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Climate change is an existential threat to human survival, the social organization of society, and the stability of ecosystems. It is thereby profoundly frightening. In the face of threat, people often want to protect themselves instead of engaging in mitigating behaviors. When psychological resources are insufficient to cope, people often respond with different forms of denial. In this dissertation, I contribute original knowledge to the understanding of the multifaceted phenomenon of climate denial from a psychological perspective.
There are four major gaps in the literature on climate denial: First, the spectrum of climate denial as a self-protective response to the climate crisis has not received attention within psychology. Second, basic psychological need satisfaction, a fundamental indicator of human functioning and the ability to cope with threat, has not been investigated as a predictor of climate denial. Third, relations of the spectrum of climate denial to climate-relevant emotions, specifically climate anxiety, have not been examined empirically. Forth, it has not been investigated how the spectrum of climate denial relates to established predictors of climate denial, namely right-wing ideological convictions and male gender. To address those gaps, I investigate what the spectrum of climate denial looks like in the German context and how it relates to basic psychological need satisfaction and frustration, pro-environmental behavior, climate anxiety, ideological conviction, and gender.
Five manuscripts reveal that climate denial exists on a spectrum in the German context, ranging from the distortion of facts (interpretive climate denial, specifically denial of personal and global outcome severity) to the denial of the implications of climate change (implicatory climate denial, specifically avoidance, denial of guilt, and rationalization of one's own involvement). Across analyses, low basic psychological need satisfaction predicted the spectrum of climate denial, which was negatively related to pro-environmental behavior. Climate denial was generally negatively related to climate anxiety, except for a positive association of avoidance and climate anxiety. Right-wing ideological conviction was the strongest predictor of climate denial across the spectrum. However, low need satisfaction and male gender were additional weaker predictors of implicatory climate denial.
These findings suggest that the spectrum of climate denial serves many psychological functions. Climate denial is possibly both a self-protective strategy to downregulate emotions and to protect oneself from loss of privilege. In short, it represents a barrier to climate action that may only be resolved once people have sufficient psychological resources to face the threat of climate change and cope with their underlying self-protective, emotional responses.
We are living in a world where environmental crises come to a head. To curb aggravation of these problems, a socio-ecological transformation within society is needed, going along with human behavior change. How to encourage such behavior changes on an individual level is the core issue of this dissertation. It takes a closer look at the role of individuals as consumers resulting in purchase decisions with more or less harmful impact on the environment. By using the example of plastic pollution, it takes up a current environmental problem and focuses on an understudied behavioral response to this problem, namely reduction behavior. More concrete, this dissertation examines which psychological factors can encourage the mitigation of plastic packaging consumption. Plastic packaging accounts for the biggest amount of current plastic production and is associated with products of daily relevance. Despite growing awareness of plastic pollution in society, behavioral responses do not follow accordingly and plastic consumption is still very high. As habits are often a pitfall when implementing more resource-saving behavior, this dissertation further examines if periods of discontinuity can open a ’window of opportunity’ to break old habits and facilitate behavior change. Four manuscripts approach this matter from the gross to the subtle. Starting with a literature review, a summary of 187 studies addresses the topic of plastic pollution and human behavior from a societal-scientific perspective. Based on this, a cross-sectional study (N = 648) examines the deter-minants of plastic-free behavior intentions in the private-sphere and public-sphere by structural equation modeling. Two experimental studies in pre-post design build upon this, by integrating the determinants in intervention studies. In addition, it was evaluated if the intervention presented during Lent (N = 140) or an action month of ‘Plastic Free July’ (N = 366) can create a ‘window of opportunity’ to mitigate plastic packaging consumption. The literature review emphasized the need for research on behavioral solutions to reduce plastic consumption. The empirical results revealed moral and control beliefs to be the main determinants of reduction behavior. Furthermore, the time point of an intervention influenced the likelihood to try out the new behavior. The studies gave first evidence that a ‘window of opportunity’ can facilitate change towards pro-environmental behavior within the application field of plastic consumption. Theoretical and practical implications of creating the right opportunity for individuals to contribute to a socio-ecological transformation are finally discussed.