How Psychology Can Help Limit Climate Change

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5°C or 2°C of global warming. To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrat...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The American psychologist 2021-01, Vol.76 (1), p.130-144
Main Authors: Nielsen, Kristian S., Clayton, Susan, Stern, Paul C., Dietz, Thomas, Capstick, Stuart, Whitmarsh, Lorraine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Climate Change
Global Warming
Greenhouse effect
Greenhouse gases
Human
Interdisciplinary aspects
Intervention
Mitigation
Psychological Development
Psychologists
Psychology
Science Achievement
Sociocultural factors
Theories
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5°C or 2°C of global warming. To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change. Psychologists need to go further and, in particular, show that integrating psychological concepts into feasible interventions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions far more than would be achieved without such integration. While critiquing some aspects of current approaches, we describe psychological research that is pointing the way by distinguishing different types of behavior, acknowledging sociocultural context, and collaborating with other disciplines. Engaging this challenge offers psychologists new opportunities for promoting mitigation, advancing psychological understanding, and developing better interdisciplinary interactions. Public Significance Statement Addressing climate change requires unprecedented societal transformations within a short time frame. Psychological research has the potential to improve current and future initiatives to mitigate climate change; however, realizing this potential requires heightened attention to the climate impact of the behaviors we study and greater collaboration and integration across disciplines.
ISSN:0003-066X
1935-990X
DOI:10.1037/amp0000624