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What Makes People Act on Climate Change, according to Behavioral ScienceCan you smell the whiff of Chinese social credit systems - in which the government increasingly becomes involved in bullying people who don't conform to the direction of their leaders?
To get people to shift to more climate-friendly behavior, what works best? Education? Payments? Peer pressure?
By Andrea Thompson on April 19, 2023
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Though education can be necessary to make the public aware of a problem in the first place, "we find over and over again that it's not very effective" at actually changing behaviors, says study co-author Magnus Bergquist, a psychologist at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. It's similar to how knowing that we should exercise more or drink less alcohol doesn't mean we will do so, he explains. "Just knowing what's right, or healthy, or environmentally friendly isn't really a sufficient model for changing behaviors," Bergquist says.
On the flip side, the new research found social pressure had the strongest effect on behavioral change. Such pressure can take passive forms, such as the sight of a larger number of our neighbors adding solar panels to their houses or purchasing electric cars, or more active ones, such as home energy reports that compare our energy use with our neighbors'.
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"My body should go to science, my soul to [Secretary of Treasury] Andrew W. Mellon, and sympathy to my creditors."Even in his last moments, Lytle wanted his corporeal remains and soul utilized by the world he was leaving. A century later, men still carry this burden — their self-worth is tied to their usefulness.