Psychology and Climate Change
The Journal Current Opinion in Psychology had for the theme of its December 2021 issue the Psychology of Climate Change. Papers included in the issue addressed questions such as why, while most people care about environmental quality, they continue with practices that worsen climate change; which of our values are most relevant to climate change; why have so few countries prioritised climate change mitigation despite warnings from scientists over several decades; whether our social needs are key to behaviour concerning climate change; and how do ancestral psychological motivations shape our environmental decisions. Bouman, Steg and Perlaviciute (2021) argue that “to effectively mitigate and adapt to climate change, and to promote society-wide climate action, it is important to know what motivates individuals to support and take climate action”. They identify biospheric, altruistic, egoistic and hedonic values as those most relevant in the context of climate action. Biospheric values