Kimberly Crystal Doell in an interview with Eva-Maria Verfürth
You have led one of the largest global studies of climate-change psychology, involving over 59,000 participants from 63 countries. The outcome is surprisingly positive: 86 % of participants believe in climate change, and 73 % support policies that tackle it. However, this does not seem to be adequately reflected in policymaking, public debate or the media.
There are many reasons. An important one is pluralistic ignorance: people tend to vastly underestimate how much other people believe in climate change. Pluralistic ignorance is one of the psychological barriers which prevent people from taking action on climate change. We call them “dragons of inaction”, which is a really fitting name. A study we conducted in the United States revealed that even policymakers significantly underestimated public support for policies tackling climate change.
What are other reasons?
Furthermore, it is difficult to translate what the public wants into actual practice. In order to reduce our carbon footprint, humankind will have to give up certain things or behaviours. However, if you ask people who should take responsibility, most will point the finger at someone else: big oil, the airlines, agricultural companies or the government. People also don’t want to be the ones who have to pay for it. So, although people generally support climate-friendly policies, they don’t support policies that affect them personally.
During the Covid-19 pandemic we saw that decisive global action is possible. From a psychological perspective, why was the policy response to the pandemic so much more resolute than the response to climate change?
The way people and governments dealt with and communicated about both crises was quite similar. The difference is the timescale: the threat of the pandemic was immediate; it needed to be dealt with here and now. One of the major challenges in raising awareness of climate change is temporal discounting, which is another dragon of inaction.
What is “temporal discounting”?
Humans are known to prioritise immediate rewards over future rewards, even when the future rewards are better. For example, if I offer to give a person either $ 5 now or $ 20 in a year, most people will choose to receive the money now, even though it is four times less than what I’d give them in the future. That’s also part of the reason why people smoke. As lung cancer only develops after several decades, people are confident that they won’t be affected. If smoking caused lung cancer the next day, it would certainly lead to a huge decline in smoking. Similarly, climate change is easy to ignore, because its effects are neither immediate nor concrete.
But the effects of climate change have become very threatening and palpable in many parts of the world. Yet people don’t seem to be feeling any greater sense of urgency. We talk about the weather, the droughts and the heat, but not about climate change itself.
This is the challenge of attribution: heat waves, floods and other extreme weather events have always occurred, so it’s difficult to determine whether a certain event has been exacerbated by climate change.
What measures could be taken to overcome these psychological hurdles?
It depends very much on who you are. In our study, we tested 11 different psychological interventions that could potentially increase climate awareness, policy support and pro-environmental behaviour. Our goal was to find the most effective solution. However, we found that none of the interventions had a significant overall impact across all the factors we measured. In other words: there is no single solution that will work for everyone. Whether you are a man or a woman, young or old, politically left-wing or right-wing – all these factors determine the effect an intervention will have on you. An argument that works on someone who’s more liberal might backfire on someone who’s more conservative.
Can you give an example?
Consider Germany and Austria, which have a lot in common culturally. In Austria, it was found that “reducing psychological distance” was the most effective way to encourage climate-friendly behaviour. Participants were asked to consider the short-term risks posed by climate change to their country. In Germany, however, this intervention had the opposite effect.
What were the interventions about, and how did you assess their effectiveness?
The interventions were basically pieces of information or small tasks related to climate change awareness (find the detailed description here). For example, to test the “scientific consensus” intervention, participants were given a text stating that climate scientists agree that the Earth is warming. Before and immediately after reading the text, we asked participants a series of questions: To what extent do you believe in climate change? To what degree do you support policies meant to mitigate climate change? How willing are you to share this information on social media? We also tested how much they were willing to engage in a high effort behaviour to help offset carbon emissions. We then compared how each group differed from another group that didn’t see any text or task.
The study’s main finding was that there is no one-size-fits-all intervention. But which intervention performed best on a global scale?
While it depends on who you are, I would say the “Letter to future generations” was one of the most successful interventions. Participants were asked to write a letter to a child who would read it in 25 years’ time, describing their current efforts to ensure a habitable planet. Although it had some negative outcomes in certain places, it generally increased people’s belief and support.
Did you discover any other general findings or patterns?
Negative emotions and social media are closely intertwined. If a piece of information puts people in a negative mood, they tend to go on social media and post about it.
The research project led to 300,000 trees being planted. What’s the story behind that?
This came about through the behaviour change test. We gave participants a tedious and time-consuming task that required them to work through several pages. For every page they completed successfully, we promised to plant a tree with the Eden Reforestation Project on their behalf. This resulted in over 300,000 trees being planted! The task was effortful and time-consuming, as is the case with most sustainable and pro-environmental behaviours. It’s much easier to throw a bottle away in the nearest bin than to find ways to recycle it. One of the most exciting results was that over 50 % of all of our participants worldwide were willing to put the maximum effort into this task. This suggests that half the population is willing to put in a lot of effort if this helps stop climate change!
Based on your findings, how should the media, politicians and the scientific community communicate with the public about climate change to encourage greater action?
No one message will work for everybody, but I recommend avoiding negative emotions. Most information about climate change conveys a very negative message of doom and gloom. This works well on social media but has unpredictable outcomes in all other areas. Having said that, it’s really difficult to write about climate change without evoking some negative emotion.
What would you recommend doing instead?
Try using a reference to personal legacy. What kind of future do you want for the children close to you? How do you want their futures to be? Personal legacy is something that a lot of humanity takes fairly seriously.
What intervention would work best on you personally?
“Effective collective action,” certainly. It shows examples of successful collective action that has had meaningful effects or solved global issues, such as the restoration of the ozone layer. We all perceive climate change to be such a huge problem that it is almost impossible to overcome. Restoring people’s sense of collective efficacy, the idea that we can have an impact on this massive problem, could help motivate people to join forces and work together. Human beings are incredibly resilient and powerful, especially when working towards a common goal.
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