The psychology of ‘denial’ and our responses to …...• Goal: to understand climate change...

The psychology of ‘denial’ and our responses to climate change CSIRO, Land & Water Flagship

ZOE LEVISTON

What is our group about?

• Human behaviour, individually and

collectively, in relation to environmental sustainability issues.

• We are concerned with understanding psychological, cognitive and affective processing

• Identifying and overcoming the major psychological, social, and cultural barriers to behavioural change and adaptation

Understanding climate change responses

• Goal: to understand climate change ‘responses’: beliefs, opinions, attitudes, emotions, associations and so on, that are triggered by, or somehow related to, climate change.

• Method: series of national annual surveys 2010 (N=5036) 2011 (N=5030) 2012 (N=5081)

2013 (N=5219) 2014 (N=5163) 1000’s of repeat respondents

• Biggest longitudinal database in climate change, nationally and internationally

Which statement best describes your thoughts about climate change?

Climate change attitudes/opinions/beliefs

Pfft, so what?

Individual Behaviours

Opinions and pro-environmental behaviours

Possible thoughts...

What does the evidence tell me?

Just a knowledge deficit?

Conflict of accounts

CSIRO Social and Behavioural Science Group| Zoe Leviston 11 |

Functions

What social and psychological functions might our opinions about climate change serve?

Questions, comments?

Type your questions here anytime

Functional responses

• We strive for consistency, both in our own self-identity, but we also want to appear consistent to others (Cognitive Dissonance Theory*)

• We refer to our existing values to know how to think, feel, and behave

• Some of these values can be thought of as our ‘ideologies’

• Opinions can have a value-expressive function

* Stone, J., & Cooper, J. (2001). A Self-Standards Model of Cognitive Dissonance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 37(3), 228–243. doi:10.1006/jesp.2000.1446

Value expression

• Which opinion ‘team’?

• Demographics?

• What about this person’s ideology?

• It’s all political right?

What might we guess about these people?

Political voting behaviour and opinions about climate change

• Which opinion ‘team’?

• Demographics?

• What are our political preferences based on? Ideologies

What might we guess about these people?

Is this consistent with my other values?

System-Justifying Ideologies System Justification Theory*: • Individuals are motivated to defend prevailing systems (the status-quo) – including inequitable ones – and to see their outcomes as moral, just, and fair

• System justification ....

i) specifies a function: it has an intra-psychic palliative effect

ii) it accounts for the fact that disadvantaged groups often act in a way that is counter to their self-interest

iii) heightened under conditions of uncertainty, or when prevailing systems are under threat

* Jost, J. T., & Banaji, M. (1994). The role of stereotyping in system-justification and the production of false consciousness. British Journal of Social Psychology, 1, 1–27

John Jost

• Economic System Justification (ESJ)* A tendency to view economic inequality as natural, inevitable, and legitimate, and to view economic outcomes as fair and deserved

System-justifying ideologies

*Jost, J. T., & Thompson, E. P. (2000); Feygina, I., Jost, J. T., & Goldsmith, R. E. (2010). ** Sidanius, J., & Pratto, F. (1999). ***Altemeyer, B. (1988).

• Social Dominance Orientation (SDO)** The preference for relationships to be hierarchical rather than equal, and for advocating the right of more powerful groups to dominate weaker groups.

• Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA)*** An advocacy of conventional traditions and established authorities, and value of traditional beliefs, morality, and lifestyle.

These ideologies explained opinions, behaviour, and policy support above and beyond political voting behaviour

For our respondents as a whole....

Questions, comments?

Type your questions here anytime

What is everybody else going to pick?

What’s everyone else going to pick?

What do my friends and family think?

What do the people I respect think?

What sort of person am I?

What does climate change mean to me personally?

What do you think others think?

• “Using those same four statements, what percentage of the Australian population do you think would fall into each category?”

Actual versus Estimated prevalence of opinion

22% 21% 24%

Deny Don't know Natural Human-induced

ActualEstimated

Presentation title | Presenter name 35 |

• The False Consensus Effect:

The tendency among individuals and groups to overestimate how common their own opinion is (Ross, Greene, & House, 1977)

• Why does it happen?

The Availability Heuristic (“What do my friends and family think?”) Need for Social Support (especially for unpopular opinions!)

Presentation title | Presenter name 36 |

Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977). The “False Consensus Effect ”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279–301.

What’s everyone else going to pick?

What do my friends and family think?

What sort of person am I?

What does climate change mean to me personally?

Personal associations with climate change

“Which 3 people first come to mind when you think about climate change?”

then…

Me / myself

then…

Me / myself

then…

Me / myself

then…

Me / myself Family / children / pets etc

Who are our climate change ‘social referents’?

• Authority referents seem to be more important than personal referents

• Authority referents are more often political leaders than scientists

What do people say they base their opinions on?

How can this information help?

Framing climate change communication • Technical information won’t necessarily lead to opinion and behaviour change

(people aren’t stupid!) • Find out what’s important to people! (e.g. Health)

• How do we appeal to multiple values? How do we stop triggering impeding

values?

• Make people aware of the real consensus, not the imagined one

Thank you. For further queries, contact…

Social & Behavioural Sciences Zoe Leviston Social Scientist, Social & Behavioural Sciences Phone: +61 3 9333 6169 Email: Zoe.Leviston@csiro.au Web: www.csiro.au/org/CES

The psychology of ‘denial’ and our responses to …...• Goal: to understand climate change...

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