NEW PERSPECTIVES ON HOW TO CHANGE ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIORS RELATED TO SUSTAINABILITY

Ninety-seven percent of the scientists agrees that climate change is occurring, predominantly driven by human activities, with severe and alarming impacts on the environment and living beings (IPCC, 2022). Considering all the psychological processes involved in perceiving climate change, taking necessary action to address it, and understanding its effects on everyone’s health, psychologists have increasingly focused on this topic (Clayton et al., 2015). To mitigate the risks of climate change, individual, collective, and political actions are essential. Nielsen and colleagues (2021a) emphasized the importance of studying high-impact behaviors, i.e., those that most significantly reduce emissions. However, these behaviors often challenge the status quo, leading to psychological resistance that hinders attitude and behavior change. Through two distinct sets of studies, I investigated the psychological mechanisms underlying the energy transition and proposed a new framework for behavior change within the sustainability domain. In Chapter 2, I present two studies that examined the influence of the evaluation context on judgments of two major energy large-scale installations, such as solar farms and nuclear power plants. I hypothesized that when individuals compare these two energy sources directly, their attitudes change as they weigh the pros and cons of each, and I examined the moderators of such effect. In Chapter 3, I explored how people perceive and engage in different types of behavior change across three studies. Little to none of previous theoretical and experimental work has categorized different types of behavior change (e.g., stopping a current behavior vs. adopting a completely new one). The results show that people perceive varying levels of effort required for different types of behavior change, and is possible to reframe a behavior as less effortful to increase engagement in adopting it. Expanding our understanding of sustainability psychology is crucial, as it offers valuable insights for individuals, practitioners, and policymakers. Overcoming psychological resistance related to sustainability could facilitate interventions at both local and national levels, reducing emissions, combating climate change, and contributing to the achievement of the Sustainability Goals, ultimately improving lives globally.