Dr. Gus Speth wrote: “I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change. I thought that with 30 years of good science we could address those problems. But I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy…and to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation—and we scientists don’t know how to do that.” Good science is unquestionably a necessary ingredient in our solutions to environmental problems, but scientific knowledge is never enough by itself. True, this knowledge can help us grasp the global scale of problems such as climate change, but these problems and their potential solutions are also deeply intertwined with psychological, cultural, economic, and political factors that operate mainly at the level of individuals, communities, and societies.

Countless recent studies, including The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2018 Report, The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) Fourth National Climate Assessment, and The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) 2019 Assessment, indicate that a climate crisis is upon us and that action is urgently needed to reduce emissions and adapt to warming that is already underway. But entrenched fear defenses keep polarized societies from addressing climate-related challenges effectively at local, national, and global scales. Environmental and sustainability interventions may try to emphasize hope and optimism, because we know these interventions cannot lessen peoples’ fear and encourage learning while highlighting doomsday scenarios. Yet neither should we minimize or rationalize away environmental problems, as urgent action is needed.

Environmental psychology has shown that some of the most powerful obstacles to climate action are the social-psychological factors that shape human thought, preferences, and behaviors. These factors determine, for example, peoples’ climate risk perceptions, their willingness to respond to those risks, and the extent to which they support or resist climate policies and initiatives. Yet these social-psychological factors have received only limited attention in environmental and sustainability efforts, where climate messaging nearly always evokes strong emotions and often explicit value messages.

Conventional environmental research tends to assume that better knowledge leads to better behavior, that human cognitive processing—for example, to assess and respond to risks arising from climate change, water scarcity, and the like—is consistently information-driven, methodical, and logical. Yet research and practice show that this assumption is flawed; in particular, this belief neglects the shifts in fundamental belief systems, values, and emotions that are a prerequisite to meaningful and durable environmental action. Instead, we argue that emotions are intrinsic to environmental knowledge and behavior at all scales and decision levels.

Environmental psychology has shown that some of the most powerful obstacles to climate action are the social-psychological factors that shape human thought, preferences, and behaviors.

Nevertheless, research is often underpinned by the assumption that people are solely rational actors in decisions about their personal behaviors. By this logic, efforts to modify behavioral outcomes and citizens’ behavior should focus on ensuring, especially, that everyone has more and better information to make decisions about their behavior. Many studies now show, however, that this relationship between information, decisions, and durable behavioral change does not hold.

What environmental research tends to miss, according to Speth, are the powerful tools to create the necessary “spiritual and cultural transformation.” In our Society, Environment, and Emotion (SEE) Lab, we study how this rationality assumption constrains our societies’ capacity to generate spiritual, cultural, social, and environmental transformations necessary to tackle the mortal challenge of climate change. We start from the premise that knowing about environmental problems is qualitatively distinct from feeling that one can do something meaningful and positive to address those problems. Our team wants to know why that’s the case—and what can be done about it.

For the last eight years, Wolfe and a talented team of emerging researchers have been investigating the links between emotion and individual and social responses to water and climate issues. We’ve explored how people’s psychological defenses, triggered by their anxiety about possible mortality, influence public and private decisions regarding water use at different scales and locations. Our initial work has shown that environment researchers, as well as policymakers dealing with water and climate issues, need to better understand, acknowledge, and prepare for people’s emotional drivers—especially their fear defenses—when it comes to environment and climate matters. Otherwise, fear defenses can become entrenched within individuals’ worldviews and personal and group identities, overriding more pro-environmental emotions such as altruism, empathy, awe, love, and generosity.

Terror Management Theory has provided powerful insights about how and why people make the environmental decisions they do, including a willingness to pursue climate adaptation or mitigation efforts. Our work is premised on an evolving understanding of climate change as an ever-present, subtle, and sometimes terrifying mortality reminder. We hear of severe flooding or droughts, warmer temperatures, and melting ice sheets on an almost daily basis—all signs that our world is changing in worrisome ways. Even without directly experiencing these climate effects, on a subconscious level, we recognize fear from these changes and hold related anxieties, long after the message is no longer immediately in front of us, or no longer ‘cognitively accessible.’ Student researchers in the SEE Lab are pursuing exciting, interdisciplinary, and diverse research inquiries to delve in to this dynamic and to make recommendations for possible policy and programmatic interventions.

Together, we can learn how to best communicate climate concerns for the greatest climate action, and how to best transform our own mortality anxieties into solutions for environmental problems.

For example, Lauren Smith’s doctoral research examines outgroup derogation in response to mortality threat that can involve gender biases, for instance, in technology or innovation sectors where men often greatly outnumber women. The ‘ingroup’ in these settings would be the predominant gender; mortality threats in male-dominated settings may lead to increased gender biases against non-male genders. Her research explores these subconscious gender biases that may emerge from threatening water messaging. This threatening messaging may be difficult to avoid when discussing water crises and potential solutions. Environmental research has called for innovation to resolve water crises, yet water innovation is a male-dominated sector. Water-related mortality reminders in this sector may inadvertently evoke outgroup derogation—in this case, gender biases that negatively impact women, as seen in prior TMT research. By ensuring diverse groups are involved in water problem-solving, more effective solutions can be created. While gender biases have been studied in prior TMT research with traditional mortality reminders, the intersection of water-mortality threats and gender has yet to be examined. Lauren’s work will add to existing TMT knowledge, exploring water-related mortality reminders explicitly. It will add to the TMT-gender work by investigating how threatening water messaging may influence appraisal of others, and if there are gender-based differences. The results will help guide decision-making around water problems, provide insights for who should be involved in water decision-making, and provide recommendations regarding how to talk about water problems in order to create the most effective solutions.

Meanwhile, Stephanie Shouldice (née Cote) continues to focus on how TMT can inform environmental communication to better motivate environmentally conscious decisions. She has previously published on barriers to sustainable behaviors and the relationship between emotions and water related decision-making. This work identified how mortality triggers could be used in pro- and anti-bottled water campaigns to direct consumers’ purchase behavior. Stephanie’s current doctoral research is an examination of how to effectively communicate water reuse concepts and projects to enhance political and public acceptance. Water reuse involves collecting, treating, and reusing wastewater for either drinking or non-potable applications, such as outdoor irrigation. This water reuse ensures multiple and efficient use of existing water rather than directly discharging it back into the environment after a single use. However, reuse of ‘dirty water’ evokes strong disgust emotions in people, making community support limited, difficult, or impossible. Stephanie hypothesizes that based on Terror Management insights, the bodily reminders of human waste also serve as mortality reminders, which may further make acceptance of water reuse methods challenging. Upon completion, Stephanie’s ground-breaking research will help identify ways to improve water reuse communication to enhance uptake of these practices.

Hanna Ross explores how water-specific ‘hero-projects’ and identities may enhance or impede sustainability efforts. In her first project, she assessed whether the Hoover Dam could be considered a hero-project. She found evidence of mortality salience indicators in public statements from historical news articles before, during, and after the dam’s construction, indicating that the dam may have served as a remarkable—but unsustainable—water infrastructure hero-project for those involved in its installation. She subsequently explored lawn watering intentions and examined whether lawns could likewise be considered a form of hero-project—another behavior to boost self-esteem or cultural identity and alleviate death anxieties. Although she successfully conducted a TMT experiment in a non-clinical setting, MS did not have an effect on lawn watering intentions. However, this finding may have been the result of high self-esteem and strong environmental identity buffers (publication in press). Finally, in her future doctoral research, Hanna will examine the intersection of conversion theory, cultural worldviews, and their potential transformation to encourage pro-environmental water behaviors.

Our SEE Lab scholars use interdisciplinary methods to explore human responses to climate change and resource use. We consider the influence emotions’ positive and negative affect (including awe, disgust, fear, and love) along with the role of death anxieties, self-esteem, and subconscious biases have on the decisions made around water in hopes to identify effective and inclusive paths forward for climate conscious solutions. But we also know that published academic research can only do so much, so we also increasingly dedicate efforts to connect with practitioners to incorporate TMT and emotion considerations into their climate work. If funding permits, we hope to host a workshop in Spring/Summer 2022 to gather, connect, and share ideas and opportunities. Together, we can learn how to best communicate climate concerns for the greatest climate action, and how to best transform our own mortality anxieties into solutions for environmental problems. Let us know if you’d like to be involved, or if you are a potential graduate student looking for research opportunities, by e-mailing Dr. Wolfe at sewolfe@uwaterloo.ca.