Contributions of psychology to limiting climate change.

Abstract

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.

Consumers and their behavior: state of the art in behavioral science supporting use phase modeling in LCA and ecodesign

“…Finally, when attempting to re-design products in order to facilitate pro-environmental behavior, it should be considered that certain behaviors can be hard to change (Stern 2011), and that systematic testing of interventions in the specific context is required in order to understand which intervention is most effective and what is the magnitude of the effect. Spaargaren and Van Vliet (2000) suggest that adoption of sustainable behavior is moderated by a compromise between a lifestyle aspiration of consumers (depending upon their sense of identity, values and circumstances) and the nature of public and commercial provisioning systems that meets their needs.…”

Using the theory of planned behavior to identify key beliefs underlying pro-environmental behavior in high-school students: Implications for educational interventions

“…However, it is recognized that simply transmitting knowledge is not enough to change lifestyles and behavioral patterns (Gifford & Nilsson, 2014;Sterling, 2010;Stern, 2011). Ajzen, Joyce, Sheikh, and Gilbert Cote (2011) showed that having accurate information about an issue can be quite irrelevant for decisionmaking.…”

Understanding and applying principles of social cognition and decision making in adaptive environmental governance

“…Legal scholars should be aware of the basic social-psychological barriers to cooperation (e.g., Tyler 2006, Cornforth 2009, Castro 2012, but recognize that legal systems cannot directly overcome all the barriers (Winter 2000, Stern 2011). Law has an important but specific role to play.…”