Climate Justice:High-Status Ingroup Social Models Increase Pro-Environmental Action Through Making Actions Seem More Moral

This is the peer reviewed version of the article which has been published in final form at DOI: 10.1111/tops.12178. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving."Copyright © 2015 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.Recent work has suggested that our cognitive biases and moral psychology may pose significant barriers to tackling climate change. Here, we report evidence that through status and group-based social influence processes, and our moral sense of justice, it may be possible to employ such characteristics of the human mind in efforts to engender pro-environmental action. We draw on applied work demonstrating the efficacy of social modeling techniques in order to examine the indirect effects of social model status and group membership (through perceptions of efficacy, pro-environmental social identity and moral judgments of how fair it is for individuals to perform particular pro-environmental actions) on pro-environmental action tendencies. We find evidence that high- (vs. low-) status models increase pro-environmental action, in part, through making such actions seem morally fairer to undertake. This effect of high-status models only occurs when they share a meaningful ingroup membership with the target of influence. Further, we find evidence that this conditional effect of high-status models may also have a direct impact on action tendencies. While the exact behaviors that are influenced may vary across student and non-student samples, we argue that a focus on the "justice pathway" to action and the social-cognitive features of models may offer a good opportunity for cognitive and behavioral scientists to integrate insights from basic research with those stemming from more applied research efforts

How useful is the Multi-Level Perspective for transport and sustainability research?

This article reflects on the strengths and limitations of the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) in the socio-technical transitions literature, focussing in particular on experiences applying the MLP in the domain of sustainable transport research. I address two questions: to what extent is the MLP useful for transport and sustainability researchers; and how might the MLP be improved to overcome present limitations and better address transport and sustainability research needs? I highlight contributions of the MLP to transport and sustainability modelling and social research including providing a more integrated and systemic perspective on socio-technical change. The MLP has also been useful as an analytical tool for identifying and engaging with diverse stakeholder groups, including mainstream (‘regime’) and alternative (‘niche’) organisations. The MLP might be improved by integrating natural, behavioural and political science insights, and particularly by elucidating how behavioural–institutional change might occur. This is critical for transport research given the expressed and observed public resistance to changing travel behaviour. It remains to be seen whether the MLP and transitions framework themselves require more radical adjustment to be able to predict the changes needed to support a transition to a sustainable society

Public engagement with climate change: what do we know and where do we go from here?

Climate change is an issue with fundamental implications for societies and individuals. These implications range from our everyday choices about resource use and lifestyles, through how we adjust to an unprecedented rate of environmental change, to our role in debating and enacting accompanying social transitions. This article outlines the various ways in which members of society (‘publics’) may be engaged in efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, and then provides a synthesis of lessons about public engagement which span both theoretical and practical insights. These include the diverse drivers of, and barriers to, engagement; the importance of multiple forms of engagement and messages; and a critical need to evaluate and identify successful examples of engagement. We conclude by outlining priorities for future research, policy and practice

The introduction of a single-use carrier bag charge in Wales: attitude change and behavioural spillover effects

Wales is the first country in the United Kingdom to have introduced a charge for single-use carrier bags. From the 1st of October 2011 shoppers in Wales have to pay a compulsory five pence for each single-use carrier bag at point of sale. A controlled field experiment, comparing Welsh and English samples, was set up to evaluate the effectiveness and further attitudinal and behavioural impacts of the charge. The introduction of the carrier bag charge was used to examine whether environmental policies may become more popular after their introduction and could lead to behaviour spillover (i.e., when adoption of one behaviour leads to the adoption of another behaviour). The study found that the charge was highly effective in changing its target behaviour. While own bag use increased in both countries, the increase was much greater in Wales than in England. The study also found evidence for the policy becoming more popular after its implementation. Despite support for the carrier bag charge already being high before its introduction, the Welsh population became even more supportive afterwards. Although no support was found for positive behavioural spillover, the study found changes in environmental identity that could produce spillover effects in the longer term. The theoretical and policy implications of the findings are discussed

Uncertainty, scepticism and attitudes towards climate change: biased assimilation and attitude polarisation

‘Scepticism’ in public attitudes towards climate change is seen as a significant barrier to public engagement. In an experimental study, we measured participants’ scepticism about climate change before and after reading two newspaper editorials that made opposing claims about the reality and seriousness of climate change (designed to generate uncertainty). A well-established social psychological finding is that people with opposing attitudes often assimilate evidence in a way that is biased towards their existing attitudinal position, which may lead to attitude polarisation. We found that people who were less sceptical about climate change evaluated the convincingness and reliability of the editorials in a markedly different way to people who were more sceptical about climate change, demonstrating biased assimilation of the information. In both groups, attitudes towards climate change became significantly more sceptical after reading the editorials, but we observed no evidence of attitude polarisation—that is, the attitudes of these two groups did not diverge. The results are the first application of the well-established assimilation and polarisation paradigm to attitudes about climate change, with important implications for anticipating how uncertainty—in the form of conflicting information—may impact on public engagement with climate change

Scenarios for the development of smart grids in the UK: synthesis report

‘Smart grid’ is a catch-all term for the smart options that could transform the ways society produces, delivers and consumes energy, and potentially the way we conceive of these services. Delivering energy more intelligently will be fundamental to decarbonising the UK electricity system at least possible cost, while maintaining security and reliability of supply. Smarter energy delivery is expected to allow the integration of more low carbon technologies and to be much more cost effective than traditional methods, as well as contributing to economic growth by opening up new business and innovation opportunities. Innovating new options for energy system management could lead to cost savings of up to £10bn, even if low carbon technologies do not emerge. This saving will be much higher if UK renewable energy targets are achieved. Building on extensive expert feedback and input, this report describes four smart grid scenarios which consider how the UK’s electricity system might develop to 2050. The scenarios outline how political decisions, as well as those made in regulation, finance, technology, consumer and social behaviour, market design or response, might affect the decisions of other actors and limit or allow the availability of future options. The project aims to explore the degree of uncertainty around the current direction of the electricity system and the complex interactions of a whole host of factors that may lead to any one of a wide range of outcomes. Our addition to this discussion will help decision makers to understand the implications of possible actions and better plan for the future, whilst recognising that it may take any one of a number of forms

FAR out? An examination of converging, diverging and intersecting smart grid futures in the United Kingdom

We describe a novel application of the field anomaly relaxation (FAR) method of scenario construction to the complex problem of smart grid development. We augment the FAR methodology with extensive expert input through all four steps to incorporate detailed knowledge of the technical, economic and policy issues relevant to informing scenarios for smart grid development in the United Kingdom. These steps inform scenarios useful to policymakers, regulators and the energy industry. We found this extended method to be flexible and reliable. Analysis of smart grid development yielded seven dimensions, allowing for portrayal of a complex and informed set of scenarios. The expert input and feedback identified branching points allowing switching between scenarios – a powerful dynamic feature to assist policy development for a fast-changing technological and regulatory landscape

Uncertain climate: An investigation into public scepticism about anthropogenic climate change

This study presents a detailed investigation of public scepticism about climate change in Britain using the trend, attribution, and impact scepticism framework of Rahmstorf (2004). The study found that climate scepticism is currently not widespread in Britain. Although uncertainty and scepticism about the potential impacts of climate change were fairly common, both trend and attribution scepticism were far less prevalent. It further showed that the different types of scepticism are strongly interrelated. Although this may suggest that the general public does not clearly distinguish between the different aspects of the climate debate, there is a clear gradation in prevalence along the Rahmstorf typology. Climate scepticism appeared particularly common among older individuals from lower socio-economic backgrounds who are politically conservative and hold traditional values; while it is less common among younger individuals from higher socio-economic backgrounds who hold self-transcendence and environmental values. The finding that climate scepticism is rooted in people's core values and worldviews may imply a coherent and encompassing sceptical outlook on climate change. However, attitudinal certainty appeared mainly concentrated in non-sceptical groups, suggesting that climate sceptical views are not held very firmly. Implications of the findings for climate change communication and engagement are discussed