In the midst of climate change, affecting our environment, habits and habitat, cognitive sciences, and more specifically neuroscience and psychology, can allow us to better understand our drivers for action and inaction, our adaptative behavior and the biological and physiological consequences of environmental change.
Putting into evidence the relation between brain health and climate change
Researchers warn that increased heat stress resulting from global warming has a detrimental effect on health and productivity.
According to Nancy Sicotte, MD, chair of the Department of Neurology of Cedar Sinai Hospital, there is an optimum temperature at which the body and the brain work best. Moreover, heat stress caused by climate change and extreme weather will lead to a reduction in working hours and disproportionately affect workers in specific industries such as construction and agriculture. The extreme fluctuation in temperature can also affect categories of the population that have difficulties regulating their body temperature such as infants, seniors, or chronic disease patients. Patients with neurological diseases can experience worsening in symptoms resulting from a rise in their body temperature.
Psychologist also worry about the consequences of climate change for mental well-being: stress, anxiety, depression, PTSD and even substance abuse can affect people and especially those who lost their homes due to devastating events such as floods and wildfires. To better understand the impact on individual and community well being, there is a very interesting podcast with Dr Susan Clayton, from the American Psychological Association (APA), available here.
We also can’t omit mentioning the phenomenon of eco-anxiety. The American Psychology Association describes eco-anxiety as “the chronic fear of environmental cataclysm that comes from observing the seemingly irrevocable impact of climate change and the associated concern for one’s future and that of next generations”. Symptoms of the internalization of climate change include anxiety, stress, sleep disturbances, nervousness and, in more serious cases, a sensation of suffocation or even severe depression. It is quite common to express a strong sense of guilt about the situation of the planet which can be aggravated among those who have children when thinking about their future.
Underlying drivers for action and inaction
Climate change affects millions of lives and its effects will be more and more extreme in the years to come. Despite the evidence of this global threat to humanity, which hinders our environment, economies and social systems, a paradox remains, there is still a lack of institutional and individual responses. How can we explain this?
Science is well equipped to understand such paradox and lack of action. At the macro-scale, social neurosciences, psychology and cognitive neuroscience study decision-making processes, including strategies and bias, which allows us to understand what can facilitate or hamper behavior change as a reaction of climate change. Brain imaging has further allowed to describe the brain circuits governing the responses to the uncertainty, fear and other emotional reactions triggered by the climate crisis and its consequences. Neurosciences have therefore a role to play to tackle human inaction against climate change.
Cognitive research: beyond the issue of misinformation, the issue of empathy
Researchers from the University of Stanford gave a first set of explanations to inaction, misinformation: “Once people internalize misinformation, it is notoriously difficult to dislodge.” (J.Cook, 2019).
But beyond denialism and misinformation, they have also put into evidence the fact that the brain is wired to underestimate the climate threat. This is due to the fact that many people see the risks and the benefits of mitigating them as too uncertain and too far away geographically and in the future.
“The fact that people aren’t acting in a more climate friendly way isn’t because we know too little about this critical situation” explains Daria Knoch, Social Neuroscience Professor at the University of Bern, it lays on our lack of capacity to mentalize and empathize with those that are affected by climate change and especially with the future generations.
The experiment organized by Dr Knoch’s team, mimicked the consequences of the overuse of resources affecting people in the future. Participants, organized in groups of four, had to withdraw real money from a shared pool. The more money they withdrew, the more they had in their pockets but the less the next group had available to withdraw. Applying a non-invasive and harmless electrical current, researchers stimulated a brain area responsible for empathy and the ability to take into consideration others’ perspective. The result was that individuals that were stimulated made more sustainable decisions that individuals that weren’t stimulated.
Psychology’s contribution: the four key challenges and solutions for efficient climate change communication
“Fighting climate change is as much a psychological battle as it is a political or economic one. Together, we must overcome the cognitive barriers to popular acceptance of the realities of climate change” (Ellsworth et al, 2021).
One of psychology’s greatest contribution to the fight against climate change is to allow us to understand individual behavior and drivers. It also allows to address social structures that stand as a barrier or a stimulus to behavior change.
According to psychology professor Tania Lombrozo from Berkley University, there are four key elements that act as psychological barriers and that make climate change communication particularly challenging:
- People are more responsive to personal experience than abstract analysis. Information about climate change has therefore to be translated into relatable and concrete everyday experiences.
- When faced to the extent and enormity of climate change, people tend to lose any sense of personal efficacy. Rather than capitalize on despair, we should stimulate individuals through social norms that reward pro environmental individual behavior. In Belgium, for example, you get a discount at the supermarket for bringing in empty glass bottles.
- We tend to treat the immediate and personal differently from the uncertain and distant. Communication about climate change might have to focus more on regional impact and underline the current effect in close communities.
- People’s attitudes towards risk can depend on whether they are thinking about potential losses and gains. People are more willing to tolerate risks when dealing with losses. Climate change communication should therefore focus on a more positivist discourse underlying immediate benefits of policy support rather than capitalizing on fear and negative future consequences. An example can be to focus on positive financial consequences (cheaper bills!) of saving energy and reducing energy consumption.
Working on brain skills and resilience
In light of the neurocognitive challenges presented by climate change, researchers have launched Brain Capital, an OECD neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative. The goal is to advance the notions of resilience and brain economy. Faced with the risks that climate change and environmental degradation present to our wellbeing and brain health, researchers wish to unlock critical thinking skills, resilience and creativity in order to face the social and ecological challenges ahead. We will follow this initiative with great interest!
Sources
University of Bern, Brain study on how to slow down climate change. Read article here. 15 December 2021.
Ellsworth et al, PRODEO Institute, Stanford University, Our brains are accelerating the climate catastrophe. Psychiatric Times. Read article here. 6 April 2021.
Sicotte.N, Cedars Sinai Hospital, The Brain and climate change. Neuroscience News. Read article here. 27 February 2020.
Clayton.S, Podcast “Speaking of Psychology, Episode 79 – The Psychology of Climate Change” American Psychology Association. Podcast. Available here. April 2019.
Lombrozo.T, University of Berkeley, How psychology can save the world from climate change. Cosmos & Culture, NPR. Read article here. 30 November 2015.
Van der Liden.S, Maibach.E, Leiserowitz.A, Improving Public Engagement With Climate Change: Five “Best Practice” Insights From Psychological Science, Association for Psychological Science, SAGE journals, read abstract here. 2015.
American Psychological Association, Psychology & global climate change addressing a multifaceted phenomenon and set of challenges. Read executive summary here. 2009.