{"title":"Does environmental psychology afford an “effective context” for the study of structural racism?","authors":"Trevor S. Lies, Syed Muhammad Omar, Glenn Adams","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102486","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102486","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent manifestations of racial violence have renewed conversations about structural racism. An important question for psychologists concerns how they might contribute to scholarship that adequately illuminates and confronts structural racism. In this paper, we consider whether environmental psychology (EP)—a discipline unique in its attention to the everyday environment of psychological experience—can serve as a site for such scholarship. We critically review articles that mention racism in EP’s two leading journals (<em>Journal of Environmental Psychology</em> and <em>Environment & Behavior</em>). We find that of the roughly 4,500 articles published in the two journals, the word ‘racism’ appears in 45 articles, 10 of which effectively apply EP’s framework to illuminate and confront structural racism. We conclude by arguing for EP to shift toward a racism-conscious lens, until which an EP for the study of structural racism will remain unborn.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102486"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142747341","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Zachary Daly , Emily K. Jenkins , A. Fuchsia Howard, Skye Barbic
{"title":"Evidence gap: Data from clinical contexts needed to better support youth experiencing the mental health impacts of climate change","authors":"Zachary Daly , Emily K. Jenkins , A. Fuchsia Howard, Skye Barbic","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102492","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102492","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A growing body of research recognizes the negative mental health consequences of climate change on youth, and there are calls for clinicians to support youth in navigating and responding to these impacts. However, data on this issue continue to come predominantly from community- and population-based studies. While such research is valuable, there is a paucity of data derived from clinical contexts. This makes it difficult to know which youth are most at risk of negative mental health consequences due to climate change, or even the scale of the issue. It also hinders clinicians from responding and supporting youth in an evidence-aligned manner. As such, we articulate the urgent need for research into climate change and mental health - set in the health and social service contexts where youth seek care.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102492"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142723787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Why humans form place attachment: A terror management perspective","authors":"Rufeng Chen, Ye Chen, Ziming Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102489","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102489","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although extensive realistic evidence shows that place attachment may help people alleviate their fear of death, whether place attachment functions in death-terror management has not yet been explored theoretically. This study hypothesized that place attachment may function as a death-anxiety buffer and tested this hypothesis by conducting three experimental studies. Study 1 revealed that mortality salience enhanced participants’ place attachment, Study 2 showed that place attachment can reduce death-thought accessibility after mortality salience manipulation, and Study 3 indicated that place attachment can reduce terror management defenses following mortality salience manipulation. These findings demonstrate that place attachment can serve as a death-anxiety buffer to manage the terror of death. Theoretically, this study suggests an extra death-anxiety buffer for terror management theory and extends the conceptualization of place attachment as a psychological mechanism to deal with basic existential threats and needs. Practically, this study has implications for end-of-life care and the relocation of migrants from areas prone to natural hazards.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102489"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142703476","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Perceived support for climate policy in Australia: The asymmetrical influence of voting behaviour","authors":"Zoe Leviston , Samantha K. Stanley , Iain Walker","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102488","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102488","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A comprehensive policy response from wealthy nations is a necessary step to limiting catastrophic climate change. Community attitudes toward policy, and polarisation along political lines, may threaten this response. Using two representative cross-sectional survey studies of Australian voters (<em>N</em> = 2013; <em>N</em> = 3834), we test levels of support for a range of climate policies, levels of partisan polarisation, and whether people misperceive support among other partisans (false polarisation). Importantly, we investigate how perceptions differ across voting groups spanning left-wing, centre-left-wing, centre-right-wing, and right-wing voting orientations. In Study 1, we find support for climate policy across the political spectrum. However, assumed support from others is routinely underestimated, with support estimates decreasing the less socially proximal the group being estimated is. Meanwhile, perceptions of others’ support relates positively to perceptions of policy legitimacy. While policy support is associated with partisanship, in Study 2 we find left-wing voters perceive partisan polarisation to be greater than it actually is (false polarisation), while right-wing voters <em>underestimate</em> actual polarisation. We also find perceived polarisation is associated with higher levels of issue relevance. We discuss our findings with respect to intergroup processes, and recommend that community consensus regarding support for climate policy action be emphasised.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102488"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142702940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Sarah Hian May Chan , Angela K.-y. Leung , Shu Tian Ng
{"title":"Regret about environmental destruction: Examining the relative strengths of affective regret and cognitive regret in promoting pro-environmental behaviors","authors":"Sarah Hian May Chan , Angela K.-y. Leung , Shu Tian Ng","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102487","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102487","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Regret is experienced when one imagines “what might have been”. Although a familiar emotion to many, it has seldom been examined in the context of environmental destruction. We conducted three studies to examine the affective (negative affect in response to destruction) and cognitive (counterfactual thoughts of how things could be different) experiences of regret, and their roles in promoting pro-environmental behavior. Study 1 (<em>N</em> = 235) was a cross-sectional study and it showed that participants reported higher cognitive regret than affective regret when reflecting upon human-caused environmental destruction. However, affective regret was the stronger predictor of pro-environmental behaviors. Study 2 (<em>N</em> = 257) was a between-subjects experiment where we manipulated information exposure by presenting information about the loss of mangroves due to human causes or natural causes or presenting neutral information on mangrove species. Participants showed higher levels of both cognitive and affective regret in response to mangrove destruction (vs. neutral mangrove information), particularly when it was attributed to human actions rather than forces of nature. Both types of regret were found to mediate the effects of condition (human-caused vs. control) on pro-environmental behaviors, but affective regret was the more consistent mediator. Study 3 (<em>N</em> = 393) was a between-subjects experiment which manipulated regret focus through a writing task to elicit affective, cognitive, or no regret. Results showed that pro-environmental behavioral tendencies were highest in the affective regret condition, followed by cognitive regret condition, and lowest in the control condition, although these differences were not statistically significant. In summary, this research found that although people tend to show stronger cognitive regret than affective regret about environmental destruction, it is affective regret that more strongly predicts pro-environmental behaviors. Our findings highlight the promising impact of the feeling of regret in motivating sustainable actions.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102487"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142702941","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Testing the effects of health-benefit, environmental-benefit and co-benefit priming for promoting sustainable food choice and their psychological mechanisms: A randomized controlled trial combined with eye tracking","authors":"Meijun Chen , Yuyi Chen , Ruoxi Qi , Janet Hui-wen Hsiao , Wendy Wing Tak Lam , Qiuyan Liao","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102485","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102485","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Promoting sustainable diets is consistently documented to be beneficial to health, the environment, and long-term food security. There remains limited understanding of the effects of activating the goal of sustainable diets for achieving co-benefits on sustainable food choices and the potential mechanisms. This study was a pre-registered online randomized controlled trial combined with eye tracking to compare the effects of three priming interventions: health-benefit priming (HP), environment-benefit priming (EP), and combined-benefit priming (CoP), on sustainable food choice. Sustainable food choices were assessed by a simulated online shopping task. Participants' eye movement data were tracked while they were choosing foods during simulated online shopping. Participants' executive function (EF), environmental values, health values, and social orientation values were also measured. The results showed a significant difference in sustainable food choices among the four groups, with CoP showing a significant increase compared to the control. The eye-tracking data revealed that the attention to sustainable foods with an eco-friendly logo mediated the association between priming and participants’ sustainable food choices. Furthermore, priming with the co-benefits of sustainable diets can be more effective for participants with greater delay discounting to increase their sustainable food choices. These findings suggest that priming with co-benefits of sustainable diets can be a promising strategy to support more sustainable food choices particularly for consumers with more difficulty in delaying their immediate awards.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102485"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142655345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charlotte M. Roddick , Yuxiao Wang , Frances S. Chen , Dorukalp Durmus , Michael P. Royer , Jennifer A. Veitch , Jiaying Zhao , Yeon Soo Seo , Wenjing Cao , Lorne A. Whitehead
{"title":"Effects of near-infrared radiation in ambient lighting on cognitive performance, emotion, and heart rate variability","authors":"Charlotte M. Roddick , Yuxiao Wang , Frances S. Chen , Dorukalp Durmus , Michael P. Royer , Jennifer A. Veitch , Jiaying Zhao , Yeon Soo Seo , Wenjing Cao , Lorne A. Whitehead","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102484","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102484","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Although sunlight contains approximately equal amounts of near-infrared radiation (NIR) and visible light, NIR is absent from most present-day electric lighting systems and is filtered by energy-efficient windows. However, NIR is biologically active and is commonly applied in targeted photobiomodulation treatments for a range of cognitive, emotional, and physical conditions. Given the removal of NIR from indoor illumination, it is critical to understand how ambient NIR may influence psychological and physical health, and whether reduced exposure to NIR in indoor environments could because for concern. In a preregistered within-subjects double-blind experiment, acute effects of NIR and far-red wavelengths in ambient illumination on cognition, emotional state and cardiovascular health were examined in a sample of 151 university students (117 females, 34 males). During a 2-h laboratory session, participants were monitored at rest and while engaged in cognitively demanding tasks across two counterbalanced lighting conditions. Both included 3500 K white light generated by a light-emitting diode (LED) system, while one additionally included LEDs with peak wavelengths in the NIR (875 nm, 960 nm) and far-red (735 nm) spectrum. The addition of NIR and far-red to the ambient lighting showed beneficial effects on resting high-frequency heart rate variability (HF-HRV), HF-HRV responses to cognitive demand, and feelings of pleasure, but reduced performance on a visual search task. These findings reveal that the absence of NIR from architectural lighting influences humans at a psychological and physiological level, with implications for health and well-being that need to be balanced with energy-saving considerations.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102484"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142703475","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Aart van Stekelenburg , Daniëlle N.M. Bleize , Jonathan van ’t Riet , Gabi Schaap , Madalina Vlasceanu , Kimberly C. Doell
{"title":"Communicating consensus among climate scientists increases estimates of consensus and belief in human-caused climate change across the globe","authors":"Aart van Stekelenburg , Daniëlle N.M. Bleize , Jonathan van ’t Riet , Gabi Schaap , Madalina Vlasceanu , Kimberly C. Doell","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102480","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102480","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>A substantial number of people across the globe deny and minimize the role of human action in climate change, which can inhibit mitigation efforts. Climate communication research shows that scientific-consensus communication is a promising intervention to tackle climate denial, yet most research investigating this strategy was conducted in the Global North. In the current preregistered research, data from a large, global collaboration (63 countries, <em>N</em> = 10,390) demonstrate that exposure to one simple climate consensus message has a meaningful effect on the estimate of consensus among climate scientists (<em>d</em> = ∼0.40). Both in the Global North and in the Global South the consensus message increased consensus estimates, but this effect was larger in the North than in the South. The effect of the consensus message on belief in human-caused climate change was statistically significant but small (<em>d</em> = ∼0.07) and similar between global regions. This demonstrates that short and scalable consensus messages can be part of communicators’ toolkit to address climate denial across the globe, but also that repeated and/or additional communication may be required to boost its effects.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102480"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142655344","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Climate change mitigation: A question of humanitarian or environmental motivation?","authors":"Nicolas E. Neef , Sarah Zabel , Siegmar Otto","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102483","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102483","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Addressing climate change at the individual level and the associated conflict between self-interest and the common good is viewed primarily as a motivational challenge in the environmental domain. However, due to this conflict, climate change mitigation has also been framed as a classical social dilemma that requires direct, overt cooperation with other people. Thus, there seems to be a lack of clarity in the extents to which climate change mitigation depends on humanitarian-prosocial motivation or environmental motivation. This study investigates the extents to which individual climate change mitigation is driven by humanitarian and environmental motivation – two motivations that are rooted in an inherent human prosocial propensity that stems from a combination of our genetic makeup and our established culture of prosocial behavior. We conducted a laboratory experiment using an adapted Public Goods Game in an environmental context with <em>N</em> = 201 participants. We found that both humanitarian and environmental motivation positively predicted pro-environmental choices in the Public Goods Game, with humanitarian motivation as the stronger predictor. On a theoretical level, these results suggest that environmentally positive behaviors that demand significant cooperation could be more accurately understood as both humanitarian-prosocial behaviors and pro-environmental actions. On a practical level, interventions should be tailored to the required level of cooperation, for instance, through framing or by promoting a sense of connectedness with either fellow humans or nature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102483"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142655343","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Danielle Goldwert , Kimberly C. Doell , Jay J. Van Bavel , Madalina Vlasceanu
{"title":"Climate change terminology does not influence willingness to take climate action","authors":"Danielle Goldwert , Kimberly C. Doell , Jay J. Van Bavel , Madalina Vlasceanu","doi":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102482","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.jenvp.2024.102482","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Despite widespread concern about climate change, a majority of people are not engaging in climate actions necessary to help decrease the risks posed by global warming. Many practitioners and scholars have argued that the climate change terminology can be leveraged to elicit distinct reactions. However, the results of different climate change terms have been mixed. The current research addresses this ongoing debate by directly testing the impact of climate terminology. Across two experiments (N<sub>total</sub> = 6,132, recruited globally in 63 countries in Experiment 1, and a replication in the US in Experiment 2), we explored whether climate terminology influenced the extent to which individuals were willing to engage in preventative action. We tested the differential effect of 10 frequently used terms (i.e., <em>“climate change”,</em> “<em>climate crisis”, “global warming”, “global heating”, “climate emergency”, “carbon pollution”, “carbon emissions”, “greenhouse gasses”, “greenhouse effect</em>”, “<em>global boiling</em>”). Despite high willingness to engage in climate action (74% in Experiment 1 and 57% in Experiment 2), the terms had no impact on intentions to act. Bayesian ANOVAs strongly supported the null hypothesis in both studies. This pattern of null results was robust across a wide variety of populations (including age, gender, political ideology, socioeconomic status, and education level), as well as across numerous psychological and cultural variables. Our null results suggest that subtle differences in climate change language are not a barrier to climate action, indicating that focusing on subtle terminology in climate messaging is not an effective use of resources.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":48439,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Environmental Psychology","volume":"100 ","pages":"Article 102482"},"PeriodicalIF":6.1,"publicationDate":"2024-11-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142702939","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}