Connecting Psychological Science With Climate Change

Abstract

Students often have little understanding of the role psychological science plays in informing us about the impact of human behavior when addressing climate change. We designed an assignment for a social psychology course based on Frantz and Mayer’s use of the decision tree model of helping behavior to identify the psychological barriers that reduce the likelihood that people will take action against climate change. Students identified one barrier and designed a persuasion or influence attempt to address that barrier. The assignment integrated social psychological topics in several areas (e.g., helping behavior, persuasion). A pretest–posttest design revealed that students’ knowledge of the role of psychological science in understanding climate change increased compared to a control class.

Keywords

Active learning persuasion climate change

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