Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

Abstract

A frequent suggestion to increase individuals' willingness to take action on climate change and to support relevant policies is to highlight its proximal consequences, that is, consequences that are close in space and time. However, previous studies that have tested this proximising approach have not revealed the expected positive effects on individual action and support for addressing climate change. We present three lines of psychological reasoning that provide compelling arguments as to why highlighting proximal impacts of climate change might not be as effective a way to increase individual mitigation and adaptation efforts as is often assumed. Our contextualisation of the proximising approach within established psychological research suggests that, depending on the particular theoretical perspective one takes to this issue, and on specific individual characteristics suggested by these perspectives, proximising can bring about the intended positive effects, can have no (visible) effect, or can even backfire. Thus, the effects of proximising are much more complex than is commonly assumed. Revealing this complexity contributes to a refined theoretical understanding of the role psychological distance plays in the context of climate change and opens up further avenues for future research and for interventions. KeywordsPsychological distance, personal experience, place attachment, threat, risk perception, defensiveness, mitigation, adaptation 3 Research on public perceptions of climate change often shows that people, at least in Western countries, typically perceive climate change as a distant threat, as something that affects strangers, and as something that happens in remote times and places, rather than in the here and now [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] (for an exception, see ref. 8 ). This perception of climate change as a distant threat is problematic because it implies little personal relevance. Low levels of personal relevance in turn are problematic because individuals' perception of being personally at risk can be an important motivation to take action against the source of that risk 9-14 .Consistent with this analysis, it has repeatedly been suggested that highlighting the proximal consequences of climate change could be an important part of strategies to engage and mobilize publics around this issue 3,[15][16][17][18][19][20] . Although the assumed psychological mechanism of proximising is often not verbalised (see also ref. 21 , where the term is used to describe a discursive strategy in which the speaker presents physically and temporally distant events as close and directly relevant to the addressee), the rationale behind proximising climate change seems to be that this approach (a) decreases the psychological distance between the issue and individuals who could or should act 17,22 and, (b) makes the consequences of climate change easier to visualise 4,23 and more personally relevant 24,25 . Moreover, proximising climate change is believed to increase (emotional) concern 16,22,26,27 and the feeling o...

Emotions predict policy support: Why it matters how people feel about climate change

“…To care about climate change is paradoxically not about climate change itself, but about the things that it will harm or take away from us. A similar idea has been put forth in research on environmental movements (Stern et al 1999) and the consequences of environmental loss (Brügger et al 2015; Albrecht et al, 2007), where implications for valued objects, or "objects of care", are central to understanding human responses to environmental decline.…”

“…Psychological distance is typically measured through perceptions of personal risk from climate change, such as when and where it will occur, the likelihood with which it will occur, and who will be affected by it Brügger 2013). The argument is that proximatising climate change can make the issue seem more personally relevant, and more emotionally evocative (Brügger et al 2015;Mcdonald et al 2015). …”

Experience of extreme weather affects climate change mitigation and adaptation responses

“…This remains a promising line of further inquiry, particularly since adaptation actions, unlike many mitigation options, are often located at the local or personal level. Theoretically, however, there remains much more work to be done to understand the precise psychological and social processes by which our perception of climate change becomes more relevant at a local and personal level (Brugger et al 2015).…”

How Do Community Planning Features Affect the Place Relationship of Residents? An Investigation of Place Attachment, Social Interaction, and Community Participation

“…In an attempt to avoid these inconsistencies and the resulting confusion, this study will use the term place relationship as the most general concept describing an individual's relationship with a place (Figure 1). Of the studies examining the relationships between the outdoor environment and place attachment [6,7], social interaction [6,8,9], and community participation [10][11][12], none, to the best of our knowledge, have analyzed the effects on all three concepts at the same time. In addition, almost all of this research has been conducted at the larger neighborhood scale [10,11,13].…”

“…Most of the research concerning features of the physical environment and place attachment has been conducted at the neighborhood scale, followed by the home, city, and much less often, national regions [6,7]. At the neighborhood level, the features most often found to influence place attachment include the following: lack of noise [26,27], presence of quality green spaces (e.g., parks, playgrounds, street landscaping) [2,13,28,29], attractiveness of buildings [29,30], and lack of incivilities (e.g., graffiti, litter, lack of upkeep, feelings of insecurity, crime) [13,29].…”