Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change.

Swim, Janet K.; Stern, Paul C.; Doherty, Thomas J.; Clayton, Susan; Reser, Joseph P.; Weber, Elke U.; Gifford, Robert; Howard, George S.

doi:10.1037/a0023220

Cited by 368 publications

(258 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

247

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…When attitudes do tilt toward emphasizing either cognition or affect, persuasion is more effective when it matches the type of attitude (13). In the domain of climate change, for example, affect and values together motivate climate cognition (4,14). If public attitudes have two sides-beliefs and affect-what is their respective role in scientific communication?…”

Section: Public Beliefs and Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics

Fiske

Dupree

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

331

291

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Expertise is a prerequisite for communicator credibility, entailing the knowledge and ability to be accurate. Trust also is essential to communicator credibility. Audiences view trustworthiness as the motivation to be truthful. Identifying whom to trust follows systematic principles. People decide quickly another’s apparent intent: Who is friend or foe, on their side or not, or a cooperator or competitor. Those seemingly on their side are deemed warm (friendly, trustworthy). People then decide whether the other is competent to enact those intents. Perception of scientists, like other social perceptions, involves inferring both their apparent intent (warmth) and capability (competence). To illustrate, we polled adults online about typical American jobs, rated as American society views them, on warmth and competence dimensions, as well as relevant emotions. Ambivalently perceived high-competence but low-warmth, “envied” professions included lawyers, chief executive officers, engineers, accountants, scientists, and researchers. Being seen as competent but cold might not seem problematic until one recalls that communicator credibility requires not just status and expertise but also trustworthiness (warmth). Other research indicates the risk from being enviable. Turning to a case study of scientific communication, another online sample of adults described public attitudes toward climate scientists specifically. Although distrust is low, the apparent motive to gain research money is distrusted. The literature on climate science communicators agrees that the public trusts impartiality, not persuasive agendas. Overall, communicator credibility needs to address both expertise and trustworthiness. Scientists have earned audiences’ respect, but not necessarily their trust. Discussing, teaching, and sharing information can earn trust to show scientists’ trustworthy intentions.

show abstract

Section: Public Beliefs and Affectmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics

Fiske

Dupree

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

331

291

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Which of these mechanisms predominates with high-impact behaviors, and under what conditions, are fundamental research questions of obvious importance to limiting climate change. At an even more fundamental level are psychological questions about the drivers of "consumption," which underlies demand for energy-using goods and services (National Research Council, 1997; also see Swim et al, 2011). Consumption is commonly understood in relation to consumer expenditures, but a much more nuanced understanding of consumption is needed to inform behavioral research related to environmental issues such as climate change (Stern, 1997).…”

Section: Fundamental Psychological Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributions of psychology to limiting climate change.

Stern¹

2011

American Psychologist

Self Cite

247

184

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Council, 2010a). The human activities that directly produce physical changes in Earth's heat balance, such as burning fossil fuels, clearing forests, and raising cattle, are driven in turn by other human activities, including government policies, the growth and migration of human populations, economic and technological development, and the behavior of individuals and households as consumers, members of organizations, and citizens. These actions are influenced in turn by human attitudes, predispositions, beliefs, and social and economic structures (National Research Council, 1992; Swim et al., 2011, this issue). This article discusses what psychology has contributed and can contribute to limiting the magnitude of climate change by altering the human activities that affect it. A Framework for Psychological ContributionsPsychology can contribute to limiting climate change by improving understanding of climate-relevant individual, household, and organizational behaviors that affect climate change and the many personal, social, economic, institutional, policy, and social-structural factors that affect these behaviors, as well as by helping devise ways to turn that understanding into effective interventions. Most of the efforts of psychologists, and most of this review, focus on consumer behaviors. These can be conveniently divided into choices that affect emissions of greenhouse gases directly through household purchases of energy and choices that affect emissions indirectly through the purchase of goods and services that affect the climate through their production, distribution, and disposal. This article focuses mainly on the direct effects because they are large (about 40% of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States; Bin & Dowlatabadi, 2005) and because more is known about the behavioral factors that drive those emissions. It also briefly discusses psychological factors in organizational behavior and in acceptance of policies and technologies.

show abstract

“…Human action in adaptation, as well as mitigation, has the greatest potential for reducing the adverse effects of climate change which in itself is a result of the action of humanity (Smit et al, 2000;Swim et al, 2011;Shahadu, 2012). In order to have an effective action against such changes, the understanding climate system is pivotal (Standish, 2005;Whitmarsh, 2009;Bierbaum and Stults, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Analysis of Nepalese Youth Understanding Level on Climate Change

Devkota

Phuyal

2017

Asian Journal of Economic Modelling

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Article HistoryThis study aims to analyze the level of understanding about climate change among the Nepalese youth. Perceptions regarding the knowledge about climate change, climate change indicators, impact made by such change, government intervention and various climate change policies were investigated. The exploratory survey was conducted with the help of self-administered questionnaire. A total of 954 youth studying at the different levels were selected purposively from about 2 dozens of schools and colleges that represent 4 different Universities, Higher Secondary and Schools in different areas of Kathmandu Valley. Both descriptive as well as inferential statistics were applied to analyze the data. The logistic regression model was used to test the hypothesis. The model prepared 5 different hypotheses to identify the actual level of youth understanding about climate change. The study results that 98% youth are aware about climate change. Similarly, the logit model revealed that youth are well aware of climate change since factors like study level, age, gender, formal education about climate change, participation in various climaterelated training, climate change talk on family and society, access to mobile phone and use of mobile phone for climate change learning are found to be statistically significant at desirable probability level. However, in spite of youth awareness on climate change, still, they are unknown about the coping strategies such as adaptation and mitigation implemented by the government. It indicates government should transmit similar information via all possible channels to the youth so that the plan and policies that are related to climate change can be successfully implemented. Contribution/ Originality:The key contribution of this paper is the establishment of results about climate change understanding level of Nepalese youth studying at different Schools, Colleges and Universities in Nepal.Researchers applied logistic regression model using original data generated from the field surveys.

show abstract

Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change.

Cited by 368 publications

References 67 publications

Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics

Gaining trust as well as respect in communicating to motivated audiences about science topics

Contributions of psychology to limiting climate change.

An Analysis of Nepalese Youth Understanding Level on Climate Change

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About