Towards a Psychology of Climate Change

Abstract

This paper gives a structured overview about possible contributions of psychology to the climate change debate. As a starting point, it assumes that understanding people’s behaviour related to climate change (mitigation and adaptation) is crucial for successfully dealing with the future challenges. Climate change-related behaviour includes voting, support for climate lobbyists, individual consumption, adapting new technology, and taking adaptive actions. A framework model is presented that assumes the following psychological processes to be relevant for people’s climate related behaviour (1) experiencing climate change, (2) developing an understanding for climate change, (3) building up knowledge about climate change, (4) emotionally reacting to climate change, (5) the perception of risk, (6) making behavioural decisions, and (7) evaluating behavioural outcomes. Based on psychological theory and empirical findings, it is argued that climate change possesses certain features that make it hard for laypeople to develop an understanding, build correct knowledge, and react emotionally. Furthermore, explanations are presented for why the risk of climate change has a rather low perception among laypeople, and what possible factors there are that interfere with individual mitigation and adaptation. Finally, based on the presented findings, suggestions for climate policy are made.