The climate change issue has been gaining traction with each passing moment.
(Seemingly so, anyways...)
News articles and government reports
portray a grim future where natural resources are scarce and natural disasters are
all too abundant (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [IPCC], 2018). Countless
documentary films suggest no different (Guggenheim & Gore, 2006). To some, this
comes with an added dose of irony: Capitalism – the very system which can be
owed to their box-office success, is the supposed driving force behind global
pollution. To others, the ingenuity of free-market capitalism will provide the
answer to our environmental ills. Not only is there infighting among climate
change’s adherents, there is also a battle over the seriousness, legitimacy,
and relevance of this issue. Indeed, some concerned citizens have made
meaningful changes in their own lives, but this amounts to only a fraction of
what climate change reports call for (IPCC, 2018). Nevertheless popular
sentiment suggests that climate change poses an existential threat to the Earth,
so what’s with all the talk, and not all the action?
Let's focus on one study in particular, which aims to mitigate ecological harm through unlikely means; psychology. In “Redefining Climate Change Inaction as Temporal Intergroup Bias: Temporally Adapted Interventions for Reducing Prejudice May Help Elicit Environmental Protection” (2017), researchers Rose Meleady and Richard Crisp shed light on the psychological barriers yielding this disparity between action, inaction and disbelief in climate change.
As
is often the case when giving science away to the public; methods, findings,
implications and applications are often muddled through a misunderstanding of
scientific vocabulary. To some, “temporal intergroup bias” may at first glance
appear incomprehensible jargon. Simply put, this describes the perceptions one
makes of ingroup and outgroup peers, and the favoritism bias inherent towards
the former. In this case, groups are defined temporally; as living and future generations
(Medleady & Crisps, 2017). It is this old generation’s prejudice for the new generation that lies at the center of Meleady and Crisps’s hypothesis (2017).
"It would “betray future generations” to not act boldly on climate change"
Now,
one might ask; how could prejudice possibly mediate climate change engagement!?
Prejudice is so often conceived as racial bias or perhaps gender bias, but it
can just as easily be generational – and it must not necessarily be explicit
bias either. Meleady and Crisp aptly cited a phrase from Barrack Obama’s final presidential
address as an example of this: It would “betray future generations” to not act boldly on climate change (2017).
Likewise, they paraphrase Pope Francis in stating “the destruction of the
natural world for our own benefit as a sin against God and future
generations” (Medleady
& Crisps, 2017).
Minimal Groups Paradigm suggests that the formation of groups may be
founded upon any uniting factor, however arbitrary it may seem (Medleady
& Crisps, 2017).
By seeing our current generation as a separate entity from future ones, Meleady
and Crisp hypothesize that, due to a favourable ingroup bias, we see climate
change as a presumably distant threat and an irrelevant concern for our generation
(2017): In this context, ingroup members – the present generation – are making
sacrifices for the benefit of a future generation (e.g. reducing fuel
consumption, plastic waste, industrial farming). This comes with little
perceived intrinsic reward for ourselves, with no chance of reprisal from the temporally
distant outgroup; the future generation. When we choose to support ingroup
members, or feel less compassion for outgroup members who experience harm, this
in effect, is prejudice. Most importantly, this highlights how psychology does indeed
play a role in prejudice – not merely politics and physical traits (Medleady
& Crisps, 2017).
These temporal intergroup boundaries are arbitrary. As Meleady and
Crisp believe; they are likely a product of our desire to socially categorize our
peers – predicated upon a psychological urge to find patterns where they apparently
exist, rather than a logical, political goal (2017). It’s in this distinction
that the beauty of Meleady and Crisp’s research lies: Rather than attempting to
outright extinguish this supposed psychological desire – a futile endeavor –
the scientists intend to flip that desire on its head: By redefining the
parameters of ingroup and outgroup membership (2017).
In a small 2017 pilot study designed to test the efficacy of this approach,
Meleady and Crisp had 140 participants randomly divided into control and
experimental groups. The experimental group was tasked with identifying five similarities
between present and future generations. The control group had a similar task,
albeit with irrelevant categories (e.g. cats and dogs). Participants then rated
how similar they felt to future generations. The experimental condition
reported statistically significant scores, compared to the non-significant
scores of their control group counterparts. In other words, Meleady and Crisp
found the result they were hoping for: By consciously breaking down these
arbitrary intergroup barriers, we do indeed have the ability to identify with,
and accept, those outside of our traditional groups (Medleady
& Crisps, 2017).
Meleady and Crisp took this a step further with two subsequent 2017 experimental
studies. Both were conducted to determine if changing intergroup attitudes can also
garner pro-environmental behaviours. The first study asked 80 participants to
think about present and future generations (like in the first study) or sports
(an irrelevant issue). Participants were then asked if they would purchase a
more environmentally sustainable version of common products such as jeans,
milk, and electronic devices. The second study had a similar design to the
first, albeit with a key difference: Participants were asked if they would
perform more environmentally conscious behaviours that transcended mere buying
habits (Medleady & Crisps, 2017).
In both studies, the results met the researchers’ predictions: Not only
can arbitrary intergroup barriers be broken down by demonstrating group similarity;
this newfound similarity also has the potential to foster better environmental
stewardship behaviours (Medleady & Crisps,
2017). This is
all fine and well to say that a simple change in attitudes can be a great boon
for establishing environmental concern, but is that really realistic? How could
this research possibly generate tangible results in the real world, outside the
laboratory? Surely, it wouldn’t be wise to make every ill-informed person on
earth write down what they like about the next generation. Rather, I would
contend that a far more reasonable, albeit somewhat sneaky application is at
hand.
"Poor communication is the sieve in the floodgate that strains words from
actions"
Our ideas about the world are not informed in a vacuum. What we read
and how we feel about it is more important than ever. In what has been
described as a post-truth era, the veritable weight of cold hard facts pales in
comparison to emotional appeals (McIntyre, 2018). Each time a news article is
written, a scientific report articulated, or dialogue with friends and family
orated, it provides us with a valuable opportunity: If it can prompt us to
consider personal relevance and why we should care for our fellow man or woman –
no matter when they’ll inherit this planet – then perhaps we can find ourselves
in a more ecologically-sensitive world. All the knowledge gained through scientific
research can only be rendered useful if it is communicated well (McIntyre,
2018).
Poor communication is the sieve in the floodgate that strains words from
actions: If done through dry and jargon-heavy means, our communication of this
climate change problem only speaks to those who already know it’s a problem, while
potentially alienating others. If done in a psychologically-sensitive way, the
same statistics and findings can be transformed from informative to
inspirational; helping one find congruence between their knowledge and feelings
of the issue. That can ignite meaningful action; before this already dire situation is rendered wholly irreparable.
I would hope a more holistic method for communicating climate change findings
is imparted before those findings become self-evident. In many ways, climate
change is already here: A report from World Wildlife Foundation – which compiled
data from dozens of climate scientists – suggests that humanity has killed over
60% of wild animals (World Wildlife Foundation, 2018). Likewise, a raise in
global temperature of only a few more degrees would almost assuredly be
catastrophic (IPCC, 2018). We are living in a dire situation, lying on the precipice
of an ecological point-of-no-return. As such, it’s imperative we use every tool
in our arsenal – including psychology – to combat this.
References
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. (2018). Summary For Policymakers. Retrieved
from http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf
Guggenheim, D. (Director), & Gore, A.
(Screenwriter). (2006). An Inconvenient Truth [Video file]. France:
Paramount Pictures. Retrieved November 1, 2018.
Meleady,
R., & Crisp, R. J. (2017). Redefining climate change inaction as temporal
intergroup bias: Temporally adapted interventions for reducing prejudice may
help elicit environmental protection. Journal of Environmental Psychology,
53, 206-212. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.08.005
McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. Cambridge,
Massachusetts: MIT Press.
World Wildlife Foundation. (2018). Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher. Retrieved from http://pure.iiasa.ac.at/id/eprint/15549/1/%255bEMBARGO%2030%20OCT%255d%20LPR2018_Full%20Report_12.10.2018.pdf
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