Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change

Brügger, Adrian; Dessai, Suraje; Devine-Wright, Patrick; Morton, Thomas A.; Pidgeon, Nicholas F. (2015). Psychological responses to the proximity of climate change. Nature climate change, 5(12), pp. 1031-1037. Nature Publishing Group 10.1038/nclimate2760

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A frequent suggestion to increase individuals' willingness to take action on climate change and to support relevant policies is to highlight its proximal consequences, that is, those that are close in space and time. But previous studies that have tested this proximizing approach have not revealed the expected positive effects on individual action and support for addressing climate change. We present three lines of psychological reasoning that provide compelling arguments as to why highlighting proximal impacts of climate change might not be as effective a way to increase individual mitigation and adaptation efforts as is often assumed. Our contextualization of the proximizing approach within established psychological research suggests that, depending on the particular theoretical perspective one takes on this issue, and on specific individual characteristics suggested by these perspectives, proximizing can bring about the intended positive effects, can have no (visible) effect or can even backfire. Thus, the effects of proximizing are much more complex than is commonly assumed. Revealing this complexity contributes to a refined theoretical understanding of the role that psychological distance plays in the context of climate change and opens up further avenues for future research and for interventions.

Item Type:

Journal Article (Further Contribution)

Division/Institute:

03 Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences > Department of Business Management > Institute of Innovation Management > Consumer Behavior

UniBE Contributor:

Gadient-Brügger, Adrian

Subjects:

600 Technology > 650 Management & public relations
100 Philosophy > 150 Psychology
300 Social sciences, sociology & anthropology

ISSN:

1758-678X

Publisher:

Nature Publishing Group

Language:

English

Submitter:

Adrian Gadient-Brügger

Date Deposited:

10 Nov 2015 14:04

Last Modified:

05 Dec 2022 14:49

Publisher DOI:

10.1038/nclimate2760

BORIS DOI:

10.7892/boris.72785

URI:

https://boris.unibe.ch/id/eprint/72785

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