Climate Change and Six Americas: What Can Behavior Analysts Do?

Abstract

Climate change, directly impacted by human behavior, has been investigated and evaluated across disciplines. The Six Americas was developed as a segmentation tool to communicate effectively with the United States population about climate change across a spectrum from those likely to act in opposition to climate change mitigation strategies to those actively seeking to remediate the climate change effects. Behavior analysts offer unique skills to intervene at the individual level effectively. Behavior analysts will benefit from learning about this conceptual model and its tools, particularly to inform intervention across the spectrum of the Six Americas. This paper will cover a background of the Six Americas and suggestions on how to intervene for these different segments at the individual level, followed by a brief review of the existing effective literature, particularly regarding changing behavior in the food, energy, and transportation sectors. Specifically, behavior analytic interventions will be suggested for a population concerned about climate change who may also be posed for action. Finally, we will provide suggestions to guide behavior analysts to intervene with those disengaged or actively dismissive of the threats posed by climate change.

Health Psychology and Climate Change: Time to address humanity’s most existential crisis

“…Health psychologists can support the required societal transformations by establishing to what degree stakeholders understand the climate crisis and the changes needed, what their attitudes to the proposed policies are, how these are influenced by social norms, and what roles self-efficacy and habits play in engaging with change. Then, health psychologists can design targeted behaviour change interventions to address these processes where appropriate, for example if low levels of awareness shape social norms to reject plant-based diets, or when uncertainty about anthropogenic climate change hampers policy support (Meshes et al, 2022). Through interdisciplinary collaborations with, for example, economists and political scientists, evidence of underlying psychological mechanisms can be integrated into climate policy proposals and can help improve communication with citizens about such policies.…”