Terror Management Theory and mortality awareness: A missing link in climate response studies?

Abstract

Adaptation and mitigation efforts are hampered by multiple obstacles and thus lag behind climate changes' speed and scope. Some of the most powerful obstacles to climate action are the social-psychological factors that influence human thought, preferences, and behaviors. These factors, including those articulated by environmental psychology generally, and Terror Management Theory (TMT) specifically, are neglected within climate response research. TMT underlies an extensive and wellestablished literature; researchers have shown that efforts to repress one's mortality awareness, triggered when people are explicitly or implicitly reminded of their unavoidable death, influences individuals' attitudes and behavior. These psychological defenses, including denial, distraction and worldview defense, sometimes produce counterintuitive and potentially counter-productive outcomes. Meanwhile, the growing global awareness and media coverage of climate change, and much scholarly research, has skewed toward negative "disaster and death" narratives. Exposure to such stimuli, highlighting climate change's potentially life-threatening effects, may exacerbate counter-productive responses. In this thought experiment, we propose that mortality awareness could be a critical variable that helps explain climate action at the individual and societal levels. We survey TMT insights, focusing on the relationship between mortality reminders and human responses. We then identify how climate change may lead to increased mortality awareness and consider the psychological defenses triggered by this awareness. We argue that mortality defenses may both limit and advance climate action. Finally, we set out an agenda for TMT-climate response research and discuss the potential to advance several inquiry lines, including climate change communication, collective action and the capacity for transformational responses.

The work after “It's too late” (to prevent dangerous climate change)

“…Confrontation with impending actual or symbolic death can lead to intensified efforts to resist, contest and deny the facts, and often vitriolic arguments against the possibility of endings (for a recent review see Wolfe and Tubi ()). Eventually, and typically when there is no longer any other alternative, individuals may come to accept the approaching death and engage actively in efforts to bring unfinished aspects of their lives to a more satisfying closing.…”

“…Researchers take climate change seriously not just as an inconvenience, occasional disruption or threat to physical assets, ecosystems, livelihoods and lifestyles, but as an existential threat. This has opened the door to applications of trauma psychologies (Woodbury, ) and existentialist psychologies (Langford, ; Wolfe & Tubi, ). Meanwhile, the scientific and philosophical literature on hope is witnessing a revival, in no small part because of the dire prospects that climate change puts before us (Foster, ; Myers, Nisbet, Maibach, & Leiserowitz, ; Ojala, ; Pihkala, ; Wrangel, )…”

“…2 | RECOGNIZING, ACKNOWLEDGING, AND EMBRACING ENDINGS 2.1 | At the threshold Culturally, in the secularized, developed, privileged West and, psychologically, for probably most individuals in that cultural context, final limits and endings are difficult to embrace Wolfe & Tubi, 2019). The history of the past 300 years (at least) can be read as one of perpetual efforts by humans pushing back the physical limits of nature with science and technology, to the point of believing that there are none or at least no ultimate ones.…”

It's not “too late”: Learning from Pacific Small Island Developing States in a warming world

“…When local values are respected alongside the introduction of new advances in science, these values can be a powerful source of support, helping to sustain far‐reaching adaptation and mitigation efforts (Fletcher et al, ; O'Brien et al, ). For example some researchers have called for “transformative adaptation” or a “fundamental shift” in values away from “high consumption lifestyles” toward low carbon living (Wolfe & Tubi, ). But for many young members of Pacific communities, these transformations are already occurring, and are sustained by traditional values.…”

Is it too late (to stop dangerous climate change)? An editorial

“…Second, the rhetoric of climate endings and extinction does not help psychologically —which is the main point made by O'Neill and Nicholson‐Cole () in their widely cited article titled “Fear won't do it.” It all too easily induces feelings of terror, as Ed Maibach at George Mason University exemplifies, “As a public health professional (and as a human), I find the prospect of 3 or 4 degree C of global warming to be nothing short of terrifying.” But inducing a state of terror generates counter‐productive responses in human behavior (Wolfe & Tubi, ) and also creates political space for the unthinkable. Just as invoking a state of terror after 9/11 paralyzed people's critical thinking and made many Americans and others accept the reckless decision by Bush administration to invade Iraq, a state of terror can do the same thing for climate change.…”