How to motivate your self, and others to act on climate change, biodiversity or anything else - tips from psychology
This talk may help you if you are thinking about how to motivate both yourself and others, and also governments, to act on climate change, biodiversity loss or indeed anything. The way you might do it instinctively, to focus on all the negatives that need to be fixed, is actually not the best approach. Psychologists call this negative framing.
Psychology says, in order to create engagement, we should present, on balance, three positive or supportive framings for each climate threat we mention.
Epsen Stokes, 8:49 into this video.
Yet so many get this wrong. Even experts. Even leaders of countries. Even top film makers like David Attenborough.
The biggest obstacle to dealing with climate disruptions lies between your ears, says psychologist and economist Per Espen Stokes. He's spent years studying the defenses we use to avoid thinking about the demise of our planet -- and figuring out a new way of talking about global warming that keeps us from shutting down. Step away from the doomsday narratives and learn how to make caring for the earth feel personable, do-able and empowering with this fun, informative talk.
This is his main graphic
The five barriers are:
- distancing from the situation, it seems far away in time and space
- a doom laden narrative that makes us fearful and for many people means they want to avoid the topic altogether - more than 80% of media articles still use disaster framings but people habituate to doom overuse
- a dissonance between what you want to do and the solutions,
- leading to denial of the problem, - not from lack of intelligence or knowledge, but when you are aware of some troubling knowledge but live and act as if you don’t know.
- Then identity - if you hear from an activist that you have to do something that goes against your values, for instance if you have conservative values and hear that the govenment must expand its influence. My identity trumps the truth any day.
We flip them by
- Flip distance to social by spreading social norms positive to solutions, if I believe my friends or neighbours will do something, I will too. Peer to peer creating a new normal
- flip doom to supportive, for instance reframe climate as about human health, good for you and for the climate, rather than about disaster and cost. To create engagement, we should present three positive or supporting framings for each climate threat we mention.
- flip dissonance by nudging to simpler actions - there are things we can do right now. As our behaviours are nudged then we realize we are already doing these things and the dissonance evaporates
- flip denial with signals that visualize our progress - we can see we are doing things already
- flip identity with better stories - of people who are acting, heroes and heroines to emulate and admire
This then completes the circle back to social. Individual solutions can’t solve climate problems alone but they do build a stronger bottom-up support for the policies and solutions that can
TRANSCRIPT WITH INTERLEAVED SUMMARIES
- distancing from the situation, it seems far away in time and space
When people hear news about the climate coming straight at them, the first defense comes up rapidly: distance.
When we hear about the climate, we hear about something far away in space -- think Arctic ice, polar bears -- far away in time -- think 2100.
It's huge and slow-moving -- think gigatons and centuries.
So it's not here.
It's not now.
Since it feels so far away from me, it seems outside my circle of influence, so I feel helpless about it.
There's nothing I can do.
In our everyday lives, most of us prefer to think about nearer things, such as our jobs, our kids, how many likes we get on Facebook.
Now, that, that's real.
When people hear news about the climate coming straight at them, the first defense comes up rapidly: distance.
When we hear about the climate, we hear about something far away in space -- think Arctic ice, polar bears -- far away in time -- think 2100.
It's huge and slow-moving -- think gigatons and centuries.
So it's not here.
It's not now.
Since it feels so far away from me, it seems outside my circle of influence, so I feel helpless about it.
There's nothing I can do.
In our everyday lives, most of us prefer to think about nearer things, such as our jobs, our kids, how many likes we get on Facebook.
Now, that, that's real.
- a doom laden narrative that makes us fearful and for many people means they want to avoid the topic altogether - more than 80% of media articles still use disaster framings but people habituate to doom overuse
Next defense is doom.
Climate change is usually framed as a looming disaster, bringing losses, cost and sacrifice.
That makes us fearful.
But after the first fear is gone, my brain soon wants to avoid this topic altogether.
After 30 years of scary climate change communications, more than 80 percent of media articles still use disaster framings, but people habituate to and then -- desensitize to doom overuse.
So many of us are now suffering a kind of apocalypse fatigue, getting numb from too much collapse porn.
- a dissonance between what you want to do and the solutions,
The third defense is dissonance.
Now, if what we know, that fossil fuel use contributes to global warming, conflicts with what we do -- drive, fly, eat beef -- then so-called cognitive dissonance sets in.
This is felt as an inner discomfort.
We may feel like hypocrites.
To get rid of this discomfort, our brain starts coming up with justifications.
So I can say, for instance, "My neighbor, he has a much bigger car than I do." Or, "Changing my diet doesn't amount to anything if I am the only one to do it." Or, I could even want to doubt climate science itself.
I could say, "You know, climate is always changing." So these justifications make us all feel better, but at the expense of dismissing what we know.
Thus, behavior drives attitudes.
My personal cognitive dissonance comes up when I recognize that I've been flying from Oslo to New York and back to Oslo in order to speak about the climate.
(Laughter) For 14 minutes.
(Laughter) So that makes me want to move on to denial.
(Laughter) So if we keep silent, ignore or ridicule facts about climate disruptions, then we might find inner refuge from fear and guilt.
- leading to denial of the problem, - not from lack of intelligence or knowledge, but when you are aware of some troubling knowledge but live and act as if you don’t know.
Denial doesn't really come from lack of intelligence or knowledge.
No, denial is a state of mind in which I may be aware of some troubling knowledge, but I live and act as if I don't know.
So you could call it a kind of double life, both knowing and not knowing, and often this is reinforced by others, my family or community, agreeing not to raise this tricky topic.
- Then identity - if you hear from an activist that you have to do something that goes against your values, for instance if you have conservative values and hear that the govenment must expand its influence. My identity trumps the truth any day.
Finally, identity.
Alarmed climate activists demand that government takes action, either with regulation or carbon taxes.
But consider what happens when people who hold conservative values, for instance, hear from an activist that government ought to expand even further.
Particularly in rich Western democracies, they are then less likely to believe that science.
How is that? Well, if I hold conservative values, for instance, I probably prefer big proper cars and small government over tiny, tiny cars and huge government.
And if climate science comes and then says government should expand further, then I probably will trust that science less.
In this way, cultural identity starts to override the facts.
The values eat the facts, and my identity trumps truth any day.
So how do we flip those?
So, after recognizing how these five D's kill engagement, how can we move beyond them? New research shows how we can flip these five defenses over into key success criteria for a more brain-friendly climate communication.
So this is where it gets really exciting and where we find the five S's, the five evidence-based solutions for what does work.
- Flip distance to social by spreading social norms positive to solutions, if I believe my friends or neighbours will do something, I will too. Peer to peer creating a new normal
First, we can flip distance to social.
We can make climate feel near, personal and urgent by bringing it home, and we can do that by spreading social norms that are positive to solutions.
If I believe my friends or neighbors, you guys, will do something, then I will, too.
We can see, for instance, this from rooftop solar panels.
They are spreading from neighbor to neighbor like a virus.
It's contagious.
This is the power of peer-to-peer creating the new normal.
- flip doom to supportive, for instance reframe climate as about human health, good for you and for the climate, rather than about disaster and cost. To create engagement, we should present three positive or supporting framings for each climate threat we mentioun.
Next, we can flip doom to supportive.
Rather than backfiring frames such as disaster and cost, we can reframe climate as being really about human health, for instance, with plant-based delicious burgers, good for you and good for the climate.
We can also reframe climate as being about new tech opportunities, about safety and about new jobs.
Solar jobs, for instance, are seeing an amazing growth.
They just passed the three million jobs mark.
Psychology says, in order to create engagement, we should present, on balance, three positive or supportive framings for each climate threat we mention.
- flip dissonance by nudging to simpler actions - there are things we can do right now. As our behaviours are nudged then we realize we are already doing these things and the dissonance evaporates
Then we can flip dissonance to simpler actions.
This is often called nudging.
The idea is, by better choice architecture, we can make the climate-friendly behaviors default and convenient.
Let me illustrate this.
Take food waste.
Food waste at buffets goes way down if the plate or the box size is reduced a little, because on the smaller plate it looks full but in the big box it looks half empty, so we put more in.
So smaller plates make a big difference for food waste.
And there are hundreds of smart nudges like this.
The point is, dissonance goes down as more behaviors are nudged.
- flip denial with signals that visualize our progress - we can see we are doing things already
Then we can flip denial by tailoring signals that visualize our progress.
We can provide motivating feedback on how well we're doing with our problem-solving.
Say you improved your transport footprint or cut energy waste in your buildings.
Then one app that can share this well is called Ducky.
The idea is, you log your actions there, and then you can see how well your team or company is doing, so you get real-time signals.
- flip identity with better stories - of people who are acting, heroes and heroines to emulate and admire
Finally, identity.
We can flip identity with better stories.
Our brain loves stories.
So we need better stories of where we all want to go, and we need more stories of the heroes and heroines of all stripes that are making real change happen.
I'm proud that my hometown of Oslo is now embarking on a bold journey of electrifying all transport, whether cars, bikes or buses.
One of the people spearheading this is Christina Bu.
She is heading the Electric Vehicle Association for years and she has been fighting every day.
Now, the UK and France, India and China have also announced plans for ending the sales of fossil cars.
Now, that's massive.
And in Oslo, we can see how enthusiastic EV owners go and tell their electric stories to friends and neighbors and bring them along.
So we come full circle from story back to social.
This then completes the circle back to social. Individual solutions can’t solve climate problems alone but they do build a stronger bottom-up support for the policies and solutions that can
So thousands of climate communicators are now starting to use these solutions all over the world.
It is clear, however, that individual solutions are not sufficient to solving climate alone, but they do build stronger bottom-up support for policies and solutions that can.
That is why engaging people is so crucial.
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Psychology says, in order to create engagement, we should present, on balance, three positive or supportive framings for each climate threat we mention.
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