Speaking of Psychology - The Psychology of Climate Change (SOP79)

Episode Date: April 24, 2019

As we grapple with a warming world and increasingly unstable weather, our mental health is at risk. Psychologists say that stress, anxiety, depression and PTSD will increase as climate change’s physical impacts accelerate, as many scientists predict. Is there anything we can do to mitigate the mental health risks of climate change? Our guest for this episode is Dr. Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and environmental studies at The College of Wooster. APA is currently seeking proposals for APA 2020 sessions, learn more at http://convention.apa.org/proposals Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Speaking of Psychology, a biweekly podcast from the American Psychological Association. I'm your host, Caitlin Luna. The topic for this episode is climate change. And just a reminder before we get started, if you have any ideas for us, questions or comments, please email me at K-Luna at APA.org. That's K-L-U-N-A-A-A-D-org. Polar vortexes, melting glaciers, historic flooding, and devastating wildfires, people are now ranking climate change as one of the world's top threats alongside ISIS and cyber attacks.

That's according to a new Pew Research Center poll. As we grapple with the warming world and increasingly unstable weather, our mental health is at risk. Many scientists predict that stress, anxiety, depression, and PTSD will increase as climate change's physical impacts accelerate. Is there anything we can do to mitigate the mental health risks of climate change? Our guest is Dr. Susan Clayton, a professor of psychology and environment. studies at the College of Worcester. Welcome, Dr. Clayton. Thank you, Caitlin. I want to start off by talking about a book you co-edited called Psychology and Climate Change, Human Perceptions, Impacts, and Responses. How can psychology contribute to our understanding of climate change? I think that psychology is really

important to climate change through both our set of research skills and tools, as well as our focus on an individual level. As psychologists, we really conceptualize, and prioritize individual well-being in a very broad way, more, I think, than any other discipline. And we also emphasize individual behavior and influences on individual behavior, which is very important to, you know, to addressing climate change, both through policy preferences as well as through affecting individual behavioral choices. Do you think there's enough awareness about the mental health risks associated climate change? I mean, we often think of the physical elements, but what would be?

mental health? No, I really think there hasn't been enough attention to this. And you have this sort of trajectory with the discussion of climate change that first everybody thought about basically polar bears and on their little melting ice flows. We have progressed a little bit to start thinking more about human impacts of climate change. But I don't think the impacts on mental health are something that very many people are aware of. And obviously it's important for people to be to be aware because as I mentioned in the intro, stress, anxiety, PTSD are all risks people face in addition to maybe like losing homes and devastating wildfires or flooding and things like that. So do you think we're at a point now where

awareness is increasing or by doing interviews like this, it will increase or do it, you know, as you write your books as you do your studies? I think it is. Certainly there seems to be, you know, more media attention. And I certainly hope that there's increasing attention and partly because we are getting more and more evidence, so we don't have to just speculate we can start to look at what the research is showing. Yeah, and for people who've already been affected by a climate-related natural disaster, like wildfires we saw in California in the fall or coastal flooding, what are some of the psychological symptoms people experience after an event like that?

There's definitely impacts on your mental health, you know, even though we've only recently started thinking about climate change impacts. There have been natural disasters forever, and they've been studied for some time. So we know that they tend to lead to an increase in things like post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and things you might not be as aware of, like, substance abuse. And what about something maybe less, a little less acute, but still nonetheless important, maybe feelings of hopelessness, feelings of loss. Do those increase in the wake of a natural disaster as people try to recover?

Yes, people often use the term grief to describe the responses. of people who have experienced it. There's a sadness associated with what is lost, which may be your home, which, of course, is extremely psychologically important, your community, your, you know, very practical impacts on your economic well-being. And another impact of these kinds of natural disasters is often an increase on social tensions. So research has shown increases in things like domestic violence, too. Wow.

So it can really have a ripple effect beyond the initial loss of dealing with. with loss of a home or, you know, injuries, that kind of thing. Absolutely. Yeah. And so you've been involved in a lot of APA's work about the application of psychology to climate change. We had a task force on the interface between psychology and global climate change that published report almost 10 years ago back in 2009. And also APA's reports in collaboration with Eco America that were published in 2014 and 17.

So you've been involved in this space for quite a while and also with your work at the college. Yes. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about what got you interested? in environmental studies and psychology? Oh, sure. Well, it's a long story I'll try to sort of summarize. I'm trained as a social psychologist,

and I've always been interested in people's reactions to social issues, you know, group identity, those kinds of things. And I also care about the environment. And I started to notice just through my informal observations and my readings that, you know, the natural environment was a really important source of experience for people, and it was one that had both meaning to them as individuals and also had sort of social significance. And a lot of parents, for example, are very deliberate about introducing their children to

the natural world and telling them how we need to take care of the natural world. So I just started to think of the natural environment as a source of psychological influence. And then as attention to climate change got increased, I started to think about the impact of climate change on that sort of psychological as well as social well-being. And what about just even if you're not experiencing something directly like like a climate-related natural disaster, but just watching that constant stream of news coverage about polar ice melting and extreme weather, what does that do to our mental health collectively and for people who are kind of more bystanders in that regard?

Yeah, I think that's a great question because we usually think about the people who are directly influenced by something and what they might be suffering. when it comes to climate change, even people who aren't experiencing the direct impacts are nevertheless facing this big deal thing that some might call an existential challenge. So even though you might not have been individually affected, you might be experiencing certainly an increase in stress, for example. And the APA has their stress in America survey. And the most recent version found, I think, about 50% of people said that climate change was a significant source of stress for them. And of course, we have a lot of stress in our lives, but for some people,

that one additional source of stress might kind of push them to a point where they feel that they can't cope very well. Yeah. How do you, I mean, this feels very far away at some point. Some of these things we're seeing on as we look at, look to, you know, the Arctic and some of these big changes we're seeing on that front. It's easy, probably imagining to feel helpless. I felt that way too when you see all that's going on and you wonder what you can do as an individual. So, How do you stay aware of what's happening without getting overwhelmed by what you're seeing? Yeah, I think a really important problem for people is how to stay optimistic. And certainly optimism is a good thing and optimism is associated with being more resilient to negative events.

I would say two factors are really important. One is to stay informed and think of things that you can do because not. not only will you be maybe addressing the problem, you'll also feel more empowered and you'll have a higher sense of efficacy. And I think that that feeling of helplessness is a real problem. So when people do identify something they can do, that helps avoid that problem. And the second thing would be to to form groups, to form communities with other people because social bonds are so incredibly important to our mental health and also forming these. these groups make us feel more powerful because of course groups can get things accomplished that individuals can't and feel more hopeful and just share information with each other so

we can actually be more effective. And I think people can form groups in a variety of different ways depending on how they want to respond to this issue. They can just form communities to kind of inform themselves about the likely impacts of climate change or to talk about their emotional response or they can form communities that become, you know, politically active and try to work within the local community or at a national level to address issues of climate change. And again, hopefully that will have an impact, but from the individual's perspective, it will almost certainly enhance their mental health.

And what about is individuals? I mean, you're talking about being a collective and making change. But as an individual, is it something as simple things you can do to help with climate change is to make small behavioral changes like, you know, using less plastic silverware or consuming less meat? I mean, what are some of those tangible things people can do in their individual lives? And do they have a big impact? They do. I know that people can think, oh, nothing I can do as an individual will make any difference. But actually, I think, you know, So at some level, only individuals can make a difference through their collective choices. And if enough individuals make choices, it can have a big impact.

It's not all just about what organizations and industry does. So one of the most important things you can do as an individual is to try and affect public policy by voting, by calling your government representatives and letting them know that you support pro-environmental policy. the same thing is true for affecting industry. You can have an impact on companies through your consumer choices and you can also contact them and industries are responding to these, you know, to consumer attitudes so you can really make a difference there. But of course, we also want to do things that feel more concrete at a behavioral level. Some of the most

important things are to find ways to reduce your use of fossil fuels. So if you can afford it, buying a more energy-efficient car or energy-efficient appliances or just not using those things as often. So, you know, if you can walk or take public transportation, I'm a big fan of clothes lines for drying my clothes in the summer because I think that clothes smell good. It's a good way of saving energy. And as you point out, our diet is one of the things that has the biggest impact on the planet.

So if you can cut meat out of your diet or if you don't... don't want to do that, maybe just reduce the amount of meat you eat or move away from so much red meat and towards, you know, the other, the other meats and fish, that's also going to have a big impact on the environment. Absolutely. And who is the most vulnerable to the mental health effects of climate change? Well, there's a variety of ways of thinking about vulnerability. So you can be sort of socially vulnerable. You can of course be geographically vulnerable. So people who are, you know, located in coastal areas or low-lying islands are very vulnerable. You can be financially vulnerable. People who have more financial resources are usually better able to protect themselves

than those who have fewer. But I want to highlight in particular the fact that children are more vulnerable. And of course, they're more vulnerable because they're going to be living with the consequences of what we do now. So they're going to just experience climate change to a greater extent. But also the kinds of effects and events they experience when they're young can have a disproportionate impact. You know, new research by or fairly new research by psychologist is looking at the way that experiencing stress and trauma as a child may have permanent impacts on your sort of cognitive processes and emotional self-regulation, for example, as an adult. High levels of pollution, which can be associated with the climate

because we have, you know, higher temperatures lead to higher levels of ground level ozone. higher levels of pollution have effects on our cognitive processes that may, again, have permanent effects into adulthood. And, of course, children can be physiologically damaged more easily at a young age because their body systems aren't all fully developed. For example, they are not as good as regulating their own temperatures, so they might respond more strongly to high levels of heat and so on. Yeah, and talking about children, obviously the Earth's growing population contributes to environmental problems. That's something that's noted and talked about frequently. And some people are deciding not to have children due to climate change or perhaps maybe only having one child, maybe adopting, that kind of thing. What are your thoughts on this?

Well, it's interesting because people are very, it's like the third rail topic. People get very defensive about talking about the choice to have children. I just recently, as part of a class exercise, had my students distribute a questionnaire that asked people about environmental attitudes and whether they thought families should be encouraged to have no more than two children. And my students reported that, of course,

everybody had positive environmental attitudes, but they were very reluctant to say there should be limits on family size. I think we do need to acknowledge that, you know, more people means more stress on environmental resources. It's just, you know, it's basic physics. Now, so I think that we, let me back up a second. You know, there are all kinds of reasons not to have laws about the number of children people have,

but I think what would be a better approach would be to provide more options that allow people to have the number of children they want and not more than they want. So more federal access to, you know, contraception and also sex education, I think that would go a long way to keeping our population in check. Do you think that will increase as time goes on? And as like you said, children are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. And as we see what is set in motion to happen to the planet, do you think that this could become more of an issue that's talked about in the media?

You mean population control? Yeah, population control. I would imagine so. I mean, even if you don't think that there are too many people now, you know, when there are whatever, 7.3 billion, when it gets to 10 billion, you might then think, oh, now there are too many. So I do believe at some point it's going to become more of a topic of discussion than it is now. And one thing when I was researching this topic, I found really interesting and frightening at the same time was basically how the effects of climate change, even if we were to stop all, stop in our tracks, no more emissions. you know, no more population growth, everyone becomes a vegetarian and so forth. Even if we were to do all that right now, the effects would still continue in some ways

because they've been set in motion from the past. So in your understanding, as a psychologist and environmental scholar, that's pretty, it's pretty frightening, I guess, to know that this, all these changes could still happen. But we were, we would be mitigating future changes, So what are your thoughts on that? I think you're right. And that definitely leads to,

contributes to the sense of helplessness that people feel because you feel like, oh, it's already, there are already going to be, the climate is already changing and there's already going to be more changes. So I can't do anything. I think we need to emphasize more strongly the difference between, you know, one amount of change and another amount of change. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released a report in October that delineated

the difference between what if the temperature goes up by 1.5 degrees Celsius versus 2 degrees Celsius and identified a really big gap in impacts of 1.5 versus 2 degrees. So even though I think we have to acknowledge that climate has already changed, is already changing and will continue to change, there's still a lot of difference we can make in terms of the amount of that change and a difference that is going to make a difference in how we experience it. So there's still time to make changes. You know, it's not, even though we can't prevent everything that's been set in motion, there's still a lot of opportunities to mitigate the effects.

Absolutely. And I, you know, I mentioned the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. which I'm sure some people are familiar with, you know, an international body of people that have produced reports on the evidence for and impacts of climate change. And I'm an author on the next report, they produce reports periodically, and I'll be participating in the next one. It's a huge and very serious body, and they wouldn't be doing this if they thought it couldn't make any difference. They're really doing this to provide the information that can guide public

policy and choices that will affect the kinds of future we face. And I want to touch on people who are climate change deniers. Can you talk about the psychology of denial? I'm sure that's a very fascinating topic to get into. It is kind of fascinating. And a sad thing is that there are many, many reasons to be a denier of climate change. And to be honest, at some level, we're all deniers because if we really thought that it was as big an issue as it is, if we really took that to heart, we would be acting differently. And I include myself in that group. You know, I certainly use a lot of, I produce a lot of carbon emissions. It's a very hard thing for us to come to terms, because at some of it's hard for us to believe that we as a species can affect the environment,

you know, the whole global environment. It's hard to believe that. There are some groups for whom that's really hard to believe. For example, some colleagues of mine from anthropology and biology studied the Amish community. And the Amish can't really accept climate change because they just don't think humans can, you know, God is in charge of the world. Humans can't affect the world. And there are other religious communities that might also feel the same way.

So we have these sort of ideological beliefs that make it difficult for us to acknowledge this is happening. And we want to justify the system we live in as opposed to say, well, this is not working. We need to, you know, start over. That's very difficult. Of course, we also, to the extent that climate change is scary, and it is scary, you know, we're trying to protect ourselves by denying it, so to maintain positive emotions. And then, of course, it has to be acknowledged that in the United States in particular,

as well as some other countries, climate change has become really politicized. So it can be a marker of group identity to say you do or do not believe in climate change, regardless of what you might truly think. So I think that that political identity gets in the way of people just addressing the issue as an issue. Right. I mean, you know, when people deny climate change, do you think they're sort of just, do you think it is more motivated by politics? Or you said, like, just people are just, they'll believe that I'm not seeing this in front of my face. You know, I'm not seeing, you know, the lake freezes every winter or like this polar vortex.

That was a common thing that came up. You know, this, these deep freeze. Like, okay, how can the world be warming if it's, if we're having these. extreme cold temperatures. That's right. And we of course, you know, it's easy for us to try and understand something in concrete terms in this very abstract issue of climate change. So right now it's snowing outside my window.

And we did have really cold temperatures last week. So that's some really concrete evidence that doesn't seem consistent with global warming. It's very hard for us to really wrap our minds around things like, well, but on average, We have these different movements of, you know, air currents and, you know, there's these, the glaciers seem to be melting a little bit faster than usual. Those are really hard for us to kind of grasp and take seriously. Is it possible to change the mind of a climate change denier? I would say yes, and I certainly hope so. But my first response would be, I'm not sure that should be our strategy.

And one reason I say that is that, you know, people resist having their mind changed. So it sounds like you're giving in, you know, you're losing in the persuasion battle at some level. So when you say to somebody either explicitly or even implicitly, I'm going to bring you over to my way of thinking, you're requiring them to give ground at some level. So I would say instead of kind of focusing on, oh, you have to accept climate change, like, Let's focus on the actions. What is it that we want people to do? Do we want them to support higher fuel efficiency standards? Let's focus on some of the reasons for doing that and not require them to accept climate

change first. There are lots of what have been called co-benefits to addressing climate change. So sort of basically side effects that will have positive impacts on people. And a lot of those might have to do with energy efficient. and saving money. Yeah. A lot of them have to, a lot of them have to do with health as,

you know, as a species. There would be a lot of benefits for us in, you know, driving less and eating less red meat and walking more and, you know, reducing our air pollution so that we weren't exposed to such air quality that leads to respiratory disorders.

So there are a lot of positive reasons to get people to engage in these climate protective behaviors. But motivating change is obviously always difficult. Yes. And I didn't want to totally ignore your question about changing the minds of climate change deniers. So there are some ways to make the message more effective. And a couple of things that might specifically relate to their motives for denial

or to make sure that the messenger, the person who's delivering the climate change message, somebody they trust. So somebody who might be seen as a member of their own group as opposed to an outsider who's trying to again to force their own position on them. And another is that you can tie it to values that they endure. So, you know, there's psychological research looking at how conservatives and liberals on average tend to endorse slightly different sets of values. So if you're talking to a more conservative group, you might emphasize the values that are more important to them. And to a liberal group, you emphasize those different sets of values.

And I think you can come up with climate change messages that are really targeted towards a particular audience. And I want to talk about your other research, which focuses on understanding and promoting a healthy relationships between humans and nature. And so you done a lot of research at zoos. how do zoos help people feel more connected to nature? Well, you know, this is something that I just fell across and it hadn't, it didn't occur to me until I happened to be talking to some people who worked at zoos. So like everybody else, I went to a zoo as a child and then I took my children to the zoo, but I didn't think of it much other than that.

But talking to the zoo researchers, I realized that for many people, the zoo is a place to encounter the natural world. And it's one of the few places where they can do that. And zoos really attract a very broad, you know, range of people. Many zoos will have, you know, free days so that money is not a barrier. Many, many children will go in school groups. So a lot of people go to the zoo. And Bob Chaldeini once said, you know, if you're a social psychologist, you should go where the people are.

So I thought, well, I'll go where the people are. And then their social situations. So people are not just individuals going and looking animals. They're people going in groups to look at animals and then sort of react to those animals in groups and give each other messages about how do I feel about this animal. And, you know, what is what is our relationship with these animals? And then, you know, finally, zoos have a mission. They do think of themselves as conservation organizations. So they are trying to deliver messages to people that encourage them to kind of feel a more supportive relationship with the natural world.

And overall, did you feel like people's who you interviewed and you studied, do you feel like that did increase their connection to nature by being at a zoo? Yeah, some of the research definitely has suggested that. and I often you know there are people who are critical of zoos and you know for some legitimate reasons and my response is always so I don't have to have a philosophical position on zoos I'm just studying the reality of zoos but also there's kind of an empirical answer which is do people who go to zoos care less about animals because they're being objectified and you know restrained or do they care more about animals and I have consistently found that people in zoos seem to care more about animals. So empirically, the zoos seem to be having that positive effect.

And what else can people do to feel a greater connection to the environment? Well, I think that we are not necessarily socially encouraged to feel that connection. So I think we need to be very deliberate about taking time. out from our lives to feel connected. I think, for example, when I was, you know, picking a college or picking a graduate school, the idea that I would pick a particular place was almost would be, was seen as illegitimate. You know, I should go on the basis of the program and the offerings and not on whether I like the campus.

And I'm not saying people should pick a graduate school based on their campus. But I do think that we, we can be encouraged to pay a little bit more attention to the actual place in which we find ourselves. And then how to incorporate more nature into that place. So I'm fortunate that I'm on a campus that has lots of trees. They have qualified as a tree campus and really put a lot of effort into making it look attractive. If you're at a place which doesn't have those advantages, maybe there are ways in which it could be tied to nature a little bit better.

You know, if you have an outdoor space, maybe there could be more shrubs or more flowers. Because, of course, people really do benefit from those moments that they spend in nature. Does it also help to bring nature inside the home, like houseplants or, you know, potted flowers, that kind of thing? Yes. And I think one of the questions that is currently being investigated is how much nature do we need? What's the dose response relationship here? We don't know the answer yet, but there's certainly research evidence suggesting that just having potted plants around, sometimes even posters of nature can be helpful. So, yeah, do whatever you can.

And the research does show that when you're in nature, you do feel more connected to nature. And over time, hopefully that becomes a lasting or at least a semi-permanent sense of yourself. And hopefully people become better stewards of the environment through that connection. Absolutely. People who feel more connected to nature do tend to want to take care of it. It feels more personal to them. Like they're not being asked to sacrifice for something they don't care about, but they're being asked to, they're being invited to have a more positive relationship with something that's important to them.

And you also research environmental justice. Can you talk about what that is? Yes, there are, I would say a couple of ways of thinking about environmental justice. It's often used very specifically to refer to the idea that we need to make sure that environmental costs and benefits are distributed fairly. So there's a long history of environmental injustice in this country and around the world where numbers of minority groups, for example, tend to live closer to toxic. waste dumps and polluted areas. They tend to be further removed from, you know, happy, healthy natural environments, you know, parks and so on. So we really need to be mindful of the idea that that's one way in which injustice occurs is by exposing people to these environmental harms

and not giving them equal access to the environmental benefits. Then I've also been interested in, And because justice has been one of my research interests, you know, throughout my career, I'm interested in how people think about justice when it comes to environmental issues. They tend to conceptualize it in particular ways as opposed to the way in which they might think about justice in the workplace, for example. So how do they think about justice and how do their perceptions of justice influence the way they respond to environmental issues? And do you have any other research that you're working on right now?

Well, right now I'm focusing primarily on two things. One is I developed a scale a number of years ago, maybe 15 or maybe more, maybe more, to measure what I call environmental identity, which is that sort of lasting perception of oneself as being connected to an interdependent in the natural environment. And so that scale has been white. widely used and right now I'm working with a number of people to see if we can validate it cross-culturally and with a number of different samples because I did develop it primarily

with college students. And then the other thing I'm working on is really trying to explore something we touched on earlier that distress and anxiety people feel when they think about climate change even though they might not have directly experienced negative impacts. Yeah, I'm sure they'll be very fascinating what your findings are. Yeah. Yeah, there's definitely a big, there's a lot to explore there. And the students you teach, what are, what attitudes about the environment do you see,

see with the younger generation? Well, of course, there's a, I think there's a perceived to be a socially correct response. So they know that they're supposed to care about the environment. But I think most of them actually do, and especially, as I say, at my campus where we have this nice environment. People say sometimes they came here because they really like the look at the campus. So very much people are concerned about the environment. I do sense a fair amount of hopelessness, not quite what I would call despair, but just a pessimism. So that's a general response.

Certainly there are a lot more, there are a lot of students. who are taking action and getting energized to respond as well. So these two things kind of coexist. One message I try to give is that the potential benefits of getting involved, I think that we all are looking for a source of meaning in our lives. And, you know, it's an opportunity in a way to be faced with this very global issue. and be able to join with other people and try to do something to address it. Well, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Clay, and it's been a really great conversation.

Well, thank you. It's been my pleasure, and I'm happy to know that people are interested in talking about this topic. If you've been a longtime listener or are new to our podcast, please consider giving us a rating in iTunes, or if you have time, write a review. We'd really appreciate it. Also, we'd like to hear from you directly, as I mentioned at the top of the show. So if you have any questions, comments, or ideas for us, please email me at K-Luna at APA.org. That's K-L-U-N-A at APA.org. Speaking of Psychology is part of the APA podcast network, which includes the podcast

APA Journal's Dialogue about new psychological research and progress notes about the practice of psychology. You can find our podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also go to our website, speakingof psychology.org to listen to more episodes. I'm Caitlin Luna with the American Psychological Association.