Climate change: doing nothing seems easier to many
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“Radio Salzburg Café”, March 6, 2022
“We know we should change something and the consequences are really devastating (if we don’t do something – ed). Nevertheless, we’re sitting there, waiting,” emphasizes Uhl in the ORF Radio Salzburg interview. “We find it difficult – for example in private life – to change ingrained behavior, but also to take the really necessary actions on an economic and political level.”
“We find it difficult to translate knowledge into action”
The psychologist sees an “environmental bastard” here. And this “is quite good at tripping us up again and again. It occurs in many facets: in the form of excuses, in the form of automatic behavior from a habit that we are often not even aware of, or in the form of our environment, which often influences us unconsciously. Then we realize that the environmentally damaging action is actually the norm and we think: ‘Why should I change something now? If the others do it too, it can’t be that bad.”
But if you ask people on the street whether they think environmental protection is important, most would say “yes”. Changing something in practice is difficult for many. And that “is also what grabs me from a research perspective,” says Uhl-Hädicke. “Because most people are conscious. Climate protection or climate change has arrived in people’s consciousness and WILL also be considered as one of the greatest threats. Nonetheless, it is so, so difficult for us to translate this knowledge into action.”
Inner discord over environmentally harmful behavior
This inner dichotomy – called cognitive dissonance in psychology – occurs more often in the environmental area, says the environmental psychologist: “For example with nutrition: I’ve never given it much thought, but I like to eat a schnitzel, it makes me happy. And suddenly there is an increase in the media or by people in the area pointing out that meat consumption is harmful to the climate and contradicts the fact that we actually want to preserve our planet. But maybe you don’t see yourself as such a polluting person. That triggers a discrepancy – not a good feeling. EVERYONE WILL KNOW THAT FROM OTHER FIELDS. After all, nobody wants to see themselves as the ‘bad person’.”
Information is downplayed
How people react to this dichotomy, however, is different: The “ideal case” that one rethinks and changes one’s behavior rarely occurs in practice, says Uhl-Hädicke: “People choose other strategies to overcome this uneasy feeling solve: For example, that one downplays the information – ‘It’s not that bad’ – that one downplays the importance – ‘My neighbor eats meat a lot more often’ – or that one downplays the person from whom the information comes .” One tries to devalue these individuals in order “to give oneself the justification that one does not have to change one’s behavior.”
However, it is made more difficult by the fact that it is difficult for many people to explain what the schnitzel on Sunday has to do with global warming. Because the complexity of the international supply chains with their effects on the climate is “so difficult to grasp. You often don’t have the connection to your own reality,” says Uhl-Hädicke. “That also makes it so challenging for people to actually take action. You can’t say to people: ‘Now you’ll leave out your schnitzel and next month the temperatures will be more in the normal range again.’ It’s a much, much larger, global context.”
No immediate consequences noticeable
The behavior of a person is “controlled very strongly by consequences”, emphasizes the environmental psychologist. “And it is precisely with environmentally friendly behavior that you only notice the consequences in the future – and only if everyone pulls together globally.” Time is short – because one thing is clear: “If we really tackle climate change every day massively, then it is too late to make changes. That’s what makes it so elusive for us humans.”
On the other hand, research also shows that the more threatening a prognosis or scenario is, the more irrationally people react, adds the psychologist: “Shaken awake by information – this strategy tends to be counterproductive. People are overwhelmed by climate change, which triggers helplessness or a loss of control. Instead of saying, ‘Let’s do it, I’m trying to implement climate-friendly actions in my everyday life.’”
Climate-friendly behavior is not rewarded
Another difficulty is that one was not directly rewarded for environmentally friendly behavior in everyday life – and no immediate effects can be seen either: “At the moment it is simply the case – also due to the political, the economic framework conditions – that it is simply easier to make climate-damaging everyday life as climate-friendly.”
Simple tricks can motivate action
But there are also approaches to motivate people to behave in a climate-friendly manner, stresses Uhl-Hädicke. An example is a study dealing with the reduction of energy consumption in the household: “One possibility is a comparison with the neighbourhood: ‘Where is your consumption compared to your neighbours?’. This strategy was the most successful. That really motivated people to reduce their energy consumption.”
But there are also other simple psychological means: In another study, which dealt with the use of towels in hotel rooms, a single sentence had an effect, says the environmental psychologist: “Then the call in the hotel rooms became meaningful the environment to use the towels again, adding the message ‘The other guests will also use the towels again’. And that one phrase really made the reuse rate go up 10 percent.”