The climate change problem: promoting motivation for change when the map is not the territory

Frontiers in Psychology

Idit Shalev¹ 

关键词: climate change;    automatic processes;    energy;    goal pursuit;    motivation for change;    strategic intervention;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00131

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

The climate-change risks that have emerged in the wake of mass industrialization indicate the need for a transition to sustainable energy, but attempts to encourage people to adopt pro-environmental behavior often achieve only limited success (Whitmarsh and O'Neill, 2010; Chu and Majumdar, 2012). Indeed, despite the wealth of evidence that an energy transition is critical to our very survival, people in general are reluctant to change their energy related decisions and behaviors. I suggest that the key to understanding our stunted ability to address the problem of climate change is rooted in human motivation, which is defined as the process that moves individuals to action. Motivational barriers, which imply difficulties in energy, direction and action initiation, can be illustrated by the analogy of a car, which requires fuel as its energy source and a steering system to provide direction; without both, it cannot move (Deci and Ryan, 1985). Similarly, motivational processes are impelled by two modes of action: one, automatic, effortless and involving no conscious awareness, is responsible for people's immediate responses to the environment. The second is voluntary and conscious, and it mainly helps people navigate and plan for the future direction (Bargh, 1997; Baumeister and Bargh, 2014). From this perspective, the phenomenon of motivation for change is influenced by both implicit and explicit processes and determined by the energy required to navigate in a new direction and the extent to which resistance to change can be overcome (Prochaska and DiClemente, 1986). In what follows, I will describe the unique challenges associated with motivation for change in terms of the two modes of goal pursuit, first by examining the conscious, explicit difficulties associated with making climate change goal and implementing the corresponding means and then by describing the effects of automatic, implicit processes on immediate goal pursuit. Finally, based on social psychology perspective of motivation and strategic principles of psychological intervention, I will provide several recommendations for promoting the energy transition.

【 授权许可】

CC BY