A social psychology of climate change: Progress and promise.

climate change climate change beliefs climate change impacts interdisciplinarity pro‐environmental behaviour social justice

Journal

The British journal of social psychology
ISSN: 2044-8309
Titre abrégé: Br J Soc Psychol
Pays: England
ID NLM: 8105534

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
27 Apr 2024
Historique:
received: 30 01 2024
accepted: 02 04 2024
medline: 27 4 2024
pubmed: 27 4 2024
entrez: 27 4 2024
Statut: aheadofprint

Résumé

Social psychologists have conducted research relevant to environmental problems for many decades. However, the climate crisis presents a new problem with distinctive aspects and distinctive urgency. This paper reviews some of the principal ways in which social psychological research and theory have approached the topic, looking at perceptions, behaviour, and impacts linked to climate change. Each of these areas is becoming more sophisticated in acknowledging the diversity of experience among groups that vary in demographics and social roles. I close by identifying three important facets for future research: a focus on social justice, an effort to participate in interdisciplinary efforts, and an emphasis on maximizing our impact.

Identifiants

pubmed: 38676432
doi: 10.1111/bjso.12749
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Sous-ensembles de citation

IM

Informations de copyright

© 2024 The Authors. British Journal of Social Psychology published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of British Psychological Society.

Références

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behavior. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50(2), 179–211.
Aruta, J. J. B. R. (2023). Ecological grief in Filipino youth. Journal of Loss and Trauma, 28(3), 273–275.
Ballew, M., Gustafson, A., Bergquist, P., Goldberg, M., Rosenthal, S., Kotcher, J., Maibach, E., & Leiserowitz, A. (2019). Americans Underestimate How Many Others in the U.S. Think Global Warming is Happening. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Ballew, M. T., Rosenthal, S. A., Goldberg, M. H., Gustafson, A., Kotcher, J. E., Maibach, E. W., & Leiserowitz, A. (2020). Beliefs about others' global warming beliefs: The role of party affiliation and opinion deviance. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 70, 101466.
Barth, M., Masson, T., Fritsche, I., Fielding, K., & Smith, J. R. (2021). Collective responses to global challenges: The social psychology of pro‐environmental action. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 74, 101562.
Barth, M., Masson, T., Fritsche, I., & Ziemer, C. T. (2018). Closing ranks: Ingroup norm conformity as a subtle response to threatening climate change. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(3), 497–512.
Böhm, G., Pfister, H. R., Doran, R., Ogunbode, C. A., Poortinga, W., Tvinnereim, E., Steentjes, K., Mays, C., Bertoldo, R., Sonnberger, M., & Pidgeon, N. (2023). Emotional reactions to climate change: A comparison across France, Germany, Norway, and the United Kingdom. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1139133.
Bolderdijk, J. W., Steg, L., Geller, E. S., Lehman, P. K., & Postmes, T. (2013). Comparing the effectiveness of monetary versus moral motives in environmental campaigning. Nature Climate Change, 3(4), 413–416.
Bolin, J. L., & Hamilton, L. C. (2018). The news you choose: News media preferences amplify views on climate change. Environmental Politics, 27(3), 455–476.
Brosch, T. (2021). Affect and emotions as drivers of climate change perception and action: A review. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 15–21.
Brosch, T., & Sauter, D. (2023). Emotions and the climate crisis: A research agenda for an affective sustainability science. Emotion Review, 15(4), 253–257.
Carrico, A. R. (2021). Climate change, behavior, and the possibility of spillover effects: Recent advances and future directions. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 76–82.
Cialdini, R. B., & Jacobson, R. P. (2021). Influences of social norms on climate change‐related behaviors. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 1–8.
Cianconi, P., Betrò, S., & Janiri, L. (2020). The impact of climate change on mental health: A systematic descriptive review. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, 74.
Ciofalo, N., Dudgeon, P., & Nikora, L. W. (2022). Indigenous community psychologies, decolonization, and radical imagination within ecologies of knowledges. American Journal of Community Psychology, 69(3–4), 283–293.
Cissé, G., McLeman, R., Adams, H., Aldunce, P., Bowen, K., Campbell‐Lendrum, D., Clayton, S., Ebi, K. L., Hess, J., Huang, C., Liu, Q., McGregor, G., Semenza, J., & Tirado, M. C. (2022). Chapter 7: Health, wellbeing, and the changing structure of communities. In H.‐O. Pörtner, D. C. Roberts, M. Tignor, E. S. Poloczanska, K. Mintenbeck, A. Alegría, M. Craig, S. Langsdorf, S. Löschke, V. Möller, A. Okem, & B. Rama (Eds.), Climate change 2022: Impacts, adaptation, and vulnerability contribution of working group II to the sixth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press. https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg2/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGII_Chapter07.pdf
Clayton, S. (1999, August). How deep are the roots? How wide are the branches? In D.Winter (chair), The greening of APA. Symposium presented at the convention of the American Psychological Association, Boston, MA.
Clayton, S. (Ed.). (2012). Oxford handbook of environmental and conservation psychology. Oxford University Press.
Clayton, S. (2018). The role of perceived justice, political ideology, andindividual or collective framing in support for environmental policies. Social Justice Research, 31, 219–237.
Clayton, S., & Czellar, S. (2023). Environmental identity as a motivator of pro‐environmental behaviour. In B. Gatersleben & N. Murtagh (Eds.), Handbook on pro‐environmental behaviour change (pp. 226–238). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Clayton, S., & Myers, G. (2015). Conservation psychology: Understanding and promoting human care for nature. John Wiley & Sons.
Clayton, S., Pihkala, P., Wray, B., & Marks, E. (2023). Psychological and emotional responses to climate change among young people worldwide: Differences associated with gender, age, and country. Sustainability, 15(4), 3540. https://doi.org/10.3390/su15043540
Clayton, S., & Swim, J. (2024, in press). Climate change impacts on mental health and well‐being. To appear in APA handbook of Health Psychology. APA Press.
Cole, J. C., Ehret, P. J., Sherman, D. K., & Van Boven, L. (2022). Social norms explain prioritization of climate policy. Climatic Change, 173(1–2), 10.
Cole, J. C., Gillis, A. J., van der Linden, S., Cohen, M. A., & Vandenbergh, M. P. (2023). Social psychological perspectives on political polarization: Insights and implications for climate change. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17456916231186409. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231186409
Creutzig, F., Roy, J., Devine‐Wright, P., Díaz‐José, J., Geels, F. W., Grubler, A., Maïzi, N., Masanet, E., Mulugetta, Y., Onyige, C. D., Perkins, P. E., Sanches‐Pereira, A., & Weber, E. U. (2022). Demand, services and social aspects of mitigation. In P. R. Shukla, J. Skea, R. Slade, A. Al Khourdajie, R. van Diemen, D. McCollum, M. Pathak, S. Some, P. Vyas, R. Fradera, M. Belkacemi, A. Hasija, G. Lisboa, S. Luz, & J. Malley (Eds.), IPCC, 2022: Climate change 2022: Mitigation of climate change. Contribution of Working Group III to the sixth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009157926.007
Drews, S., & Van den Bergh, J. C. (2016). What explains public support for climate policies? A review of empirical and experimental studies. Climate Policy, 16(7), 855–876.
Ebhuoma, O. O., Gebreslasie, M., Ebhuoma, E. E., & Leonard, L. (2021). ‘The future looks empty’: Embodied experiences of distress triggered by environmental and climatic changes in rural KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. GeoJournal, 87, 3169–3185.
Ettinger, J., McGivern, A., Spiegel, M. P., King, B., Shawoo, Z., Chapin, A., & Finnegan, W. (2023). Breaking the climate spiral of silence: Lessons from a COP26 climate conversations campaign. Climatic Change, 176(3), 22.
Fischhoff, B. (2021). Making behavioral science integral to climate science and action. Behavioural Public Policy, 5(4), 439–453.
Freschi, G., Menegatto, M., & Zamperini, A. (2023). How can psychology contribute to climate change governance? A systematic review. Sustainability, 15(19), 14273.
Fritsche, I., Barth, M., Jugert, P., Masson, T., & Reese, G. (2018). A social identity model of pro‐environmental action (SIMPEA). Psychological Review, 125(2), 245–269.
Fritsche, I., Cohrs, J. C., Kessler, T., & Bauer, J. (2012). Global warming is breeding social conflict: The subtle impact of climate change threat on authoritarian tendencies. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 32(1), 1–10.
Gatersleben, B., & Murtagh, N. (Eds.). (2023). Handbook on pro‐environmental behaviour change. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Ge, Q., Hao, M., Ding, F., Jiang, D., Scheffran, J., Helman, D., & Ide, T. (2022). Modelling armed conflict risk under climate change with machine learning and time‐series data. Nature Communications, 13(1), 2839.
Geiger, N., Pasek, M. H., Gruszczynski, M., Ratcliff, N. J., & Weaver, K. S. (2020). Political ingroup conformity and pro‐environmental behavior: Evaluating the evidence from a survey and mousetracking experiments. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 72, 101524.
Geiger, N., & Swim, J. K. (2016). Climate of silence: Pluralistic ignorance as a barrier to climate change discussion. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 47, 79–90.
Gifford, R. (2011). The dragons of inaction: Psychological barriers that limit climate change mitigation and adaptation. American Psychologist, 66(4), 290–302.
Goldstein, B., Gounaridis, D., & Newell, J. P. (2020). The carbon footprint of household energy use in the United States. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(32), 19122–19130.
Goldstein, N. J., Cialdini, R. B., & Griskevicius, V. (2008). A room with a viewpoint: Using social norms to motivate environmental conservation in hotels. Journal of Consumer Research, 35(3), 472–482.
Griskevicius, V., Tybur, J. M., & Van den Bergh, B. (2010). Going green to be seen: Status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(3), 392–404.
Hampton, S., & Whitmarsh, L. (2023). Choices for climate action: A review of the multiple roles individuals play. One Earth, 6(9), 1157–1172.
Happer, C., & Philo, G. (2013). The role of the media in the construction of public belief and social change. Journal of Social and Political Psychology, 1(1), 321–336.
Helferich, M., Thøgersen, J., & Bergquist, M. (2023). Direct and mediated impacts of social norms on pro‐environmental behavior. Global Environmental Change, 80, 102680.
Hornsey, M. J. (2021). The role of worldviews in shaping how people appraise climate change. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 42, 36–41.
Hornsey, M. J., Harris, E. A., Bain, P. G., & Fielding, K. S. (2016). Meta‐analyses of the determinants and outcomes of belief in climate change. Nature Climate Change, 6(6), 622–626.
Hyman, E. (2020). Who's really responsible for climate change? Harvard Political Review, 12 january. https://harvardpolitics.com/climate‐change‐responsibility/
Iniguez‐Gallardo, V., Lenti Boero, D., & Tzanopoulos, J. (2021). Climate change and emotions: Analysis of people's emotional states in southern Ecuador. Frontiers in Psychology, 12, 644240.
Klöckner, C. A. (2013). A comprehensive model of the psychology of environmental behaviour—A meta‐analysis. Global Environmental Change, 23(5), 1028–1038.
Landrum, A. R., & Vasquez, R. (2020). Polarized US publics, pope Francis, and climate change: Reviewing the studies and data collected around the 2015 papal encyclical. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 11(6), e674.
Lawrance, E. L., Thompson, R., Newberry Le Vay, J., Page, L., & Jennings, N. (2022). The impact of climate change on mental health and emotional wellbeing: A narrative review of current evidence, and its implications. International Review of Psychiatry, 34(5), 443–498.
Lee, T. M., Markowitz, E. M., Howe, P. D., Ko, C. Y., & Leiserowitz, A. A. (2015). Predictors of public climate change awareness and risk perception around the world. Nature Climate Change, 5(11), 1014–1020.
Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Rosenthal, S., Kotcher, J., Lee, S., Verner, M., Ballew, M., Carman, J., Myers, T., Goldberg, M., Badullovich, N., & Marlon, J. (2023). Climate Change in the American Mind: Beliefs & Attitudes, Spring 2023. Yale University and George Mason University. New Haven, CT: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.
Levy, S. R., Gopang, M., Ramírez, L., Bernardo, A. B. I., Ruck, M. D., & Sternisko, A. (2023). A human rights‐based approach to climates injustices at the local, national, and international levels: Program and policy recommendations. Social Issues and Policy Review, 18, 3–30. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12103
Li, J., Feng, C., & Yang, J. (2023). Climate attribution of interpersonal violence: International evidence. Environmental Research, 236, 116836.
Liu, L., Qu, J., Maraseni, T. N., Niu, Y., Zeng, J., Zhang, L., & Xu, L. (2020). Household CO2 emissions: Current status and future perspectives. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(19), 7077.
Mackay, C. M., Schmitt, M. T., Lutz, A. E., & Mendel, J. (2021). Recent developments in the social identity approach to the psychology of climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 95–101.
Martin, G., Cosma, A., Roswell, T., Anderson, M., Treble, M., Leslie, K., Card, K. G., Closson, K., Kennedy, A., & Gislason, M. (2023). Measuring negative emotional responses to climate change among young people in survey research: A systematic review. Social Science & Medicine, 329, 116008.
Miles‐Novelo, A., & Anderson, C. A. (2022). Climate change and human behavior: Impacts of a rapidly changing climate on human aggression and violence. Cambridge University Press.
Milfont, T. L., Abrahamse, W., & MacDonald, E. A. (2021). Scepticism of anthropogenic climate change: Additional evidence for the role of system‐justifying ideologies. Personality and Individual Differences, 168, 110237.
Milfont, T. L., & Schultz, P. W. (2016). Culture and the natural environment. Current Opinion in Psychology, 8, 194–199.
Milfont, T. L., Zubielevitch, E., Milojev, P., & Sibley, C. G. (2021). Ten‐year panel data confirm generation gap but climate beliefs increase at similar rates across ages. Nature Communications, 12(1), 4038. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467‐021‐24245‐y
Moore, S., & Roberts, A. (2022). The rise of ecofascism: Climate change and the far right. John Wiley & Sons.
Musicaro, R., Parnes, M., Lowe, S., Clayton, S., Holder, C., & Schwartz, S. (2024). Preliminary development of the climate and racial justice scale. Environmental Justice. https://doi.org/10.1089/env.2023.0025
Nasi, V. L., Jans, L., & Steg, L. (2023). Can we do more than “bounce back”? Transilience in the face of climate change risks. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 86, 101947.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. (2024a). 2023 was the world's warmest year on record, by far. https://www.noaa.gov/news/2023‐was‐worlds‐warmest‐year‐on‐record‐by‐far
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association. (2024b). U.S. struck with historic number of billion‐dollar disasters in 2023. https://www.noaa.gov/news/us‐struck‐with‐historic‐number‐of‐billion‐dollar‐disasters‐in‐2023
Nielsen, K. S., Nicholas, K. A., Creutzig, F., Dietz, T., & Stern, P. C. (2021). The role of high‐socioeconomic‐status people in locking in or rapidly reducing energy‐driven greenhouse gas emissions. Nature Energy, 6(11), 1011–1016.
Ntontis, E., Drury, J., Amlôt, R., Rubin, G. J., & Williams, R. (2020). What lies beyond social capital? The role of social psychology in building community resilience to climate change. Traumatology, 26(3), 253–265. https://doi.org/10.1037/trm0000221
Ogunbode, C. A. (2022). Climate justice is social justice in the global south. Nature Human Behaviour, 6(11), 1443.
Ogunbode, C. A., Doran, R., Hanss, D., Ojala, M., Salmela‐Aro, K., van den Broek, K. L., Bhullar, N., Aquino, S. D., Marot, T., Schermer, J. A., Wlodarczyk, A., Lu, S., Jiang, F., Maran, D. A., Yadav, R., Ardi, R., Chegeni, R., Ghanbarian, E., Zand, S., … Karasu, M. (2022). Climate anxiety, wellbeing and pro‐environmental action: Correlates of negative emotional responses to climate change in 32 countries. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 84, 101887.
Pearson, A. R., & Schuldt, J. P. (2018). Climate change and intergroup relations: Psychological insights, synergies, and future prospects. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(3), 373–388.
Pearson, A. R., Schuldt, J. P., & Romero‐Canyas, R. (2016). Social climate science: A new vista for psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11(5), 632–650.
Pearson, A. R., White, K. E., Nogueira, L. M., Lewis, N. A., Jr., Green, D. J., Schuldt, J. P., & Edmondson, D. (2023). Climate change and health equity: A research agenda for psychological science. American Psychologist, 78(2), 244–258. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001074
Petzold, J., Andrews, N., Ford, J. D., Hedemann, C., & Postigo, J. C. (2020). Indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation: A global evidence map of academic literature. Environmental Research Letters, 15(11), 113007.
Pihkala, P. (2022). Toward a taxonomy of climate emotions. Frontiers in Climate, 3, 738154.
Pong, V., & Tam, K. P. (2023). Relationship between global identity and pro‐environmental behavior and environmental concern: A systematic review. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1033564.
Reddy, G., Ratele, K., Adams, G., & Suffla, S. (2021). Decolonising psychology: Moving from developing an inclusive social psychology to centring epistemic justice. Social Psychological Review, 23(2), 10–12.
Reese, G. (2023). Collective identity as a vehicle for individual and systemic change. In B. Gatersleben & N. Murtagh (Eds.), Handbook on pro‐environmental behaviour change (pp. 239–250). Edward Elgar Publishing.
Schuldt, J. P., Pearson, A. R., Romero‐Canyas, R., & Larson‐Konar, D. (2017). Brief exposure to pope Francis heightens moral beliefs about climate change. Climatic Change, 141, 167–177.
Schultz, P. W., Estrada, M., Schmitt, J., Sokoloski, R., & Silva‐Send, N. (2015). Using in‐home displays to provide smart meter feedback about household electricity consumption: A randomized control trial comparing kilowatts, cost, and social norms. Energy, 90, 351–358.
Scott, B. A., Amel, E. L., Koger, S. M., & Manning, C. M. (2021). Psychology for sustainability. Routledge.
Sharpe, E., Ruepert, A., van der Werff, E., & Steg, L. (2022). Corporate environmental responsibility leads to more pro‐environmental behavior at work by strengthening intrinsic pro‐environmental motivation. One Earth, 5(7), 825–835.
Sherman, D. K., & Van Boven, L. (2023). The connections—And misconnections—Between the public and politicians over climate policy: A social psychological perspective. Social Issues and Policy Review, 18, 31–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12104
Shrum, T. R., Platt, N. S., Markowitz, E., & Syropoulos, S. (2023). A scoping review of the green parenthood effect on environmental and climate engagement. Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change, 14(2), e818.
Sorvali, J., Kaseva, J., & Peltonen‐Sainio, P. (2021). Farmer views on climate change—A longitudinal study of threats, opportunities and action. Climatic Change, 164, 1–19.
Sparkman, G., Geiger, N., & Weber, E. U. (2022). Americans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half. Nature Communications, 13(1), 4779.
Steg, L. (2023). Psychology of climate change. Annual Review of Psychology, 74, 391–421.
Stern, P. C. (2012). Fear and hope in climate messages. Nature Climate Change, 2(8), 572–573.
Stern, P. C., Dietz, T., Abel, T., Guagnano, G. A., & Kalof, L. (1999). A value‐belief‐norm theory of support for social movements: The case of environmentalism. Human Ecology Review, 6, 81–97.
Stern, P. C., & Wolske, K. S. (2017). Limiting climate change: What's most worth doing? Environmental Research Letters, 12(9), 091001.
Suh, S. M., Chapman, D. A., & Lickel, B. (2021). The role of psychological research in understanding and responding to links between climate change and conflict. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 43–48.
Supran, G., & Oreskes, N. (2021). Rhetoric and frame analysis of ExxonMobil's climate change communications. One Earth, 4(5), 696–719.
Swim, J. K., Stern, P. C., Doherty, T. J., Clayton, S., Reser, J. P., Weber, E. U., Gifford, R., & Howard, G. S. (2011). Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change. American Psychologist, 66(4), 241–250.
Tam, K. P., Leung, A. K. Y., & Clayton, S. (2021). Research on climate change in social psychology publications: A systematic review. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 24(2), 117–143.
Uenal, F., Sidanius, J., Roozenbeek, J., & Van der Linden, S. (2021). Climate change threats increase modern racism as a function of social dominance orientation and ingroup identification. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 97, 104228.
van der Linden, S. (2015). The social‐psychological determinants of climate change risk perceptions: Towards a comprehensive model. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 41, 112–124.
van der Linden, S., Pearson, A. R., & Van Boven, L. (2021). Behavioural climate policy. Behavioural Public Policy, 5(4), 430–438.
van der Linden, S. L., Leiserowitz, A. A., Feinberg, G. D., & Maibach, E. W. (2015). The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: Experimental evidence. PLoS One, 10(2), e0118489.
van Lange, P. A., Rinderu, M. I., & Bushman, B. J. (2018). CLASH: Climate (change) and cultural evolution of intergroup conflict. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 21(3), 457–471.
Van Valkengoed, A. M., & Steg, L. (2019). Meta‐analyses of factors motivating climate change adaptation behaviour. Nature Climate Change, 9(2), 158–163. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558‐018‐0371‐y
Vestergren, S., Drury, J., & Chiriac, E. H. (2018). How collective action produces psychological change and how that change endures over time: A case study of an environmental campaign. British Journal of Social Psychology, 57(4), 855–877.
Warren, G. W., Gatersleben, B., Seymour, V., Marshall, H., & Torres Contreras, G. (2024). Environmental social science inclusion in policy and practice. ACCESS interview report. https://accessnetwork.uk/what‐factors‐influence‐environmental‐social‐science‐inclusion‐in‐policy‐and‐practice/
Weber, E. U. (2006). Experience‐based and description‐based perceptions of long‐term risk: Why global warming does not scare us (yet). Climatic Change, 77(1–2), 103–120.
Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., & Capstick, S. (2021). Behaviour change to address climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 76–81.
Winter, D. D. N., & Koger, S. M. (2004). The psychology of environmental problems. Psychology Press.
Wormley, A. S. (2023). What psychology can tell us about the cultural effects of climate change. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 92, 102175.

Auteurs

Susan Clayton (S)

The College of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio, USA.

Classifications MeSH