Escaping the Climate Trap: Participation in a Climate-Specific Social Dilemma Simulation Boosts Climate-Protective Motivation and Actions

Abstract

One way in which educators can help to address increasingly pressing environmental problems, including climate change, is to encourage individuals to change their behavior and to press for structural changes in society. The promotion of climate-protective behavior is challenging because the payoffs for various actions and inactions are structured such that they create social dilemmas. The conflict between short-term personal benefit and long-term collective gain in such dilemmas often leads to self-serving motives that can ultimately be self-defeating. We created a social dilemma simulation specific to climate change, called Climate Trap: Social Dilemma Simulation, to help students observe how they and others respond to these conflicts, and predicted that doing so would lead to climate-protective motivations and behaviors after the simulation. The simulation participants (N = 344) reported greater confidence in their knowledge and understanding of the social dilemma context of climate change, higher environmental concern and more self-determined motivation to act, and they engaged in more climate-protective behaviors compared to the students who did not complete the simulation. Moreover, the simulation participants reported greater pro-environmental engagement on all of the measures after the simulation compared to before they participated in the simulation. The results suggest that a climate-specific social dilemma simulation can create uniquely motivating experiences, and can have utility as a teaching tool, research instrument and intervention.