Effect of "finite pool of worry" and COVID-19 on UK climate change perceptions.

Research reveals that a "finite pool of worry" constrains concern about and action on climate change. Nevertheless, a longitudinal panel survey of 1,858 UK residents, surveyed in April 2019 and June 2020, reveals little evidence for diminishing climate change concern during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, the sample identifies climate change as a bigger threat than COVID-19. The findings suggest climate change has become an intransigent concern within UK public consciousness.

Climate communication for biologists: When a picture can tell a thousand words.

Pictures often tell a story better than the proverbial 1,000 words. However, in connection with climate change, many pictures can be highly misleading, for example, when a snowball is used to ridicule the notion of global warming or when a picture of a dead crop is supposed to alert people to climate change. We differentiate between such inappropriate pictures and those that can be used legitimately because they capture long-term trends. For example, photos of a glacier's retreat are legitimate indicators of the long-term mass balance loss that is observed for the vast majority of glaciers around the world.

Explaining intention to reduce red and processed meat in the UK and Italy using the theory of planned behaviour, meat-eater identity, and the Transtheoretical model.

This study aimed to contribute to the growing literature investigating the psychosocial factors associated with intentions to reduce red and processed meat consumption, given the significant negative impact of meat on public health and in contributing to climate change. A framework combining the Theory of Planned Behaviour with meat-eater identity and the Transtheoretical Model was used to explain intention to reduce red and processed meat consumption across participant samples in the UK and Italy, to identify the factors involved in encouraging behaviour change whilst also considering differences in culinary practices. University students in the UK (n = 320) and Italy (n = 304) completed an online survey including measures from the Theory of Planned Behaviour and the Transtheoretical Model, as well as a measure of meat-eater identity. The results showed differences in the relative impact of subjective norm, perceived behavioural control, and meat-eater identity, on behavioural intention across the different stages of change and across the two countries. On the other hand, attitude remained a stable predictor across the different stages of change and in both countries. The results are discussed in relation to existing literature, with the goal of increasing understanding of how reduced meat consumption might be encouraged across different populations.

Building a Social Mandate for Climate Action: Lessons from COVID-19.

The COVID-19 imposed lockdown has led to a number of temporary environmental side effects (reduced global emissions, cleaner air, less noise), that the climate community has aspired to achieve over a number of decades. However, these benefits have been achieved at a massive cost to welfare and the economy. This commentary draws lessons from the COVID-19 crisis for climate change. It discusses whether there are more sustainable ways of achieving these benefits, as part of a more desirable, low carbon resilient future, in a more planned, inclusive and less disruptive way. In order to achieve this, we argue for a clearer social contract between citizens and the state. We discuss how COVID-19 has demonstrated that behaviours can change abruptly, that these changes come at a cost, that we need a 'social mandate' to ensure these changes remain in the long-term, and that science plays an important role in informing this process. We suggest that deliberative engagement mechanisms, such as citizens' assemblies and juries, could be a powerful way to build a social mandate for climate action post-COVID-19. This would enable behaviour changes to become more accepted, embedded and bearable in the long-term and provide the basis for future climate action.

The impact of parenthood on environmental attitudes and behaviour: a longitudinal investigation of the legacy hypothesis.

Willingness to engage in sustainable actions may be limited by the psychological distance of climate change. In this study, we test the legacy hypothesis, which holds that having children leads parents to consider the legacy left to offspring in respect of environmental quality. Using the Understanding Society dataset, a longitudinal survey representative of the UK population (n = 18,176), we assess how having children may change people's individual environmental attitudes and behaviour. Results indicate that having a new child is associated with a small decrease in the frequency of a few environmental behaviours. Only parents with already high environmental concern show a small increase in the desire to act more sustainably after the birth of their first child. Overall, the results do not provide evidence in support of the legacy hypothesis in terms of individual-level environmental attitudes and behaviours. We argue that the transition to parenthood is a time where concern is prioritised on the immediate wellbeing of the child and not on the future environmental threats.

Climate anxiety and its association with health behaviours and generalized anxiety: An intensive longitudinal study.

OBJECTIVES: The United Nations recognize the importance of balancing the needs of people and the planetary systems on which human health relies. This paper investigates the role that climate change has on human health via its influence on climate anxiety. DESIGN: We conducted an intensive longitudinal study. METHODS: Participants reported levels of climate anxiety, generalized anxiety and an array of health behaviours at 20 consecutive time points, 2 weeks apart. RESULTS: A network analysis shows climate anxiety and generalized anxiety not to covary, and higher levels of climate anxiety not to covary with health behaviours, except for higher levels of alcohol consumption at the within-participant level. Generalized anxiety showed completely distinct patterns of covariation with health behaviours compared with climate anxiety. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings imply that climate anxiety, as conceptualized and measured in the current study, is not in itself functionally impairing in terms of associations with unhealthy behaviours, and is distinct from generalized anxiety. The results also imply that interventions to induce anxiety about the climate might not always have significant impacts on health and well-being.

The 19-Item Environmental Knowledge Test (EKT-19): A short, psychometrically robust measure of environmental knowledge.

Environmental knowledge is considered an important pre-cursor to pro-environmental behaviour. Though several tools have been designed to measure environmental knowledge, there remains no concise, psychometrically grounded measure. We validated an existing measure in a British sample, confirming that it had good one- and three-factor structures in line with previous literature. For the first time in this field, we built upon previous Classical Test Theory approaches and used discrimination values derived from Item Response Theory to select the best items, resulting in the 19-Item Environmental Knowledge Test (EKT-19). This measure retained a clear factor structure and had moderate-to-good internal reliability, indicating that it is a parsimonious and psychometrically robust measure for the assessment of overall and specific types of environmental knowledge. The theoretical implications and real-world applications of this measure are discussed.

Factors and framing effects in support for net zero policies in the United Kingdom.

Achieving ambitious carbon reduction targets requires transformative change to society, with behaviour change playing an important role. Climate change mitigation ('net zero') policies are needed to accelerate and support such behaviour change. This study examined factors and framing effects in public support for net zero policies in the United Kingdom (UK), making use of a large probability sample (ntotal = 5,665) survey conducted in August 2021. It found that net zero policies are widely supported, with only taxes on red meat and dairy products being supported by less than half of the UK public. Climate worry and perceived fairness were the strongest and most consistent predictors of policy support for net zero policies. The results further suggest that support for net zero policies can be increased by emphasising the co-benefits of the policies, in particular where they are beneficial for health. However, the framing effects were very small. In contrast, public support for net zero policies is lower when potential lifestyle and financial costs are mentioned. This suggests that perceived fairness of the distribution of costs and lifestyle implications of policies are crucial for building and maintaining support for net zero.

Effect of linguistic framing and information provision on attitudes towards induced seismicity and seismicity regulation.

Shale gas is an expanding energy source worldwide, yet 'fracking' remains controversial. Amongst public concerns is induced seismicity (tremors). The UK had the most stringent induced seismicity regulations in the world, prior to instating a moratorium on shale gas development. The Government cited induced seismicity as the key rationale for its November 2019 English moratorium. Yet, little is known about how the public perceives induced seismicity, whether they support regulatory change, or how framing and information provision affect perceptions. Across three waves of a longitudinal experimental UK survey (N = 2777; 1858; 1439), we tested whether framing of induced seismicity influences support for changing regulations. The surveys compared (1) quantitative versus qualitative framings, (2) information provision about regulatory limits in other countries and (3) seismicity from other industries, and (4) framing a seismic event as an 'earthquake' or something else. We find low support for changing current policy, and that framing and information provision made little difference to this. The one strong influence on perceptions of seismic events came from the type of activity causing the event; shale gas extraction clearly led to the most negative reactions. We discuss implications for future UK policy on shale gas and geothermal energy in an evolving energy landscape.

The impact of COVID-19 related regulations and restrictions on mobility and potential for sustained climate mitigation across the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK: a data-based commentary.

Human behaviour change is necessary to meet targets set by the Paris Agreement to mitigate climate change. Restrictions and regulations put in place globally to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 during 2020 have had a substantial impact on everyday life, including many carbon-intensive behaviours such as transportation. Changes to transportation behaviour may reduce carbon emissions. Behaviour change theory can offer perspective on the drivers and influences of behaviour and shape recommendations for how policy-makers can capitalise on any observed behaviour changes that may mitigate climate change. For this commentary, we aimed to describe changes in data relating to transportation behaviours concerning working from home during the COVID-19 pandemic across the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. We display these identified changes in a concept map, suggesting links between the changes in behaviour and levels of carbon emissions. We consider these changes in relation to a comprehensive and easy to understand model of behaviour, the Opportunity, Motivation Behaviour (COM-B) model, to understand the capabilities, opportunities and behaviours related to the observed behaviour changes and potential policy to mitigate climate change. There is now an opportunity for policy-makers to increase the likelihood of maintaining pro-environmental behaviour changes by providing opportunities, improving capabilities and maintaining motivation for these behaviours.

Behaviour change to address climate change.

Addressing climate change requires profound behaviour change, not only in consumer action, but also in action as members of communities and organisations, and as citizens who can influence policies. However, while many behavioural models exist to explain and predict mitigation and adaptation behaviours, we argue that their utility in establishing meaningful change is limited due to their being too reductive, individualistic, linear, deliberative and blind to environmental impact. This has led to a focus on suboptimal intervention strategies, particularly informational approaches. Addressing the climate crisis requires a focus on high-impact behaviours and high-emitting groups; interdisciplinary interventions that address the multiple drivers, barriers and contexts of behaviour; and timing to ensure interventions are targeted to moments of change when habits are weaker.

Motivation and climate change: A review.

This paper reviews motivations people experience about climate change and integrates recent findings into the BUCkET model of core social goals. We argue that environmentalism is not the main cause of thoughts or behaviors about climate change. Rather, the evolved social needs for Belongingness, Understanding, Control, self-Enhancement, and Trust are more practical intervention targets than the attempt to create environmentalist beliefs or identities. We used database searches to identify the key research areas on motivation and climate change and synthesized articles into the BUCkET model. This reveals some limiting assumptions of previous approaches and suggests the effectiveness of targeting existing motives rather than fostering new values or worldviews.

The limitations of polling data in understanding public support for COVID-19 lockdown policies.

Opinion polls regarding policies designed to tackle COVID-19 have shown public support has remained high throughout the first year of the pandemic in most places around the world. However, there is a risk that headline support over-simplifies people's views. We carried out a two-wave survey with six-month interval on a public sample (N = 212) in the UK, examining the factors that underpin lockdown policy support. We find that the majority of people support most public health measures introduced, but that they also see significant side effects of these policies, and that they consider many of these side effects as unacceptable in a cost-benefit analysis. We also find that people judged the threat of COVID-19 via the magnitude of the policy response, and that they do not use their perception of the personal threat to themselves or close others to guide their support for policy. Polling data only offer one simple perspective and do not illustrate the ambivalence many people feel around lockdown policies. There is also a meaningful risk of public opinion and government policy forming a symbiotic relationship, which impacts upon how effectively such policies are implemented both now, and in relation to future threats.

How psychology can help limit climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5°C or 2°C of global warming. To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change. Psychologists need to go further and, in particular, show that integrating psychological concepts into feasible interventions can reduce greenhouse gas emissions far more than would be achieved without such integration. While critiquing some aspects of current approaches, we describe psychological research that is pointing the way by distinguishing different types of behavior, acknowledging sociocultural context, and collaborating with other disciplines. Engaging this challenge offers psychologists new opportunities for promoting mitigation, advancing psychological understanding, and developing better interdisciplinary interactions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Two Birds, One Stone: The Effectiveness of Health and Environmental Messages to Reduce Meat Consumption and Encourage Pro-environmental Behavioral Spillover.

There is a growing consensus that reducing excess meat consumption will be necessary to meet climate change targets, whilst also benefitting people's health. Strategies aimed at encouraging reduced meat consumption also have the potential to promote additional pro-environmental behaviors through behavioral spillover, which can be catalyzed through an increased pro-environmental identity. Based on this, the current study tested the effectiveness of a randomized two-week messaging intervention on reducing red and processed meat consumption and encouraging pro-environmental behavioral spillover. Participants were undergraduate students in the United Kingdom (n = 320 at baseline) randomly allocated to four conditions in which they received information about the health, environmental, or combined (health and environmental) impacts of meat consumption, and a no-message control. The results showed that receiving information on the health and/or environmental impacts of meat was effective in reducing red and processed meat consumption compared to the control group during the intervention period, with some effects remaining one-month later. However, the intervention did not have any effect on pro-environmental identity and there was little evidence of behavioral spillover. Implications for future research and interventions aimed at reducing meat consumption are discussed.

Local climate change cultures: climate-relevant discursive practices in three emerging economies.

In recent decades, greater acknowledgement has been given to climate change as a cultural phenomenon. This paper takes a cultural lens to the topic of climate change, in which climate-relevant understandings are grounded in wider cultural, political and material contexts. We approach climate-relevant accounts at the level of the everyday, understood as a theoretically problematic and politically contested space This is in contrast to simply being the backdrop to mundane, repetitive actions contributing to environmental degradation and the site of mitigative actions. Taking discourse as a form of practice in which fragments of cultural knowledge are drawn on to construct our environmental problems, we investigate citizens' accounts of climate-relevant issues in three culturally diverse emerging economies: Brazil, South Africa and China. These settings are important because greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are predicted to significantly increase in these countries in the future. We conducted semi-structured interviews with a range of citizens in each country using a narrative approach to contextualise climate-relevant issues as part of people's lifestyle narratives. Participants overwhelmingly framed their accounts in the context of locally-salient issues, and few accounts explicitly referred to the phenomenon of climate change. Instead, elements of climate changes were conflated with other environmental issues and related to a wide range of cultural assumptions that influenced understandings and implied particular ways of responding to environmental problems. We conclude that climate change scholars should address locally relevant understandings and develop dialogues that can wider meanings that construct climate-relevant issues in vernacular ways at the local level.

How to Measure Behavioral Spillovers: A Methodological Review and Checklist.

A growing stream of literature at the interface between economics and psychology is currently investigating 'behavioral spillovers' in (and across) different domains, including health, environmental, and pro-social behaviors. A variety of empirical methods have been used to measure behavioral spillovers to date, from qualitative self-reports to statistical/econometric analyses, from online and lab experiments to field experiments. The aim of this paper is to critically review the main experimental and non-experimental methods to measure behavioral spillovers to date, and to discuss their methodological strengths and weaknesses. A consensus mixed-method approach is then discussed which uses between-subjects randomization and behavioral observations together with qualitative self-reports in a longitudinal design in order to follow up subjects over time. In particular, participants to an experiment are randomly assigned to a treatment group where a behavioral intervention takes place to target behavior 1, or to a control group where behavior 1 takes place absent any behavioral intervention. A behavioral spillover is empirically identified as the effect of the behavioral intervention in the treatment group on a subsequent, not targeted, behavior 2, compared to the corresponding change in behavior 2 in the control group. Unexpected spillovers and additional insights (e.g., drivers, barriers, mechanisms) are elicited through analysis of qualitative data. In the spirit of the pre-analysis plan, a systematic checklist is finally proposed to guide researchers and policy-makers through the main stages and features of the study design in order to rigorously test and identify behavioral spillovers, and to favor transparency, replicability, and meta-analysis of studies.

Perceptions of Local Environmental Issues and the Relevance of Climate Change in Nepal's Terai: Perspectives From Two Communities.

The direct and indirect impacts of global climate change entail serious consequences for global biophysical and social systems, including the health, well-being and sustainability of communities. These impacts are especially serious for vulnerable groups in economically developing societies. While climate change is a global phenomenon, it is at the local level that impacts are most felt, and from where responses to climate change are enacted. It is increasingly urgent that communities possess the capacity to respond to climate change, now and in the future. Community representations of climate-relevant issues are critical to underpinning responses. Environmental representations do not directly reflect actual physical conditions but are interpreted through social and cultural layers of understanding that shape environmental issues. This paper investigates environmental and climate-relevant perceptions within two communities in the Terai region of Nepal; the city of Bharatpur and the village of Kumroj in Chitwan Province. Following mixed findings on levels of climate change awareness in Nepal, we set out to explore perspectives on the environment and climate change awareness by conducting 30 qualitative interviews with local people. The study found that issues linked to sanitation and cleanliness were most important in both communities, while reports of temperature and weather changes were less common and typically linked to local causes rather than climate change. Imagined futures were also closely related to current environmental issues affecting communities and did not discuss climate change, though temperature and weather changes were anticipated. However, when talk of climate change was deliberately elicited, participants displayed their awareness, though this was rarely linked to local conditions. We conclude that, in light of other pressing local issues, climate change is yet to penetrate the environmental representations of some communities and there is a need to address the disconnect between local issues and global climate change. Making climate change relevant at the local level by connecting to salient local issues and co-benefits comprises an important step in bridging the gap between more global awareness and its relevance more locally, particularly for communities at risk.

Compensatory and Catalyzing Beliefs: Their Relationship to Pro-environmental Behavior and Behavioral Spillover in Seven Countries.

There is growing research interest in behavioral spillover and its potential for enabling more widespread lifestyle change than has typically been achieved through discrete behavioral interventions. There are some routes by which spillover could take place without conscious attention or explicit recognition of the connections between separate behaviors. However, in many cases there is an expectation that an individual will perceive behaviors to be conceptually related, specifically in terms of their compensatory (suppressing further action) or catalyzing (promoting further action) properties, as a prerequisite for both negative and positive spillover. Despite this, relatively little research has been carried out to assess the beliefs that may underpin spillover processes as held by individuals themselves, or to measure these directly. We develop and evaluate a survey-based instrument for this purpose, doing so in a sample of seven countries worldwide: Brazil, China, Denmark, India, Poland, South Africa, and the United Kingdom (approx. 1,000 respondents per country). This approach allows us to assess these measures and to compare findings between countries. As part of this, we consider the connections between beliefs about behavioral relationships, and other key variables such as pro-environmental identity and personal preferences. We observe higher levels of endorsement of compensatory beliefs than previous research, and even higher levels of endorsement of novel items assessing catalyzing beliefs. For the first time, we present evidence of the validity of such measures with respect to comparable constructs, and in relation to people's consistency across different types of behaviors. We reflect on the implications of considering the relationships between behaviors in the context of people's subjective beliefs and offer recommendations for developing this line of research in the broader context of spillover research and within a cross-cultural framework.