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Abstract

Global warming is accelerating, and U.S.-Americans are in denial across a spectrum of denial from literal or outright denial to disavowal. There are likely numerous causes for the broad spectrum of climate denial, but I argue that collective or group shame has a hand in constructing that denial. Group and collective emotions have been researched, but there is a gap in the research. Up to now, in the climate crisis context, primarily collective guilt, not shame, has been researched, and only for how, when induced, it prompts pro-environmental behavior. My purpose here is to begin to fill that gap and extend the current research on group and collective emotions to climate denial using existing evidence that suggests that collective shame (felt and expressed, or denied) constructs climate denial (1) either based on a shared social identity or (2) based on threats to a shared social identity. I also propose that any examination of collective shame in climate denial be done through an ecopsychological lens. Ecopsychology recognizes that humanity is inseparable from nature and exists within nested systems, both natural and human-made, both of which influence social identity. Ecopsychology also inherently considers the structural and the systemic—the ecosystem—in which groups and the collective exist. I conclude by suggesting avenues for further research and clinical considerations.

Introduction

“There is a rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all” and to avoid the disastrous outcomes due to anthropogenic global warming (IPCC, 2023). Despite what U.S.-Americans* claim to believe, either that climate change is part of a natural cycle or a life-threatening crisis or something in-between, they are acting in denial. Consumption and travel exceed prepandemic levels, plans are afoot for new fossil fuel projects, and there is no widespread public demand to address the climate crisis. Moreover, recent public polling indicates that U.S.-Americans who believe that the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated is on the rise, and those who believe that economic growth should be prioritized over environmental protection is also on the rise—sharply (Gallup Organization, 2022).

According to research, climate denial comes in many forms, across a spectrum from those who outright reject global warming to those who express concern, yet live “their lives as though they [do] not know or care about it”—perhaps all of us from time to time (Norgaard, 2006b, pp. 352–353). There are likely numerous causes for the broad spectrum of climate denial. In this study, I argue for inquiry into a strong emotion that seems inextricable from climate denial: shame, especially in the collective. “The ecosystem is in danger, and this sense of danger invades our inner worlds, our minds, creating shame” (Mathers, 2021, p. 162).

The effects of shame are prevalent throughout climate denial. Shame is alienating, isolating, and paralyzing (Bruni, 2019; Fredericks, 2021; Tangney & Tracy, 2011). A seemingly irreparable situation leads to feelings of helplessness and hopelessness, which in turn lead to feelings of shame (Leach & Cidam, 2015; Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2018). But shame is often not felt, not expressed. Shame is denied, dissociated from, and buried behind defenses such as denial, anger, blame, and conduct that appears shameless, all of which only temporarily manage the bad feelings caused by shame (Eterović, 2020; Tangney & Tracy, 2011; Tracy & Robins, 2007).

Why collective shame? Apart from individual responses to personal failings, people experience shame (felt and expressed, or denied) vicariously on behalf of others, usually based on a shared social identity (Lickel et al., 2005; Lickel et al., 2011; Welten et al., 2012). And social identity is instrumental to climate denial because, as research has shown, climate denial is socially constructed (Caillaud et al., 2016; Caillaud et al., 2019; Norgaard, 2006a, 2006b, 2011).

Yet, there is a gap in the research. Up to now, in the climate crisis context, primarily collective guilt, not shame, has been researched, and only for how, when induced, it prompts pro-environmental behavior (Caillaud et al., 2016, 2019; Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010; Harrison & Mallett, 2013; Rees et al., 2015). There is no research found that examines whether or how group or collective shame (or even guilt) is involved in climate denial. My purpose here is to begin to fill that gap and extend the current research on group and collective emotions to climate denial using existing evidence that suggests that collective shame (felt and expressed, or denied) constructs climate denial (1) either based on a shared social identity or (2) based on threats to a shared social identity.

After reviewing collective shame, climate denial, and evidence of collective shame operating in climate denial, I propose that any examination of collective shame in climate denial be done through an ecopsychological lens. Ecopsychology recognizes that humanity is inseparable from nature and exists within nested systems, both natural and human-made, both of which influence social identity (Kanner, 2014). Ecopsychology also inherently considers the structural and the systemic—the ecosystem—in which groups and the collective exists. I conclude by suggesting avenues for further research and clinical considerations.

Collective Shame

Shame is a complex emotion, both social and moral (Pihkala, 2022; Tangney et al., 2007; Tangney & Tracy, 2011). It is relational, formed in overlapping, nested identities created by, inter alia, family, culture, community, nation, world (Constable, 1999). Shame has been key to human social evolution by conveying and enforcing norms and values, which, if flouted, might jeopardize not only individual belonging, but the collective survival of the group (Davidson & Kecinski, 2022; Dickerson et al., 2004; Fishkin, 2016; Kemeny et al., 2004). Research on the operation of shame also indicates that preservation of the social self may be as critical as preservation of the physical self (Dickerson et al., 2004; Kemeny et al., 2004).

Felt shame may include feelings of rejection and inferiority (Gausel et al., 2012), and is painful because the offense is attributed to a character flaw or a core aspect of identity, in contrast to guilt, which focuses on solely the errant conduct (Tangney et al., 2005; Tangney et al., 2007). Yet, shame is often not felt, but denied, unacknowledged, hidden, or buried (Eterović, 2020). It has been said that shame is not problematic, but the coping mechanisms are—the denial, anxiety, anger, aggression, alienation, powerlessness, overwhelm, and helplessness (Bruni, 2019; Eterović, 2020; Leach & Cidam, 2015; Lee et al., 2011; Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2018; Tangney & Tracy, 2011; Tracy & Robins, 2007). The prevailing psychological construction reflects this: shame is oriented to avoidance, denial, and withdrawal, and guilt is oriented to approach, reparations, and pro-social motivations (Leach & Cidam, 2015; Tangney et al., 2007).

Shame is not only an individual experience, but also a group or collective emotion. Group or collective shame or guilt may be the aggregate of shared individual experiences (Páez et al., 2006; Pettigrove & Parsons, 2012). Or they may be experienced vicariously because of an identification or association with, or an attachment or commitment to, a group (Caillaud et al., 2016; Lickel et al., 2011; Rees et al., 2015). Group-based shame (or guilt) relates to one's self-concept reflected in the group—a social identity. Threats to that social identity generate collective or group shame (Kemeny et al., 2004; Lickel et al., 2005, 2011). Research has shown that group-based shame arises where there is a shared social identity, likely because morality is a key aspect of social identity (Shepherd et al., 2013; Welten et al., 2012).

Collective guilt or shame may be based on either ingroup (intragroup) or intergroup appraisals, that is, feelings of shame can be induced by an appraisal of an ingroup moral defect or the appraisal may come from an external assessment (Gausel et al., 2012). “[W]hen individuals self-categorize as a member of a group which is held responsible for a harmful event[,] they experience negative collective emotions [like shame,] and feel that their social identity is threatened” (Caillaud et al., 2016, p. 300). Group-based shame (and guilt) may be the result of historical, present and ongoing, and/or anticipated harms or failures; may involve intragroup or intergroup transgressions or omissions; and may encompass both actual and anticipatory shame (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2014; Gunn & Wilson, 2011; Lickel et al., 2011; Shepherd et al., 2013).

Where group or social identity concerns prevail, collective shame may be more operative and elicit defensive reactions (Gunn & Wilson, 2011; Lickel et al., 2011). Limited research involving ingroup immoral behavior found, however, that felt shame was found to correlate to a degree with pro-social motivations, which is typically a response-associated collective guilt (Gausel et al., 2012). Gausel (2012) and Gausel et al. (2012) argue that the distinction is due to a felt shame akin to social rejection, where repair would be sought, rather than shame denied, where defensiveness, such as the denial itself, would predominate. Yet, even if group identity concerns (and shame) were to motivate reparations, as soon as reparations become too difficult or costly, or an alternative means of repairing the ingroup's image becomes available, shame would cease to motivate reparations (Gunn & Wilson, 2011). And, in both intragroup and intergroup settings, group value or affirmation can counter the defensive responses due to shame (Gunn & Wilson, 2011).

Collective Shame in Constructing Climate Denial

The evidence of group shame in social identity, discussed as follows, shows that shame has a hand in the social construction of climate denial across the climate denial spectrum.

The climate denial spectrum

Climate denial encompasses a range of responses to global warming: literal, interpretive, and implicatory denial of anthropogenic global warming (AGW) (Levitson & Walker, 2012; Norgaard, 2006a, 2006b, 2011; Weintrobe, 2021). Literal denial is the “outright rejection of facts” related to the climate crisis (Levitson & Walker, 2012, p. 279; see also Norgaard, 2011). Literal denial overlaps with skepticism. Even though skepticism typically applies to a dynamic process whereby a claim would be accepted with sufficient supporting evidence, in climate denial, skepticism refers to those who reject the scientific consensus on global warming (Lynas, Houlton, & Perry, 2021), and rely upon studies that are not peer-reviewed and funded by fossil fuel interests (Jylhä, 2017).

Interpretative denial is the selective perspective and interpretation of facts, or spin (Norgaard, 2011), and overlaps with denialism, where the claims are organized and ideological (Weintrobe, 2021). (This part of the spectrum is discussed later with the “denial machine.”) Literal and interpretative denial have been the most extensively researched, found to exist on a continuum (Dunlap, 2013).

Implicatory denial acknowledges AGW, but discounts the social, political, psychological, or moral implications thereof (Norgaard, 2011). Implicatory denial also includes “justifications, rationalizations, and evasions for a failure to act when the actor knows what can be done and has the resources to do something” (Levitson & Walker, 2012, p. 279) This type of denial is similar to disavowal, which acknowledges AGW, but minimizes it (Weintrobe, 2021). Disavowal “is the state of knowing and not knowing at the same time” and is “arguably the most widespread [and] arguably the most pernicious” (Haseley, 2019, p. 110).

Literal denial and skepticism on the one hand, and implicatory denial and disavowal on the other, roughly comprise the two groups on either side of the climate denial spectrum, keeping in mind that “[c]ontinuing to view the climate crisis in terms of ‘realists versus deniers' is itself a form of denial” (Woodbury, 2019, p. 6, emphasis in original).

Evidence of collective shame in disavowal or implicatory denial

Both shame felt and shame denied appear among those who could be characterized in disavowal or implicatory denial, according to the research. Aaltola (2021) and Neckel and Hasenfratz (2021) have identified defensive behavior toward climate change due to shame. Jylhä (2017) observed that “[a]voidance and denial are more likely if individuals feel overwhelmed, ashamed and/or hopeless…or if they experience inability to address climate change by their own actions” (p. 2). Lertzman (2015) found that contrary to the prevalent view that U.S.-Americans are apathetic about climate change, her subjects had a surfeit of care but were unable to act on it because of shame, deep-seated anxiety, helplessness, and disappointment. Weintrobe (2013) identified disavowal in climate denial as a way to manage the anxiety caused by the guilt and shame from knowing that the narcissistic part of humans caused global warming.

There is also specific evidence of collective shame operating in the social construction of climate denial on this side of the spectrum. Fredericks (2021) extensively documented shame (and guilt) among “everyday environmentalists” in the United States who expressed and managed their emotions in social settings, and she also pointed to evidence of a collective shame for human destruction of the environment. Norgaard (2006a, 2006b, 2011) found indicia of shame: the “fear of being a bad person”; the “desire to preserve a positive sense of self-esteem”; ontological insecurity; feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and overwhelm for, among other things, “participating in a system that they did not know how to escape” (2011, p. 195). Caillaud et al. (2019) found (in France and Germany) shame among the negative collective emotions expressed in response to climate change. Caillaud et al. (2016) also found coping mechanisms to restore a positive social identity, suggesting that collective shame needed to be counteracted. These mechanisms are what would be expected for implicatory denial and disavowal: denial of responsibility or minimizing consequences, system justification, and othering through stereotypical representations of groups who may be seen as more responsible for the climate crisis (Caillaud et al., 2016).

Evidence of collective shame in literal denial or skepticism

At the other end of the climate denial spectrum, where there is skepticism toward, or literal denial of AGW, there has been extensive research into the beliefs and attitudes connected to this denial (Benegal, 2018; Benegal & Holman, 2021; Jylhä et al., 2016; Jylhä & Hellmer, 2020; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Nelson, 2019, 2020; Thoma et al., 2021; Wong-Parodi & Feygina, 2020), but none found into underlying individual or collective emotions. However, within the research on the social identity of the people who comprise this group, there is evidence of group shame, some felt, but mostly denied.

According to broad research, literal denial or skepticism is “almost an essential component” of white conservative identity in the United States (Nelson, 2020, p. 285; see also Jylhä & Hellmer, 2020; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Nelson, 2019, 2020; Thoma et al., 2021). However, no group is a monolith, nor is this denial limited to conservatives, nor are conservatives limited to this denial. Yet, research suggests that a high U.S.-American identification, which also describes this group, is associated with denying or justifying environmental harm (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2010). This group's social identity is also connected to support of former President Trump, evangelical Christianity, nationalism, free-market capitalism, individualism, and system justification (Jylhä & Hellmer, 2020; McCright & Dunlap, 2011; Nelson, 2019, 2020; Silva, 2019; Veldman, 2019).

The indicators of collective shame constructing climate denial in this group arise from threats to social identity, evidenced from research that revealed expressed fears of cultural displacement and generational decline (Kydd, 2021; Nelson, 2019, 2020; Silva, 2019). Research has also found that white conservatives have been organized and mobilized around a belief that they have been shamed and stigmatized by a secular liberal elite, and that secular humanism is a threat to their social identity (Silva, 2019; Stein, 2001; Veldman, 2019). Similarly, a sense of marginalization and embattlement signaling a threatened social identity was found to be at the center of evangelical Christians' climate denial (Veldman, 2019; Veldman et al., 2021).

According to research, many white conservatives identify as working class, and the economic collapse of this class and resulting poverty have been a source of feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and humiliation each evidencing individual as well as group shame (Nelson, 2019; Páez et al., 2006; Pettigrove & Parsons, 2012). Other research has found that precarity, poverty, and shame are often related, and shame is particularly aversive where there is a loss in social status (Sturman, Dufford, Bremser, & Chantel, 2017). For rural white conservatives (among others) who live in and depend on extractive-based rural communities facing an elimination of jobs and social status to meet carbon net zero requirements, the climate crisis “poses the … threat of social exclusion,” an anticipatory shame (Davidson & Kecinski, 2022, p. 6). These feelings “may lead to a collective form of paralysis, as well as ideological defensive structures, such as equating environmental practices with being non-capitalist and ‘un-American’” (Lertzman, 2015, p. 127).

The denial machine

Interpretive denial or denialism is exemplified by the denial machine. The term “denial machine” or “climate denial machine” has been used for the past 15 years in the United States to describe a movement that began in the late 1980s to encourage and normalize literal climate denial or skepticism (Veldman, 2019). The denial machine is run by conservative media, pundits, politicians, think-tank “specialists,” and contrarian scientists funded by the fossil fuel industry and other vested interests, and targets, among others, white conservatives and evangelical Christians (Coan, Boussalis, Cook, & Nanko, 2021; Dunlap, 2013; Thoma et al., 2021; Veldman, 2019). The denial machine has worked to segregate its target audience from the effects of AGW by “strategically invest[ing] for decades in undermining public trust in government and minimizing protections and support for marginalized communities, communities of color, and economically disadvantaged groups who are being disproportionately impacted by climate change” (Basseches et al., 2022, p. 10 of 24).

Research has questioned whether literal climate denial or skepticism would exist or persist but for the denial machine's disinformation campaign (Dunlap, 2013; Jylhä, 2017; Nelson, 2019; Veldman, 2019). The denial machine has exploited shame, stigma, and a sense of embattlement around conservative ideals to create and strengthen ingroup bonds (Jylhä, 2017; Jylhä et al., 2021; Nelson, 2019, 2020; Stein, 2001; Veldman, 2019; Veldman et al., 2021). “Climate change is indeed a scientific phenomenon, but it is appropriated and reconstructed in different cultural contexts, resulting in different social realities” (Caillaud et al., 2019, p. 56). Sowing divisiveness based upon a besieged secular culture (those who acknowledge AGW) and an embattled religious or conservative culture (those who dispute AGW) also creates separate social identities in a manner that is advantageous to the denial machine and which promotes climate denial as an intergroup conflict (Veldman, 2019; Veldman et al., 2021).

Shame as a Climate Denial Common Denominator

To meet the climate crisis, finding common ground is more necessary than ever as the United States' political divide, aka affective polarization, has risen substantially in recent decades (Boxell, Gentzkow, & Shapiro, 2022). Arguably, one group acts consistently with its denial (those who ascribe to literal denial and skepticism); the other does not (those who accept AGW, but are in disavowal and implicatory denial). Maybe collective shame is one common denominator among apparent disparate groups on the continuum of climate denial, and how “literal and implicatory denial go hand in hand” (Norgaard, 2011, p. 181).

In both research and conceptual considerations, the climate crisis implicates moral assessments, and these trigger shame—acknowledged or ignored (Aaltola, 2021; Markowitz & Shariff, 2012; Stoll-Kleeman & O'Riordan, 2020; Weintrobe, 2018). The climate crisis has been described as “a perfect moral storm,” demanding ethical choices that are making us all “extremely vulnerable to moral corruption” (Gardiner, 2011, p. 398), and shame.

For U.S.-Americans, climate change is a threat to the social self, a collective identity, and ontological security precariously built upon an entitled, “imperial mode of living” (Brand & Wissen, 2018). The consumptive mode of U.S.-American living may appear shameless, and “[b]eing shameless is fast becoming a virtue and quick fixes for our guilt are now widely socially acceptable” (Weintrobe, 2010, p. 119). However, perhaps this shamelessness is another defense to feeling shame since “[d]enied shame may lead to actions that (on the surface) seem shameless” (Marčinko, Bilić, & Eterović, 2021, p. S700). Either way, consciously or unconsciously, U.S.-Americans share a “terrifying dread and associated feelings of guilt (over [our] own petroleum usage or other similarly harmful climate-related behaviors) or helplessness” (Nelson, 2020, p. 284).

Blaming the other side of the aisle or spectrum of climate denial may be another “quick fix” to avoid feeling the pain of shame (Weintrobe, 2021). Acknowledging and feeling into a collective shame for one's ingroup's climate denial might go far to bridge this nation's affective polarization, particularly since expressed collective shame from what may be considered a perpetrator group can disarm a threat felt in an intergroup conflict (Ferguson & Branscombe, 2014). In other words, we have to move beyond shame denied to shame, felt and expressed in remorse. Moreover, “[a]s everybody is at least partly responsible for the problem, who would reject or condemn someone else for climate change?” (Rees et al., 2015).

Uncovering and Untangling Shame as an Ecopsychological Undertaking

Ecopsychology may be particularly well suited to uncovering and untangling the group and collective shame across the spectrum of climate denial. It reveals that group processes such as collective shame and climate denial arise in a larger context, steering humanity away from individualism to the collective, to a more expansive identity that includes nature, and seeing the self in the other—all others. Ecopsychology shows that the cause of the climate crisis and the source of the ensuing shame and denial are the same, a “worldview predicated on the separation of humanity from the rest of nature” (Fredericks, 2021, p. 84), and one seemingly shared across the spectrum of climate denial.

Beyond the social identities that construct the climate denial in the two groups discussed earlier is this shared shame. Instead of being collectively incapacitated, recognizing the functioning of this collective shame—whether expressed as shame felt or shame denied—could signal a shared alienation from nature. “Tuning into this cry [of shame] could thus be an ecopsychological undertaking of great historical significance, going right to the emotional core of our society” (Fisher, 2013a, p. 191). Tuning into the collective shame might spur empathy, which “should be a cure for dysfunctional shame, at the individual or social level” (Marčinko et al., 2021, p. S700). Feeling rather than denying a collective shame based on alienation from nature, and seeing that shame in ourselves and others might go far to unwind shame from U.S.-American social identity and that identity's role in constructing climate denial.

Collective action problems, however, such as AGW are impossible to change without addressing the underlying structural issues that typify the human/nature binary (Jacquet, 2015), and ecopsychology serves as a critical lens exposing the structural, institutional, and material conditions that generate both AGW and climate denial (Kanner, 2014; Vlasov et al., 2021). Beyond the psyche-nature split, ecopsychology examines the society-nature split, “the social sources of violence done to both human and more-than-human nature [and] the historical, cultural, political, and economic roots of our ecopsychology crisis” (Fisher, 2013b, p. 167).

One source is “life-negating capitalism” (Fisher, 2013a, p. 24), which permits the immoral exploitation of others, starting with nature and extending to those relegated to the role of nature, those subjected to human [ab]use and profiteering (Merchant, 1980). There is a strong taboo in the United States against criticizing capitalism, and taboos indicate shame, perhaps because capitalism rewards greed, selfishness, and even shamelessness (Kanner, 2014), and has promoted a culture of uncare and even an entitlement to not feel shame (Weintrobe, 2021). Also, capitalism “creates precarious, anxiety-provoking socioeconomic conditions, while also stigmatizing [our] own inevitable associated insecurity and fear as shameful” (Nelson, 2019, p. 235).

To address the climate crisis, capitalism is shifting the responsibility to consumers, and this individualistic approach is “intrinsically shaming” (Fisher, 2013a, p. 79, emphasis in original). Capitalism thus profits from both ends of global warming—cause and effects—by marketing “eco” or “green” consumer goods to assuage both individual and collective shame (e.g., my electric car does not carbon load like your diesel truck), but further dividing us. The products are also targeted to women and parents who are already prone to environmental shame in the United States, relying “on unjust power dynamics and misinformation overemphasizing individual household consumer solutions over social or political change” (Fredericks, 2021, p. 127).

Conclusion

“Whilst guilt holds the power to provoke alteration in one specific belief, value or action, shame can cause more profound and systemic modification concerning entire systems of beliefs, values and actions” (Aaltola, 2021, p. 12). Specific and targeted research extending the studies done on collective guilt and shame to the social construction of climate denial would either confirm or dispute that collective shame has had a role, either through shame as part of a social identity or shame as the result of threats to a social identity. Collective shame (and guilt) research applied to the climate denial would open several avenues of inquiry.

Outside the context of climate denial, researchers found that ingroup anticipatory shame (and anger) based upon what was considered immoral ingroup behavior—a proposed intergroup transgression—motivated some group members to collective action, and it was hypothesized that group-based guilt would not have the same action potential that group-based shame would have in the intergroup setting (Shepherd et al., 2013). If, for example, flying were considered immoral ingroup behavior and an intergroup transgression [on nature; Rees et al. (2015)], might that motivate collective action, and if not, why not? Applying other research on collective shame to climate denial may reveal how, in part, to move the psychology of climate denial from moral disengagement to generating social change (Stoll-Kleemann & O'Riordan, 2020).

Future research might look at both ingroup and intergroup implications based on the two ingroups I discussed earlier, or the implications of defining the ingroup broadly to include all U.S.-Americans. Recently, I saw a bumper sticker that read, “Climate change? It's called weather, stupid,” and my shoulders slumped forward, chest collapsed—an innate physiological reaction to a shame-eliciting performance, the same reaction that was found in research on shame done in a naturalistic setting, not dependent upon fabricated or imagined situations to invoke subjective self-reporting [Tracy and Matsumoto (2008), study comparing sighted, blinded, and congenitally blind athletes, cross-culturally]. I instantly recognized my somatic response before the defensiveness kicked in (I am not stupid!). Yet, my reactions were not because of my own shame-eliciting performance, but because of another's, another who I had at least for a moment recognized as a member of my ingroup. Research on a specific ingroup, for example, literal climate denial or skepticism, where AGW likely would not activate a moral failure, might focus on defenses that may be hiding shame or look for physiological responses to group shame—the innate postural responses, or the stress reactions that those who are chronic threats to the social-self exhibit such as increased cortisol production and pro-inflammatory cytokine activity, and decreased overall immune responses (Kemeny et al., 2004).

Research on group or collective shame in the context of climate denial might find a “sweet spot” where group or collective shame can be felt and motivate collective action or reparations, before it flips to defensiveness and denial; and if it flips, can it be rewound to that sweet spot through group affirmation or group valuing (Gausel, 2012; Gausel et al., 2012; Gunn & Wilson, 2011; Lickel et al., 2011; Rees et al., 2015). This research would also have to account for the costs of reparations, which if too much, as might be expected if U.S.-Americans are to reach net zero, would counter shame's motivating effect. Instead, subjects might react to the shame by identity polishing, via, e.g., greenwashing, or if the ingroup rejects the underlying values (e.g., reaching net zero), that group may be socially encouraged to be hostile to climate shaming, becoming further entrenched in their climate denial (Aaltola, 2021; Yadin, 2023).

Finally, research is needed into whether a group or collective shame has a shared component between climate denial and what I call the comorbidities of climate denial, that is, racism, sexism, homophobia, ageism, xenophobia, social dominance orientation, and speciesism, based on existing research finding these or related views are correlated with literal denial and skepticism (Agius et al., 2020; Benegal, 2018; Benegal & Holman, 2021; Caviola et al., 2019; Dhont et al., 2016). The research may find correlations across the denial spectrum and/or shed light on how to support environmental justice movements, which address the intersection of these comorbidities and climate denial (Kaijser & Kronsell, 2014).

However, the difficulties of researching shame in individuals apply to studying group or collective shame. Despite the prevailing psychological construction of shame vis-à-vis guilt, shame has been conceptualized and measured in diverse and even inconsistent ways (Gausel et al., 2012), and the terms guilt and shame are used interchangeably by researchers and subjects alike, and imprecisely defined in scientific and academic literature (Fredericks, 2021; Katchadourian, 2010). Meta-analyses and other studies indicate that although guilt and shame are distinct emotions, they coexist, and are conflated or confused with other related emotions (e.g., remorse, humiliation, and embarrassment); appear similar in valence and strength, and lead to either prosocial or self-defensive behavior (Gausel, 2012; Gausel et al., 2012; Leach & Cidam, 2015; Miceli & Castelfranchi, 2018). Identifying shame can also be difficult because “defenses against shame provide a smoke screen of adaptiveness or shamelessness” and “[e]quating the experience of shame with only what is acknowledged rather than from self-reporting means not only ignoring unconscious processes but also empowering them” (Eterović, 2020, p. 346).

Apart from quantitative or qualitative research, how collective shame operates in climate denial also has potential clinical ramifications. There may be client or patient who has eco-anxiety or climate anxiety, and underneath may be shame (felt and expressed, or denied), not for their conduct or behavior, but instead or in addition to, for the conduct or behavior of their ingroup, whatever the scope of that may be, but nonetheless an identified-with group, be it a family, community, collective, culture, or species, or other U.S.-Americans as emblematic of the Anthropocene and who have disproportionately contributed to the climate crisis (Jensen, 2019; Pihkala, 2022). Indeed, shame and anxiety—including climate anxiety—exacerbate each other in a positive feedback loop (Marčinko et al., 2021; Weintrobe, 2013, 2021). Also, someone who works with groups, even small ones, might see the dynamics discussed herein as a fractal of the collective shame that works in social identity, and, in turn, constructs climate denial at various points across the denial spectrum.

The climate crisis presents a paradox akin to the Prisoner's Dilemma: what is best for the collective (e.g., net zero) is not best for the free-consuming individual, at least not in the short run (see Gardiner, 2011). Also, shame arises from having been duped—fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Both were reflected in a group study revealed that those who acknowledge AGW advocate mitigation but “prefer to adopt personal actions that require no significant reductions in their energy and resource use as long as others have not started” (Stoll-Kleeman & O'Riordan, 2020, p. 12). The implication is that countering AGW requires collective action, and collectively made sacrifices that diminishes the anxiety of individual sacrifice and being duped (Stoll-Kleeman & O'Riordan, 2020; Weintrobe, 2021). Felt and expressed shame, although, can strengthen collective bonds (Fredericks, 2021; Páez et al., 2006; Pettigrove & Parsons, 2012), restore a positive collective identity and inspire collective action and reparation (Marčinko et al., 2021; Páez et al., 2006)—all of which will be needed to secure a livable and sustainable future for us all.

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Deep gratitude to family, friends, and guides, especially those at Naropa University, and the more-than-human.

Author Disclosure Statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Funding Information

No funding was received for this article.

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Collective Shame in Climate Denial: An Ecopsychological Undertaking

Abstract

Introduction

Collective Shame

Collective Shame in Constructing Climate Denial

The climate denial spectrum

Evidence of collective shame in disavowal or implicatory denial

Evidence of collective shame in literal denial or skepticism

The denial machine

Shame as a Climate Denial Common Denominator

Uncovering and Untangling Shame as an Ecopsychological Undertaking

Conclusion

Footnotes

Acknowledgments

Author Disclosure Statement

Funding Information

References