neutrality and environmental sustainability?

Limited Cognition

Humans are famously less rational than once believed (H.

Simon, 1957; Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). This is as true

for thinking about climate change as it is in other domains.

Some ways in which individual thinking is not fully ratio-

nal and thus acts as a barrier to mitigation and adaptation

follow.

Ancient brain. The human brain has not evolved

much in thousands of years. At the time it reached its

current physical development, before the development of

agriculture, our ancestors were mainly concerned with their

immediate band, immediate dangers, exploitable resources,

and the present time (e.g., Ornstein & Ehrlich, 1989). None

of those are naturally consistent with being concerned, in

the 21st century, about global climate change, which is

slow, usually distant, and unrelated to the present welfare

of ourselves and our signiﬁcant others. Obviously, our

ancient brain is capable of dealing with global climate

change, but doing so does not come easily.

Ignorance. For some, ignorance can be a barrier

to action in two general ways: not knowing that a problem

exists and not knowing what to do once one becomes aware

of the problem. Most polls (e.g., Pew Research Center,

2006) ﬁnd that a proportion of respondents answer “don’t

know” to questions about climate change. Even today,

some people around the world remain entirely unaware of

climate change as a problem. Obviously, this segment of

the global population is not likely to take deliberate action

aimed at ameliorating climate change.

The second dimension of ignorance, found among the

much larger proportion of the global population that is

aware of the problem, is characterized by a lack of knowl-

edge about the cause and extent of climate change (e.g.,

Bord, O’Connor, & Fisher, 2000). This lack leads to igno-

rance about (a) which speciﬁc actions to take, (b) how to

undertake actions of which one is aware, and (c) the rela-

tive beneﬁcial impacts of different actions. Given that most

people are not technical experts, they generally do not have

or know the relative magnitude of beneﬁcial impacts of

various actions.

Such knowledge is developing, and in broad terms we

know what should be done (e.g., Dietz, Gardner, Gilligan,

Stern, & Vandenbergh, 2009; Gardner & Stern, 2008).

However, much remains to be learned, even by technical

experts, partly because the answers are not always univer-

sal (e.g., a best practice in New York may not be a best

practice in Vancouver) or obvious (e.g., New Zealand–

raised lamb eaten in the United Kingdom has a smaller

carbon footprint than United Kingdom–raised lamb eaten

in the United Kingdom) and partly because life-cycle anal-

yses of products are complex, in part because of the large

number of ingredients or component parts in many com-

mercial products (cf. Goleman, 2009). Widespread (but

understandable) ignorance about the differential effective-

ness of behavioral options naturally dampens the adoption

of climate-related action.

Another source of uncertainty stems from mixed mes-

sages in the media. Of course, many such messages are

understandably simpliﬁed translations of scientiﬁc reports,

made in good faith by reporters. Others apparently are

well-funded attempts to undercut science by groups with an

In mythology, dragons take on a wide array of forms, and Asian

dragons are even benevolent, as I learned from a polite elderly woman in a

Sapporo audience. However, as a Westerner, I use dragons as a metaphor for

these obstacles because no matter what their form or shape, Western dragons

always seem to be blocking humans from some goal or aspiration. Perhaps

another, less obvious but complementary, reason for this choice lies within the

word itself: The barriers are a “drag on” progress.

Some behaviors help to mitigate climate change even when that is

not the person’s goal. For example, one might ride a bicycle to work for

health reasons or to save money, or one might eschew ﬂying so as to spend

more time with one’s family (cf. Whitmarsh, 2009). In contrast to the

dragons, I have called these “honeybees” because, like those invaluable

insects, in the course of fulﬁlling their own goal (to gather honey), they

unwittingly fulﬁll another valuable goal (pollination).

Robert

Gifford

291May–June 2011

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American Psychologist

interest in the production and use of greenhouse gases (e.g.,

Hoggan, 2009).

Environmental numbness. Every environ-

ment is composed of more cues and elements than individ-

uals can wholly monitor, so we attend to environments

selectively. Therefore, people are often unaware of much of

their physical surroundings, particularly aspects causing no

immediate difﬁculty, but sometimes even aspects of it that

are causing them at least mild difﬁculties (Gifford, 1976).

Climate change is like that for many citizens: a phenome-

non outside immediate attention because it is not causing

any immediate personal difﬁculties. Mitigative and adap-

tive behaviors are unlikely when this is the case.

A second form of environmental numbness occurs at

the other end of the stimulus spectrum. When viewers have

seen the same advertisement many times, attention to it

shrinks as habituation increases (Belch, 1982; Burke &

Edell, 1986). Similarly, hearing about climate change or

the environment too often, particularly if the message is not

varied, can lead to a numbness to the message and conse-

quent attenuation of helpful behaviors that would amelio-

rate the problems.

Uncertainty. Experimental research on resource

dilemmas demonstrates that perceived or real uncertainty

reduces the frequency of pro-environmental behavior (e.g.,

de Kwaadsteniet, 2007; Hine & Gifford, 1996). Individuals

tend to interpret any sign of uncertainty, for example in the

size of a resource pool or the rate at which the resource

regenerates, as sufﬁcient reason to harvest at a rate that

favors self-interest rather than that of the environment.

Uncertainty about climate change also quite likely func-

tions as a justiﬁcation for inaction or postponed action

related to climate change. In the climate change context,

presentations of the very carefully chosen level-of-conﬁ-

dence phrases (such as “likely” or “very likely,” p. 3) from

the 2007 assessment report of the United Nations Intergov-

ernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) led many

individuals to interpret the phrases as having a lower like-

lihood than the IPCC experts intended (Budescu, Broomell,

& Por, 2009).

Thus, well-intended efforts by climate change scien-

tists to fairly characterize the degree of certainty about

climate change seem to lead to a general underestimation of

climate change risk on the part of the lay audience. Yet the

scientiﬁc and ethical reality is that a certain degree of

uncertainty is an inescapable element of any climate

model— or any model, for that matter. Thus, climate sci-

entists are left with a very perplexing problem: how to

present the likelihood of climate change outcomes honestly

without promoting misguided optimism on the part of the

lay audience, which of course helps to justify inaction on

the part of the public.

Judgmental discounting. Discounting in this

sense refers to the undervaluing of distant or future risks. A

recent study of over 3,000 respondents in 18 countries

found that individuals in 15 of the countries believed that

environmental conditions are worse in places other than

their own (Gifford, Scannell, et al., 2009). This study and

others (e.g., Uzzell, 2000) demonstrate that spatial dis-

counting of environmental problems occurs. Although con-

ditions often may be objectively worse in other areas of the

globe, this tendency occurs even in objectively similar

places, such as among inhabitants of English villages a few

kilometers apart (Musson, 1974). People also tend to dis-

count future environmental risks, although not as uniformly

as risks in some other domains (e.g., Hendrickx & Nicolaij,

2004) and less than other risks (Gattig & Hendrickx, 2007).

The incorrect assessment of risk may be even worse for

general environmental risk, which may actually be aug-

mented rather than discounted; it is expected to become

worse in 25 years than at present in virtually every country,

at local, national, and global levels (Gifford, Scannell, et

al., 2009). However, if conditions are presumed to be worse

elsewhere and later, individuals may be expected to have

less motivation to act against climate change locally and in

the present.

Sociologists concerned with youthful antisocial be-

havior proposed another form of discounting over half a

Table 1

Psychological Barriers to Climate Change Mitigation

and Adaptation

General psychological barrier Specific manifestation

Limited cognition Ancient brain

Ignorance

Environmental numbness

Uncertainty

Judgmental discounting

Optimism bias

Perceived behavioral control/

self-efficacy

Ideologies Worldviews

Suprahuman powers

Technosalvation

System justification

Comparisons with others Social comparison

Social norms and networks

Perceived inequity

Sunk costs Financial investments

Behavioral momentum

Conflicting values, goals, and

aspirations

Discredence Mistrust

Perceived program

inadequacy

Denial

Reactance

Perceived risks Functional

Physical

Financial

Social

Psychological

Temporal

Limited behavior Tokenism

Rebound effect

292 May–June 2011

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American Psychologist

century ago, neutralization theory (Sykes & Matza, 1957),

an idea foreshadowed by Rudyard Kipling in the lines that

open this article. Essentially, neutralization theory de-

scribes rationalizations for a variety of deviant behaviors,

the goal of which is to absolve oneself of responsibility.

Recent researchers listed 13 of these rationalizations

(McGregor, 2008). To the extent that these apply to envi-

ronmental and climate change actions, several of these

neutralization techniques could be viewed as another form

of discounting.

Optimism bias. Optimism generally is a

healthy, desirable outlook that can produce useful personal

outcomes and technological wonders (e.g., J. L. Simon,

1981). However, optimism can be overdone, to the detri-

ment of one’s well-being. Considerable evidence suggests

that people discount personal risks, such as their likelihood

of a heart attack (e.g., Weinstein, 1980), but also their

environmental risks, for example from radon exposure

(Weinstein, Klotz, & Sandman, 1988), other environmental

hazards (Hatﬁeld & Job, 2001) or, in fact, 22 hazards (Pahl,

Harris, Todd, & Rutter, 2005). Thus, one can reasonably

predict that optimistic bias applies to risks from climate

change, although global citizens do expect environmental

conditions in general to worsen over the next 25 years . . .

but not as badly where they themselves live as in other

places (Gifford, Scannell, et al., 2009).

Perceived behavioral control and self-

efficacy. Because climate change is a global problem,

many individuals believe they can do nothing about it as

individuals. This is the well-known collective action prob-

lem (Olson, 1965). Stated in psychological language, peo-

ple sometimes do not act because they perceive that they

have little behavioral control over the outcome (e.g., Ajzen,

1991; Huebner & Lipsey, 1981) or that they their actions

will not have much impact (a lack of self-efﬁcacy; Ajzen,

2002). Perceived behavioral control can be a very strong

predictor (r ⫽ .50 –.60) of whether a person chooses to take

public transportation instead of a private car (e.g., Heath &

Gifford, 2002; Kaiser & Gutscher, 2003). Closely related to

the lack of individual perceived behavioral control and

self-efﬁcacy is fatalism, the sense that nothing can be done,

not only by the individual but by collective human action

(cf. Lorenzoni et al., 2007; O’Connor, Bord, & Fisher,

1998).

Ideologies

Some belief systems are so broad that they inﬂuence many

aspects of a person’s life. Among these, at least for some

individuals, are religious and political views. Ideologies

and worldviews (e.g., Dietz, Dan, & Shwom, 2007; Dun-

lap, Van Liere, Mertig, & Jones, 2000; O’Connor, Bord, &

Fisher, 1999) that embody beliefs which clash with climate

change mitigation and other forms of pro-environmental

action are very strong barriers to behavior change.

Worldviews. One signiﬁcant predictor of disbe-

lief in global warming is belief in free-enterprise capitalism

(e.g., Heath & Gifford, 2006). Capitalism clearly has pro-

duced an afﬂuent lifestyle for millions of people, but some

aspects of it, such as a belief in the freedom of the com-

mons (Hardin, 1968), have led to the devastation of ﬁsh-

eries, forests, and landscapes around the world. Having an

important stake in some organizations is not compatible

with adopting mitigating behaviors (e.g., Dunlap & Mc-

Cright, 2008).

Suprahuman powers. Some people take little

or no climate-related action because they believe a reli-

gious deity or Mother Nature (as a secular deity) either will

not forsake them or will do what it wishes anyway. For

example, researchers who interviewed two groups of Pa-

ciﬁc Islanders who live on very low-lying atolls threatened

by rising sea levels found that one group is already pur-

chasing higher ground in Australia; the other group, trust-

ing that God will not break the Biblical promise never to

ﬂood the Earth again after the ﬂood that Noah and his

entourage endured, believes that sea level rises will not

affect them because there will be “ﬁre next time” (Mor-

treux & Barnett, 2009). More secular individuals some-

times express the belief that Mother Nature will take a

course mere mortals cannot inﬂuence. Naturally, inaction

on the climate front follows from these beliefs.

Technosalvation. Mechanical innovation has a

long and admirable history of improving the standard of

living. Those who see its promise as a partner in mitigating

climate change (e.g., Gifford, 2008; Terwel, Harinck, El-

lemers, & Daamen, 2009) or even as something close to the

essential solution (e.g., J. L. Simon, 1981) share their belief

in its promise with some who go further and believe that

technology alone (or nearly alone) can solve the problems

associated with climate change (e.g., citizens quoted in

Lorenzoni et al., 2007).

Some experts strongly support geoengineering as a

tool in the struggle against further global warming. One

organization that strongly endorses it is the United King-

dom’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (2009), whose

current top two geoengineering solutions are to create

artiﬁcial trees and to coat buildings with algae. However,

even the Institution of Mechanical Engineers advocates

geoengineering in concert with mainstream mitigation pol-

icies. However, for some citizens, overconﬁdent beliefs in

the efﬁcacy of technology appear to serve as a barrier to

their own climate-mitigating behavior.

System justification. Another belief system

has been described as system justiﬁcation, the tendency to

defend and justify the societal status quo (Feygina, Jost, &

Goldsmith, 2010). When citizens are fortunate enough to

have a comfortable lifestyle, the tendency to not “rock the

boat” or, perhaps more important, to not have others

change the way things currently operate, grows. Once

again, climate change will require adjustments; system

justiﬁers naturally will not enthusiastically adopt mitigative

actions. It is interesting, however, that Feygina et al. (2010)

showed that if mitigation can be successfully portrayed as

part of the system, this lack of action on the part of system

justiﬁers can change.

293May–June 2011

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Comparisons With Other People

Humans are very social animals; comparing one’s situation

with that of others is a deeply ingrained tendency. This

comparison can take several forms.

Social comparison. People routinely compare

their actions with those of others (Festinger, 1954) and

derive subjective and descriptive norms from their obser-

vations about what is the “proper” course of action (e.g.,

Heath & Gifford, 2002). This tendency is recognized in the

theory of planned behavior (Ajzen, 1991) and the value-

belief-norm model (Stern, 2000), among other theories, and

has been applied to many pro-environmental behaviors and

interventions (e.g., Biel & Thogersen, 2007; Cialdini,

2003).

Social norms and networks. Norms are of-

ten cited as a potential force for progress in environmental

issues, and they can be (Thøgersen, 2008), but they can

also be forces for regress. The double-edged power of

norms was made clear in a study of residential power use.

When homeowners were told the amount of energy that

average members of their community used, they tended to

alter their use of energy to ﬁt the norm (Schultz, Nolan,

Cialdini, Goldstein, & Griskevicius, 2007), that is, decreas-

ing or increasing their energy use accordingly. Fortunately,

the researchers learned that the increases could be pre-

vented by giving low energy users positive feedback about

using less energy.

Norms can also develop through social networks in

neighborhoods or workplaces. Again, these can be negative

in the sense that anticlimate behavior patterns can domi-

nate, but proclimate patterns can too. Rogers (1983) doc-

umented a case in which mapping of who spoke with whom

and mapping of dwelling proximity combined to explain

why 7 of 44 residents (16%) installed photovoltaic panels

on their homes (far more than the national average of 1%).

Social networks can be powerful mitigative inﬂuences.

Perceived inequity. Perceived (in)equity is of-

ten heard as a reason for inaction: “Why should I change if

they won’t change?” Usually, well-known ﬁgures, other

economic sectors, or other nations are cited as not cooper-

ating, which serves as a justiﬁcation for nonaction. The fear

of being victimized by free-riders (Kerr, 1983; Olson,

1965) serves as a barrier for some individuals, who ask

why they should contribute responsible behavior to the

climate change cause when (they fear) others will not. In

experimental resource dilemmas, when any sort of inequal-

ity or inequity (real or perceived) exists, cooperation tends

to decline (e.g., Aquino, Steisel, & Kay, 1992).

Sunk Costs

If people changed their behaviors and allegiances very

often, their lives would be more disordered than they

wished, and less time and effort would be available to

pursue goals deemed valuable. Thus, investments of

money, time, and behavior patterns are useful— unless they

are harmful to the environment or the climate (e.g., Cunha

& Caldieraro, 2009; Leahy, 2009).

Financial investments. Once one has invested

in something, dispensing with it is more difﬁcult than it

would have been had one not invested in it (e.g., Arkes &

Hutzel, 2000; Knox & Inkster, 1968). The cardinal exam-

ple in this context might be car ownership. If one has

purchased a car and is now paying for its insurance and

monitoring its depreciation, why should this cozy portable

living room, with its many perceived beneﬁts (cf. Reser,

1980), be left in the driveway? People generally are loss-

averse and do not wish to see that expense “thrown away”

in order to begin bicycling or taking public transit. Econ-

omists point out that the rational choice is to dispense with

the sunk cost and move forward, but most people choose

instead to hold on to the sunk cost investment, at least until

its disadvantages become too painful.

If a person has a direct ﬁnancial stake in the fossil fuel

industry, cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1954) can result

from hearing that burning these fuels damages the environ-

ment. Cognitive dissonance often is easier to reduce by

changing one’s mind (“burning these fuels is not causing a

problem”) than by changing one’s behavior (by disposing

of one’s fossil fuel investments or leaving one’s job in that

industry). Or, as B. F. Skinner (1987) remarked, “It is often

easier to escape in other ways— by ignoring or forgetting

the advice or by ﬁnding a way to escape that does not

require solving the problem” (p. 5).

Behavioral momentum. William James

(1890) called habit the “enormous ﬂy-wheel of society” (p.

121), although he viewed this stability of action in positive

terms as a mechanism by which society remains ordered

rather than chaotic. In the context of climate change (and

some other behavioral contexts), habit is less benign (Ouel-

lette & Wood, 1998).

Habit may not be a glamorous barrier, but it may be

one of the most important for the mitigation of climate

change impacts (e.g., Hobson, 2003) because many habit-

ual behaviors are extremely resistant to permanent change

(e.g., eating habits), and others are only changed slowly,

over decades (e.g., the rates of smoking and the use of

safety belts) (Maio et al., 2007). Ensconced habits do not

change without a substantial push; priming and even atti-

tude change often do not lead to behavioral change. Per-

haps because it aptly expresses the sense of variation in the

resistance to change, behaviorists have used the term be-

havioral momentum (Nevin, Mandell, & Atak, 1983).

Some behaviors that form key parts of the human

contribution to climate change (e.g., the use of cars) have a

great deal of behavioral momentum and therefore are very

difﬁcult to change (e.g., Bamberg, Ajzen, & Schmidt,

2003; Carrus, Passafaro, & Bonnes, 2008; Eriksson, Gar-

vill, & Nordlund, 2008), although changing driving behav-

ior is not impossible (e.g., Matthies, Klöckner, & Preißner,

2006). For example, temporarily forcing car drivers to use

alternative travel modes has induced long-term reductions

in car use (e.g., Fujii & Ga¨rling, 2003).

Conflicting values, goals, and aspirations.

Everyone has multiple goals and values, and these are not

all compatible either with each other or with climate

change mitigation (e.g., Lindenberg & Steg, 2007; Nord-

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lund & Garvill, 2002; Schwartz, 1992; Stern, 2000; Vining

& Ebreo, 1991). Pro-environmental values positively inﬂu-

ence at least the willingness to accept climate change

polices (McCright, 2009; Nilsson, von Borgstede, & Biel,

2004; O’Connor, Bord, Yarnal, & Wiefek, 2002), but they

are not always compatible with other values, other goals,

and other aspirations that inevitably lead to the production

of more greenhouse gases.

The aspiration to “get ahead” often means engaging in

actions that run counter to the goal of reducing one’s

climate change impacts: buying a larger house, ﬂying by

choice, or driving a bigger car. That environmental values

and goals frequently are subsidiary to other values and

goals is revealed when people are asked to rank the impor-

tance of climate change amelioration against that of other

problems or concerns: They assign climate change low

importance (e.g., Leiserowitz, Kates, & Parris, 2005).

Adopting a phrase ﬁrst used by Smillie and Helmich (1999)

to describe public support for foreign aid, Vasi (2009)

characterized public support for sustainable development

and the actions necessary to curtail climate change as “a

mile wide, but an inch deep.” This characterization is

consistent with the results of a Pew Research Center Proj-

ect poll which reported that as many as 75%– 80% of U.S.

respondents said climate change was an important issue

although they placed it 20th out of 20 issues surveyed

(“Warming to the Topic,” 2009). In sum, many citizens

“don’t seem to mind addressing the economic cost of

climate change, as long as it doesn’t come out of their own

pockets” (“Warming to the Topic,” 2009, p. 4).

(Lack of) place attachment. Individuals may

be more likely to care for a place to which they feel

attachment than for one to which they are not attached. If

so, weaker place attachment should act as an obstacle to

climate-positive behavior, and populations with a history of

geographic mobility would be expected to care less for

their present environments. The evidence for this predic-

tion is mixed: Place attachment is sometimes (Vorkinn &

Riese, 2001) but not always (Clayton, 2003; Gifford, Scan-

nell, et al., 2009; Uzzell, Pol, & Badenas, 2002) associated

with pro-environmental behavior. The role of place attach-

ment is likely to be complex but probably acts as an

impediment to action in some populations, as is perhaps

indicated by local opposition to wind farms in some areas

even when there is strong support for other pro-environ-

mental policies. For example, nature-based place attach-

ment but not civic-based place attachment seems to be

related to pro-environmental behavior (Scannell & Gifford,

2010; Vaske & Kobrin, 2001.

Discredence

When individuals hold the views of others in a negative

light, they are unlikely to take direction from those others.

These negative views can take various forms ranging from

a general lack of trust in the other, to believing that what

the other offers is inadequate, to outright denial of the

veracity of the other’s beliefs, to reactance against follow-

ing the other’s advice.

Mistrust. Trust is essential for healthy relation-

ships. When it is absent, as it sometimes is between citizens

and their scientists or government ofﬁcials, resistance in

one form or another follows. Trust is easily damaged, and

when e-mails are stolen and selectively quoted, or a single

overeager scientist exaggerates future climate change out-

comes even in one region, widespread distrust can be

created. Trust is important for changing behavior, and

although its role as an inﬂuence on pro-environmental

behavior is complex (Gifford, 2007a), in general, behavior

change requires one to trust others not to take advantage; to

trust that the change is effective, valuable, and equitable (e.g.,

Brann & Foddy, 1987; Foddy & Dawes, 2008); and to trust

that the other has public-service motives and is honest (Terwel

et al., 2009). In sum, when trust sours, the probability of

adopting positive climate change behavior diminishes.

Perceived program inadequacy. Policy-

makers have considered and implemented many programs

designed to encourage sustainable or climate-friendly be-

havior choices. However, most climate-related programs to

date are voluntary for individuals; few are mandatory or are

backed with enforced sanctions for noncompliance. Thus,

citizens choose whether to accept the offer, and often they

decide the program is not good enough for their participa-

tion (cf. Pelletier, Dion, Tuson, & Green-Demers, 1999).

Cognitive dissonance can occur here as elsewhere; it can be

easier to change one’s mind about the adequacy of a

program than to change one’s behavior by engaging in the

program.

Denial. Uncertainty, mistrust, and sunk costs can

easily lead to active denial of the problem (e.g., Norgaard,

2006). This may include denial that climate change is

occurring, that it has any anthropogenic cause, or that one’s

own actions play a role in climate change. Polls vary, but

substantial minorities of people in most countries believe

that climate change is not occurring or that human activity

has little or nothing to do with it (McCright & Dunlap,

2010).

Those holding this view tend to be outspoken in

proportion to those who accept that a problem exists. For

example, a news story in USA Today about several envi-

ronmental presentations at the American Psychological As-

sociation (APA) 2008 convention in Boston (Jayson, 2009)

drew 115 reader responses. An informal content analysis of

the comments that Sonya Frey and I conducted showed that

about 100 of the responses essentially denied that the

problem exists; two typical explanations were that climate

change is a problem invented by “scientists who are pur-

suing a phantom issue” and that scientists are ignoring

research “proving” the problem is overestimated or does

not exist. One reader’s comments are typical of the emo-

tional intensity experienced by some deniers:

It ﬁgures that a bunch of psychologists need to mess with people’s

heads to get them to fall in line with this “eco-friendly” nonsense.

. . . “News stories that provided a balanced view of climate

change reduced people’s beliefs that humans are at fault.” Yep,

there ain’t nothing more that enviro-crazies hate than balanced

news reporting.

295May–June 2011

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A sample of 115 comments is not representative of the

population, but it does reﬂect the views of a voluble seg-

ment of society. Upon hearing about APA’s climate change

task force report (American Psychological Association

Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and

Global Climate Change, 2009), the host of a popular show

on a leading U.S. television network held up a copy of

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and said, “The shrinks

are trying to brainwash us again.”

Such statements suggest that emotion, including fear,

plays an important role in denial. More research about the

emotional elements underlying the denial of climate change

and its human connections is needed; it would help in the

design of more effective ways to communicate about cli-

mate change (Comeau & Gifford, 2011; Marx et al., 2007;

Moser, 2007).

Terror management theory (e.g., Goldenberg, Pyszc-

zynski, Greenberg, & Solomon, 2000) suggests that people

may deny the problem because it is a reminder of their

mortality (Vess & Arndt, 2008).

Reactance. Ample evidence suggests that many

people distrust messages that come from scientists or gov-

ernment ofﬁcials (e.g., Earle, 2004; MacGregor, Slovic,

Mason, & Detweiler, 1994). Some strongly react against

advice or policy that seems to threaten their freedom

(Brehm, 1966), partly because it is based on a lack of trust

in those who give the advice or set the policy (Eilam &

Suleiman, 2004). Among others, those with an interest in

the fossil fuel industry have been seeking, with increasing

success (Newport, 2010), to promote mistrust of the scien-

tiﬁc consensus on climate change and create opposition to

mitigation (cf. Hoggan, 2009; McCright, 2007; Oreskes &

Conway, 2010).

Perceived Risk

What might happen to individuals who consider changing

a behavior as a step toward reducing their greenhouse gas

emissions or improving their environment-related actions?

Changing behavior (of any sort) potentially holds at least

six kinds of risk (Schiffman, Kanuk, & Das, 2006).

Functional risk. Will it work? If one purchases,

for example, a plug-in electric vehicle (PHEV) it may, as a

new technology, have battery problems. The same could be

said for many new green technologies that now exist or

have been proposed as mitigative or adaptive solutions.

Physical risk. Some adaptations may have, or at

least be perceived as having, some danger associated with

them. Is this PHEV (for example) as crash-safe as the sport

utility vehicle that was traded in to buy the PHEV? To take

another example, bicycles burn virtually no greenhouse

gases after they are manufactured, but they result in quite a

few visits to emergency rooms.

Financial risk. Many green solutions require

capital outlays. How long is the payback? If the product

becomes a ﬁxed part of a residence (e.g., solar panels), will

the owner recoup the installation costs or accrue enough

energy savings before moving on? That PHEV’s purchase

price probably includes a premium over equivalent gas-

powered vehicles; will the money spent buying and oper-

ating it be lost?

Social risk. Others notice many of our choices;

they become part of our public face. This leaves one open

to judgment by one’s friends and colleagues, which could

lead to damage to one’s ego or reputation: If I buy a PHEV,

will these signiﬁcant others laugh or scoff at me, deride me

behind my back? They may invoke any of the ﬁrst three

risks as my failure to reckon carefully.

Psychological risk. This risk, which closely

follows the fourth, perhaps is less likely for most people

but can occur. If one is teased, criticized, or even rebuked

by one’s signiﬁcant others for buying the PHEV, one risks

suffering damage to one’s self-esteem and self-conﬁdence.

Temporal risk. A more common, perhaps al-

most universal, risk is the potential that the time spent

planning and adopting the new course of action might fail

to produce the desired results. Most people, one supposes,

would spend a nontrivial amount of time deciding whether

to buy a PHEV, deciding whether to become a vegetarian,

planning how to bicycle to the day’s activities, or making

any other signiﬁcant mitigative choice. If the choice does

not result in the desired beneﬁts, the time spent researching

and purchasing items involved in the climate-change-

related behavior choice will have been wasted.

Limited Behavior

Many people are engaged in at least minimal action that

helps to limit the emission of greenhouse gases. Some

people are much more active than others. However, most

people could do more than they are doing, and in some

pilot studies, almost everyone agrees that they could do

more. Two major forms of this tendency are tokenism and

the rebound effect.

Tokenism. Once individuals move past environ-

mental numbness, denial, judgmental discounting, habit,

and perceived risk and believe that they have some behav-

ioral control and a sense that their own community, to

which they feel some (natural) attachment, might be threat-

ened, they may ﬁnally begin to engage in proclimate be-

havioral change. Which changes are most likely? Some

climate-related behaviors are easier to adopt than others but

have little or no impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

However, their ease of adoption means these actions tend

to be chosen over higher cost but more effective actions.

This tendency has also been called the low-cost hypothesis

(e.g., Diekmann & Preisendörfer, 1992; see also Kempton,

Harris, Keith, & Weihl, 1985). Pro-environmental intent

may not correspond with pro-environmental impact (Stern,

2000).

The rebound effect. A further problem with

initially proclimate choices is the rebound effect. After

some mitigating effort is made, the gains made are dimin-

ished or erased by subsequent actions. For example, per-

sons who buy fuel-efﬁcient vehicles may drive farther than

they did when they owned less efﬁcient vehicles. The

phenomenon has also been called the Jevons paradox

(Jevons, 1865) and the Khazzoom–Brookes postulate

296 May–June 2011

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American Psychologist

(Brookes, 1990; Khazzoom, 1980). The rebound effect was

demonstrated in a recent resource dilemma study in which

participants who had been warned about the decline of the

resource restricted their harvests for a few seasons but then

returned to prewarning levels soon after (Joireman, Posey,

Truelove, & Parks, 2009).

Toward a Taxonomy of the

Psychological Barriers to

Behavior Change

Existing Models

The foregoing set of barriers cries out for organization. No

such taxonomy or research model has been developed

speciﬁcally for climate-related constructs, although some

very tentative starts have been made (Gifford, 2008; Koll-

muss & Agyeman, 2002; Lorenzoni et al., 2007). In terms

of formal models, the closest ones were developed for other

purposes, although they can be used for climate change

research. The most widely known of these models are the

theory of planned behavior (TPB; Ajzen, 1991) and the

value-belief-norm (VBN) model (Stern, 2000). The basic

TPB model includes subjective norms and perceived be-

havioral control and has been widely used in health and

safety research as well as in environmental research (e.g.,

Bamberg & Schmidt, 2003), but researchers have shown

that its predictive ability can be improved by extending it in

various ways (e.g., Conner & Armitage, 1998; de Groot &

Steg, 2007; Haustein & Hunecke, 2007; Heath & Gifford,

2006; Kaiser, 2006). However, even extended versions of it

do not include many of the other barriers described earlier.

Stern’s (2000) VBN model begins with one’s values.

The more biospheric and altruistic, and the less egoistic,

one’s general values are, the more one should believe the

main tenets of the New Ecological Paradigm, a worldview

that envisions the planet as a delicate, threatened, and

interconnected system, which leads to the belief that acts

that harm the environment have adverse consequences.

However, according to the VBN model, people will still not

act in a pro-environmental way if they do not also believe

that they are able to reduce those consequences. If all this

is in place, a person should then have a sense of obligation

and develop the norm to engage in any of four kinds of

pro-environmental actions: environmental activism, public

nonactivist behaviors, private behaviors, and actions within

an organization. VBN theory has also received empirical

support; it does a good job of accounting for nonactivist

environmental behaviors (e.g., Steg, Dreijerink, & Abra-

hamse, 2005).

Four other models for behavior change have received

less attention but deserve mention. Geller’s (1992) DO-

RITE model eschews attitudes, values, and other mental

constructs in favor of a focus on observable behavior and

intervention, as follows: Deﬁne (D) the target behavior to

be changed; observe (O) the target behavior; record (R) the

rate of occurrence of the behavior; intervene (I) with a

program that changes the consequences of engaging in that

behavior; test (T) the impact of the program by comparing

the frequency of the behavior before and after the program;

and evaluate (E) the program. Grob’s (1995) model focuses

on values, awareness, emotions, and perceived control.

Pelletier et al.’s (1999) model centers on global helpless-

ness, which they suggested arises from individuals’ beliefs

that they lack effective strategies to solve the problem,

sufﬁcient capacity to solve the problem, or the ability to

sustain sufﬁcient effort to solve the problem. Frantz and

Mayer (2009) adapted Latane´ and Darley’s (1970) ﬁve-

stage bystander intervention model, which includes aware-

ness of the problem, viewing the situation as an emergency,

feeling responsible, knowing what to do, and acting.

Parsimony Versus Comprehensiveness

As a family of seven genera incorporating 29 species, the

dragons of inaction implicitly raise the question of whether

the existing models are too simple. Parsimony is a cardinal

virtue, but might the existing models sacriﬁce important

elements in the pursuit of this virtue? If the pursuit of

greater understanding and its practical manifestation, pre-

dictive power, are also virtues, then more members of the

dragon family should have a place in models and theories

of proclimate behavior. Table 1’s preliminary taxonomy, a

more inclusive set of barriers to change, should be heuristic

to researchers, offer suggestions to model makers, and be

thought-provoking for policymakers.

These dragons in Table 1 are not solitary creatures.

They certainly interact. Indeed, their “DNA” undoubtedly

is shared in some cases. Social comparison probably is

related to social risk. Mistrust must often underlie denial.

Technosalvation might well presuppose perceived program

inadequacy. Perceived inequity probably is associated with

reactance. However, related constructs are not necessarily

redundant constructs. My colleagues and I have begun to

sort out the connections and interactions in this family

(Gifford, Iglesias, & Casler, 2009); once their empirical

interrelations are better known, they should signiﬁcantly

improve the understanding and prediction of pro- and an-

ticlimate behavior. In turn, this increased understanding

should lead to the promotion of positive climate actions.

Motivation and Emotion

Although speciﬁc forms of motivation have been identiﬁed

and motivation is obviously an important human dimension

(e.g., Deci & Ryan, 2000; Goldenberg et al., 2000), the

present assumption is that the barriers, collectively, lead to

a general amotivation to act in climate-friendly ways and

that their removal would increase the motivation to act.

Emotions, in the present formulation, are viewed as integral

aspects of some barriers: Fear presumably is part of per-

ceived risk, for example, and anger presumably is part of

reactance, perceived equity, and justice.

On the other hand, emotion does not seem to be a

central aspect of many other barriers, such as habit, token-

ism, discounting, ignorance, or the rebound effect. Some

297May–June 2011

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American Psychologist

evidence suggests that even though cognitive systems are

engaged about climate change, affective systems are not

(Weber, 2006), although they are sometimes predictive

(Grob, 1995). Other evidence suggests that affect is impor-

tant only when one’s attitude toward a pro-environmental

behavior is weak (Smith, Haugtvedt, & Petty, 1994). Thus,

in sum, motivation seems to be either everywhere or no-

where, and emotion may be less important for most barriers

but important if one’s attitude toward climate change is not

strong.

Conclusion

Certain key structural barriers stand in the way of behav-

ioral changes that would help limit climate change, but

many psychological barriers remain for individuals who do

not face stiff structural barriers. Many people already are

taking action in response to the challenges from climate

change, but many others are hindered by one or more of

these barriers to action. The structural barriers should be

removed by such forces as legislation and urban renewal,

but this action is not likely to be sufﬁcient. Psychologists

and other social scientists have an important role to play if

the many psychological barriers are to be overcome (e.g.,

Gifford, 2007b, 2008; Spence, Pidgeon, & Uzzell, 2009;

Vlek, 2000).

Research and practice are needed to examine each

barrier more closely in the context of climate change. Some

suggested starting points follow. First, good theory informs

and directs scientiﬁc progress; the taxonomy proposed here

should be examined and improved if necessary. Some

dragons may be missing, and empirical studies may well

ﬁnd signiﬁcant links or overlap between them. Second, the

extent of barriers faced by individuals in different groups

and contexts should be examined. Presumably, different

population and cultural segments experience different bar-

riers and therefore will respond differently to different

kinds of messages, policies, and interventions; clarifying

these differences will increase the effectiveness of mitiga-

tion efforts. Third, one might expect that facing multiple

barriers cumulates to increase an individual’s amotivation

to act; this proposition could be tested. Fourth, denial

remains a particularly troubling barrier for social and cli-

mate scientists because behavior change cannot occur as

long as the problem is not seen as a problem. Fifth, more

research is needed to better understand how individuals can

overcome these barriers. For instance, scientiﬁc integrity

demands conﬁdence intervals, but conﬁdence intervals in-

vite inaction by many community members. Sixth, look for

opportunities to promote social networks to spread the

adoption of mitigative and adaptive technology choices (cf.

Rogers, 1983).

Psychologists are a resourceful and optimistic lot. The

dragons of inaction can be beaten back, if not slain. Five

essential strategies can help overcome the barriers de-

scribed in this article:

● Analyze speciﬁc barriers at the behavioral level.

Deﬁne very speciﬁcally the behavior that is hold-

ing individuals back from more climate-friendly

choices in transportation, food, energy, and other

carbon-reliant aspects of our lives, then observe

and record it, intervene, test the intervention’s

impact, and evaluate the program (Geller, 1986,

1992). At the societal level, Skinner (1987, p. 7)

implicitly advocated wresting control of the “re-

inforcers of daily life” from governments, reli-

gions, and capitalistic systems as long as the

immediate “contingencies of selection” are in

conﬂict with the long-term welfare of the species.

● After creating better measures of the carbon cost

associated with various behavior choices (in coop-

eration with other scientists), create better ways to

feed information back to consumers and citizens,

using best-practice human factors design in the ma-

chines we use (Abrahamse, Steg, Vlek, & Rothen-

gatter, 2007).

● Improve understanding of the bases for public

support of, and opposition to, policies and tech-

nologies for limiting climate change, which

should include optimizing messaging strategies in

general and for particular population segments

and testing the diffusion of innovation and social

network processes (e.g., Maibach, Roser-Renouf,

& Leiserowitz, 2008; Moser & Dilling, 2004).

For example, in a telephone survey experiment of

1,000 Ontario residents, empowering messages

were found to produce more intended proclimate

action than were sacriﬁce messages (Comeau &

Gifford, 2011).

● Design and conduct more intervention studies

aimed at important carbon-related behavior choices,

such as travel mode choice and energy use (e.g.,

Steg & Vlek, 2009).

● Work closely with other disciplines, with govern-

ment agencies, and with technical experts; climate

change cannot be accomplished by any one of these

groups no matter how well they do their own job

(e.g., Schoot Uiterkamp & Vlek, 2007).

As in other behavior domains that were strongly re-

sistant to behavior change, such as smoking and the use of

safety belts, the dragons of inaction can be overcome,

although the effort will take time and will never be com-

plete. However, through a combination of appropriately

targeted messages, effective leadership, improved technical

knowledge, equitable policies, enabling infrastructure, the

development of norms, the setting of reasonable goals,

in-your-face feedback, the spreading of social norms

through social networks, and appropriate personal rewards,

it will be done. These steps must be taken expeditiously;

we may not have the four or ﬁve decades that it has taken

to get most people to stop smoking and wear a safety belt

to ease our proﬂigate spewing of greenhouse gases, manage

the blow it will already have caused, and prevent even

stronger blows.

298 May–June 2011

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American Psychologist

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The primary objective of this study is to validate the Sustainability Consciousness Questionnaire (SCQ) for the Portuguese population, ensuring its reliability and applicability across the dimensions of knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours related to sustainability. This validation is crucial for ensuring the SCQ captures local cultural nuances and provides reliable data to inform educational and policy strategies for promoting sustainability. To achieve this goal, a quantitative methodology was adopted, involving the translation and cultural adaptation of the SCQ into Portuguese. Data were collected from a convenience sample of 630 participants, aged 17 to 83, using an online platform. Ethical procedures were rigorously followed, including obtaining informed consent from all participants and ensuring data confidentiality. The factor structure of the SCQ was analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The analysis confirmed a three-dimensional factor structure aligned with the environmental, social, and economic pillars of sustainability, as well as significant correlations between these dimensions and real-world sustainable practices such as recycling and energy conservation. The results confirmed the construct validity of the SCQ, demonstrating robust reliability indicators across its scales and acceptable model fit indices (CFI = 0.860; TLI = 0.851; RMSEA = 0.045). These findings highlight the questionnaire's utility as a measurement tool for sustainable consciousness in the Portuguese context. The SCQ provides a valuable resource for educators, policymakers, and researchers. For instance, educators can use the SCQ to identify gaps in students' sustainability knowledge, policymakers can prioritise areas for intervention based on public attitudes, and researchers can explore relationships between awareness and sustainable behaviours to design effective programs. Furthermore, this study contributes to Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education) by enabling data-driven strategies to integrate sustainability education into curricula, fostering a deeper understanding of sustainable practices and behaviours essential for achieving global education goals.

Quasi-Experiment on the Pro-Environmental Attitudes of DKI Jakarta Province Teenagers Influenced by the Documentary Film "Tenggelam dalam Diam"

Article

Full-text available

Jun 2024

When discussing climate change, one of the effects that is very pronounced is the abrasion and flooding that often occurs in Indonesia, especially in the province of DKI Jakarta, as one of the fastest sinking cities in the world. If this is not controlled, most of the city could be completely submerged by 2050 (Mayuri & Rafki, 2018). In an effort to combat climate change, some research suggests that young people are potentially well placed to trigger ambitious and long-term societal change by adopting sustainable attitudes and behaviours in energy use. (Ouariachi et al., 2017). To determine the increase in pro-environmental attitudes after an experiment using the documentary film "Tenggelam Dalam Diam" for teenagers in DKI Jakarta Province. This study will apply a Nonequivalent group design which is a quasi-experimental research design by comparing two pre-existing groups, where one group receives an intervention (experimental group) and the other group does not receive an intervention (control group) (Creswell, 2014). The results of Asym. Sig. (2-tailed) shows 0.00 which is less than 0.05, it can be stated that the documentary film "Tenggelam Dalam Diam" has an effect on pro-environmental attitudes of DKI Jakarta province teenagers. The results showed that the movie was effective in raising pro-environmental attitudes among teenagers in Jakarta, This research is expected to provide useful information for policy makers and stakeholders, in developing campaign strategies or programs that are more effective in increasing pro-environmnet attitudes and concrete actions towards the environment.

The future is closer than you imagine: The influence of psychological distance on people's risk perception and intentions for proenvironmental behavior of pesticides

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024
RISK ANAL

Morten Thomsen

The link between environmental threats and adverse consequences is rarely observable due to delayed consequences. Some scholars have therefore argued that decreasing the psychological distance could increase motivation to engage in proenvironmental behavior. Support for this argument has so far been mixed for climate change, perhaps because behavioral changes to mitigate climate change requires significant changes in lifestyle. This study presents a parallel line of investigation into another environmental issue, where behavioral changes are less invasive, namely, pesticides. Each of the four dimensions of psychological distances on pesticides is manipulated in a survey experiment. The findings suggest that while proximizing can, in some cases, enhance risk perception and promote behavioral intentions, the effect remains weak, supporting the argument that applying construal level theory (CLT) for predicting the effect of psychological distance on environmental issues is an overextension of the theory's original scope, also for issues other than climate change.

The Influence of Prior Knowledge and Perceived Impact on the Connection Between Attitudes and Sustainable Behavior

Article

Jan 2025
SUSTAIN DEV

The connection between attitudes and sustainable behavior is important and has been researched from several perspectives. However, we still lack comprehensive knowledge of the factors influencing their relationship. We address that gap by examining the impact of perceived impact and prior knowledge on the connection between attitudes, intentions, and behavior. We sampled 464 participants from Finland and Sweden and demonstrated that positive attitudes significantly predict behavioral intentions, with prior knowledge and personal impact moderating that relationship. Prior knowledge also moderates the relationship between attitudes and actual behavior, but personal impact does not. Additionally, while attitudes do not directly predict behavior, behavioral intentions reliably forecast actual behavior, underscoring the importance of fostering positive intentions for promoting sustainable practices.

Exposure to nature can promote pro‐environmental behavior: Mediating role of temporal discounting

Article

Dec 2024

One possible explanation for the lack of pro‐environmental behavior among the public is that the benefits of combating climate change are long‐term and distant. Temporal discounting is a pervasive tendency to prefer small immediate gains to large delayed benefits, which may lead to a lack of motivation to engage in pro‐environmental behavior. However, exposure to nature can reduce this tendency and by extension may promote pro‐environmental behavior. Two behavioral experiments were conducted to investigate whether exposure to natural (vs. urban) scenes would induce lower discounting and increase the tendency toward pro‐environmental behavior. We demonstrated that exposure to natural (vs. urban) scenes was associated with a lower level of discounting and a greater tendency toward pro‐environmental behavior, including energy‐saving use of air conditioning (Experiment 1), willingness to participate in beach cleaning (Experiment 2), and choosing meals with less environmental impact (Experiment 2). Mediation analysis indicated that the discounting tendency mediated the relationship between exposure to natural scenes and pro‐environmental behavior. This study provides the first experimental evidence that temporal discounting accounts for the association between exposure to natural (vs. urban) scenes and the tendency toward pro‐environmental behavior. Our findings support the development of a novel strategy for promoting pro‐environmental behavior.

Partisan winds: Group-level polarization and issue-framing propel attitudes about local wind farms

Article

Jan 2025

The Effects of COVID-19-Related Threat on Perceived Control and Ingroup Favoritism

Chapter

Jan 2025

Heightened ingroup favoritism under threat conditions is a well-established phenomenon in social psychology. Past research has focused on self-esteem as a motive for ingroup favoritism, but inconsistent evidence has led some researchers to consider alternate motives. In this study, we aim to investigate the effects of COVID-19-related threats to perceived control on ingroup favoritism. We hypothesized that (a) ingroup favoritism would increase perceived control and (b) threats to perceived control would increase ingroup favoritism. Participants were randomly allocated to three conditions in which they read a low-threat article on COVID-19, a high-threat article on COVID-19, or a control article. Participants then completed a resource allocation task where they were allowed to distribute 100 vaccinations between the outgroup (Asians) and the ingroup (New Zealanders). Control was measured before and after the allocation task. The results did not support our hypotheses; ingroup favoritism did not affect perceived control, and COVID-19-related threats did not reduce perceptions of control. There was a modest effect of ingroup favoritism. The theoretical ramifications of these findings and their implications for organizational and political leadership are discussed.

Measuring Endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: A Revised NEP Scale

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2000

Dunlap and Van Liere's New Environmental Paradigm (NEP) Scale, published in 1978, has become a widely used measure of proenvironmental orientation. This article develops a revised NEP Scale designed to improve upon the original one in several respects: ( 1 ) It taps a wider range of facets of an ecological worldview, ( 2 ) It offers a balanced set of pro- and anti-NEP items, and ( 3 ) It avoids outmoded terminology. The new scale, termed the New Ecological Paradigm Scale, consists of 15 items. Results of a 1990 Washington State survey suggest that the items can be treated as an internally consistent summated rating scale and also indicate a modest growth in pro-NEP responses among Washington residents over the 14 years since the original study.

"Models of Man"Models of Man: Social and Rational. Mathematical Essays on Rational Human Behavior in a Social Setting.

Article

Jun 1959

Dealing with climate change contrarians

Article

Jan 2007

A.M. McCright

More bad news: the risk of neglecting emotional responses to climate change information

Article

Feb 2007

Susanne Moser

If one does not look into the abyss, one is being wishful by simply not confronting the truth about our time. … On the other hand, it is imperative that one not get stuck in the abyss. Robert Jay Lifton (1986) Introduction Listening to climate change communicators, advocates, and scientists, there is a growing frustration that politicians and the public don't pay more attention to the issue. In their attempts to ring the alarm bells more fiercely, many are tempted either to make the issue scarier or to inundate people with more information, believing that if people only understood the urgency of global warming, they would act or demand more action. When the desired response then fails to materialize, they get disappointed, yet plow ahead undeterred. Surely, if people aren't getting the message, we must give it more loudly! Yet is “not getting the message” really the problem? And is scarier and more information the answer? Almost every new story about global warming brings more bad news. In 2005 alone, people opened the morning papers to stories that warming could be far worse than previously projected, that our emissions are committing us to warming and sea-level rise for decades to centuries even if we could stop all of them point-blank, today. Increasingly urgent is the news about the rapidly accelerating melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice shields.

Prevention of Environmental Problems

Chapter

Jan 1986

E. Scott Geller

In its Global 2000 Report to the President, the United States Council on Environmental Quality (USCEQ) offered rather pessimistic projections for environmental conditions through the end of this century. Indeed, similar concerns for the environment and its resources have been voiced by others (e.g., Davis, 1979; Ehrlich, Ehrlich, & Holdren, 1977; Humphrey & Buttel, 1981; Watt, 1982; Welch & Miewald, 1983). Oskamp and Stern (in press) categorized such warnings about current and future ecological stresses into eight target areas: (a) population, (b) food, (c) land, (d) water, (e) energy, (f) solid wastes, (g) minerals, and (h) atmosphere.

Environmental identity: A conceptual and operational defi nition

Article

Jan 2003

Susan Clayton

New heroes, old theories? Toward a sociological perspective on social entrepreneurship

Article

Jan 2009

Ion Vasi

Judgment Under Uncertainty: Heuristics and Biases

Article

Jan 1982

Many decisions are based on beliefs concerning the likelihood of uncertain events such as the outcome of an election, the guilt of a defendant, or the future value of the dollar. Occasionally, beliefs concerning uncertain events are expressed in numerical form as odds or subjective probabilities. In general, the heuristics are quite useful, but sometimes they lead to severe and systematic errors. The subjective assessment of probability resembles the subjective assessment of physical quantities such as distance or size. These judgments are all based on data of limited validity, which are processed according to heuristic rules. However, the reliance on this rule leads to systematic errors in the estimation of distance. This chapter describes three heuristics that are employed in making judgments under uncertainty. The first is representativeness, which is usually employed when people are asked to judge the probability that an object or event belongs to a class or event. The second is the availability of instances or scenarios, which is often employed when people are asked to assess the frequency of a class or the plausibility of a particular development, and the third is adjustment from an anchor, which is usually employed in numerical prediction when a relevant value is available.

Extending the theory of planned behavior: A review and avenues for further research

Article

Jan 1998

This paper describes and reviews the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The focus is on evidence supporting the further extension of the TPB in various ways. Empirical and theoretical evidence to support the addition of 6 variables to the TPB is reviewed: belief salience measures, past behaviodhabit, perceived behavioral control (PBC) vs. self-efficacy, moral norms, self-identity, and affective beliefs. In each case there appears to be growing empirical evidence to support their addition to the TPB and some understanding of the processes by which they may be related to other TPB variables, intentions , and behavior. Two avenues for expansion of the TPB are presented. First, the possibility of incorporating the TPB into a dual-process model of attitude-behavior relationships is reviewed. Second, the expansion of the TPB to include consideration of the volitional processes determining how goal intentions may lead to goal achievement is discussed. The theory of planned behavior (TPB) is a widely applied expectancy-value model of attitude-behavior relationships which has met with some degree of success in predicting a variety of behaviors present paper examines avenues for development of this theory as a way of furthering our understanding of the relationship between attitudes and behavior. This is achieved in two ways: a review of the evidence supporting the addition of six different variables to the TPB, and a review of two avenues for expanding this theory. Six additional variables are reviewed: belief salience, past behaviodhabit, perceived behavioral control versus self-efficacy, moral norms, self-identity, and affective beliefs. Two avenues for model expansion are considered: multiple processes by which attitudes influence 'Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Mark Conner, School of Psychology , University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT. United Kingdom.

The Tragedy of the Commons

Article

Jan 1968

Garrett Hardin

The Dragons of Inaction: Psychological Barriers That Limit Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation

Abstract and Figures

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