Scaling Up Change: A Critical Review and Practical Guide to Harnessing Social Norms for Climate Action

Abstract

Anthropogenic carbon emissions have the potential to trigger changes in climate and ecosystems that would be catastrophic for the well-being of humans and other species. Widespread shifts in production and consumption patterns are urgently needed to address climate change. Although transnational agreements and national policy are necessary for a transition to a fully decarbonized global economy, fluctuating political priorities and lobbying by vested interests have slowed these efforts. Against this backdrop, bottom-up pressure from social movements and shifting social norms may offer a complementary path to a more sustainable economy. Furthermore, norm change may be an important component of decarbonization policies by accelerating or strengthening the impacts of other demand-side measures. Individual actions and policy support are social processes—they are intimately linked to expectations about the actions and beliefs of others. Although prevailing social norms often reinforce the status quo and unsustainable development pathways, social dynamics can also create widespread and rapid shifts in cultural values and practices, including increasing pressure on politicians to enact ambitious policy. We synthesize literature on social-norm influence, measurement, and change from the perspectives of psychology, anthropology, sociology, and economics. We discuss the opportunities and challenges for the use of social-norm and social-tipping interventions to promote climate action. Social-norm interventions aimed at addressing climate change or other social dilemmas are promising but no panacea. They require in-depth contextual knowledge, ethical consideration, and situation-specific tailoring and testing to understand whether they can be effectively implemented at scale. Our review aims to provide practitioners with insights and tools to reflect on the promises and pitfalls of such interventions in diverse contexts.

Social Psychological Perspectives on Political Polarization: Insights and Implications for Climate Change

“…Complementing other review papers that have focused on either political polarization or climate change separately, our review is the first to integrate ideas and research that relate the two, while suggesting ways to translate theory into interventions. Our work supplements other recent insightful review articles (see Constantino et al, 2022;Gifford et al, 2011;Ferguson et al, 2016;Nielsen et al, 2021;van der Linden & Weber, 2021). Some of these review articles provide useful context-focused examinations of psychological processes related to climate change (e.g., van der Linden & Weber, 2021).…”

“…Thus, our work instead is process-focused on the psychological process of polarization. Constantino et al (2022) also conducted a process-focused review about social norms, complementing our review of polarization, as social norms can be political or not. We review social norms as part of our discussion of group-level processes.…”

“…Climate change polarization in the general public is important in and of itself, but also is significant because it perpetuates polarization among political elites, which can impede policy progress (Budge & Hofferbert, 1990;Burstein, 2003;Cole, Ehret et al, in prep;Constantino et al, 2022;Druckman et al, 2013;Egan & Mullin, 2017;Flores et al, 2022;Hetherington, 2001;Stimson et al, 1995). Through elections, ordinary citizens have valuable opportunities to contribute directly to increases or decreases in future carbon emissions.…”

“…Through elections, ordinary citizens have valuable opportunities to contribute directly to increases or decreases in future carbon emissions. Citizens can donate to and vote for candidates that will implement programs to significantly reduce carbon footprints (Constantino et al, 2022;Wynes et al, 2021) and they can lobby their politicians to implement climate-friendly policies (Sherman et al, 2021). Dissatisfaction with political leadership can also open the door for greater opinion independence (Bessen, 2020), thereby increasing the public's influence on whether political elites can successfully implement new policies.…”

Cultural evolutionary behavioural science in public policy

“…First, policy needs to be informed by knowledge about the emergence and persistence of social-ecological stateshow social and ecological factors relate and interact. Second, they need to account for endogenous cultural change (Berger et al, 2021;Constantino et al, 2022). Third, they need to incorporate cooperation dynamics.…”