Further Than the Eye Can See: Psychological Distance and Perception of Environmental Threats

Carmi, Nurit; Kimhi, Shaul

doi:10.1080/10807039.2015.1046419

Cited by 69 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The scale for the measurement of psychological distance was constructed based on the four subdimensions of the variable [91], which were each measured with one item. This is similar to the adaption of the scale in prior studies [60]. This means that each participant rated his or her concern about the return of the wolf in terms of the social, temporal, geographical and hypothetical manifestation of the phenomenon.…”

Section: Contextual Variablesmentioning

confidence: 69%

Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

2018

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Biodiversity conservation issues are adequate topics of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), as they involve ecological, economic and social aspects. But teaching about these topics often challenges teachers due to high factual complexity but also because of additional affective dimensions. As a consequence, teacher professional development in ESD should address these affective components, to better qualify and motivate teachers to integrate conservation issues into their teaching. To investigate behaviourally relevant factors, we selected the context of natural remigration and conservation of the grey wolf (Canis lupus) in Germany and surveyed 120 pre-service biology teachers (M = 23.2 years, SD = 3.3 years) about contextual factors and their motivation to teach about the issue. Participants reported more positive attitudes, higher enjoyment and an increased perceived behavioural control towards teaching the issue in future teachers when they perceived a smaller psychological distance to the issue and an overall higher motivation to protect the species. As this motivation was grounded in more fundamental personality characteristics like wildlife values and attitudes towards wolves, we discuss the central role of these traits as a basis for transformative learning processes and the necessity of a holistic and subject-specific teacher professional development in ESD.

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Section: Contextual Variablesmentioning

confidence: 69%

Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

2018

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“…The aforementioned changes are, in fact, the skills and tools that enable one to assess environmental risks and the connection between various environmental problems. In addition, one of the most important elements of life science education, especially EE, is the development of systems thinking, a cognitive ability that can be developed through instructional learning [76][77][78]. We therefore suggest that it is reasonable to assume that the improved skills acquired during EE contributed, to one degree or another, to the difference pattern found in this study.…”

Section: Contribution Of Ee To Er Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 72%

“…This suggests that EE broadens peoples' perceptions and understanding regarding the nature and consequences of environmental problems, and contributes to their ability to view these problems through holistic and multi-dimensional lenses. In addition, it is reasonable to assume that heightened risk perception will be translated to action, as Carmi and Kimhi (2015) found among students that higher risk perception resulted in a stronger willingness to act and make sacrifices for the sake of the environment, and Carmi and Bartal (2014) [79] reported that students who perceived environmental threats as more severe reported a higher engagement in environmental behavior. In general, risk perception is considered one of the essential prerequisites for action.…”

Section: Contribution Of Ee To Er Perceptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Risk Literacy and Environmental Education: Does Exposure to Academic Environmental Education Make a Difference in How Students Perceive Ecological Risks and Evaluate Their Risk Severity?

Carmi

Alkaher

2019

Sustainability

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Developed understanding of environmental problems, consequences, and risks constitutes a core target of environmental education (EE). Ecological risks (ERs) are inherently complex, interconnected, and subject to perceptual biases. To explore whether an exposure to EE in academia improves ER literacy, we compared ER perception of students who were exposed to EE (“EE majors”) with students who were not (“non-EE majors”) Drawing on the psychometric paradigm from risk perception research, we compared ER perception between the two groups to identify whether the students perceive, appraise, and prioritize ERs differently, and whether they provide different reasons for their decisions and evaluations. We found significant differences in the perception of overall severity of environmental problems, especially of the less “popular” and familiar ones, characterized by global, complex, and extensive consequences. Compared to non-EE majors, EE majors perceived most ERs as more certain, personal, and temporally and spatially close. Risk prioritization and the reasons given for these choices also differed; EE major students’ choices were mostly guided by holistic reasons, whereas the non-EE major students’ explanations were more anthropocentric or one-dimensional. The discussion focused on the importance of ER literacy in reducing misconceptions of environmental problems and on developing an informed assessment of their severity.

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“…Second, climate change is global, differing from other regional or local risks, such as terrorism or war. Third, climate change is perceived as psychologically distant; people think climate change will harm people other than themselves in the far future (Carmi and Kimhi, 2015;McDonald et al, 2015;Weber, 2016). These attributes hamper human engagement and imply that interventions which serve to bring climate change closer and make it more concrete may be fruitful to explore in empirical research.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

I Can See Clearly Now: Episodic Future Thinking and Imaginability in Perceptions of Climate-Related Risk Events

Bø

Wolff

2020

Front. Psychol.

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Climate change is statistical, abstract and difficult to comprehend directly. Imagining a specific, personal episode where you experience consequences of climate change in the future (episodic future thinking) may bring climate change closer, thus increasing the perceived risk of climate-related risk events. We conducted an experiment to test whether episodic future thinking increased the perceived risk of climate-related risk events and climate change in general, as compared to thinking about the future in a general, abstract manner (semantic future thinking). We also tested whether this effect is moderated by how easy it is to imagine the specific climate-related risk event initially. Participants were randomly assigned to an episodic future thinking-condition or a semantic future thinking-condition, and two of the risk events in each condition were related to flooding (difficult to imagine) and two were related to extreme temperature (easy to imagine). The results show no main effect of episodic future thinking on perceived risk, and no interaction effect with imaginability. Contrary to expectations and earlier research, this suggests that episodic future thinking may not influence risk perception.

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Further Than the Eye Can See: Psychological Distance and Perception of Environmental Threats

Cited by 69 publications

References 35 publications

Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

Do Pre-service Teachers Dance with Wolves? Subject-Specific Teacher Professional Development in A Recent Biodiversity Conservation Issue

Risk Literacy and Environmental Education: Does Exposure to Academic Environmental Education Make a Difference in How Students Perceive Ecological Risks and Evaluate Their Risk Severity?

I Can See Clearly Now: Episodic Future Thinking and Imaginability in Perceptions of Climate-Related Risk Events

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