The authors acknowledge and respond to three concerns raised by Weber (2018) about oversimplifying psychological barriers to climate policy. First, skepticism about climate change remains a major barrier to climate policy, along with political partisanship. Second, recognizing multifaceted barriers to climate policy calls for multiple targeted interventions to be implemented at critical junctures. Finally, translating pro-environmental attitudes into action requires an appreciation of proximate sociopolitical contexts and cultures. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, psychological scientists are well equipped to understand and address the complex barriers to climate policy within the natural flow of everyday social life.
BrickC.ShermanD. K.KimH. S. (2017). “Green to be seen” and “brown to keep down”: Visibility moderates the effect of identity on pro-environmental behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 51, 226–238. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.04.004
3.
CampbellT. H.KayA. C. (2014). Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 809–824. doi:10.1037/a0037963
4.
CohenG. L. (2003). Party over policy. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 85, 808–822. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.85.5.808
5.
EhretP. J.SparksA. C.ShermanD. K. (2017). Support for environmental protection: an integration of ideological-consistency and information-deficit models. Environmental Politics, 26, 253–277. doi:10.1177/1948550618758709
6.
EhretP. J.Van BovenL.ShermanD. K. (2018). Partisan barriers to bipartisanship: Understanding climate policy polarization. Social Psychological & Personality Science. Advance online publication. doi:10.1177/1948550618758709
7.
EomK.KimH. S.ShermanD. K. (2018). Social class, control, and action: Socioeconomic status differences in antecedents of support for pro-environmental action. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 77, 60–75. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.03.009
8.
EomK.KimH. S.ShermanD. K.IshiiK. (2016). Cultural variability in the link between environmental concern and support for environmental action.Psychological Science, 27, 1331–1339. doi:10.1177/0956797616660078
9.
GreenD. P.GerberA. S. (2015). Get out the vote: How to increase voter turnout. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.
10.
GriskeviciusV.TyburJ. M.Van den BerghB. (2010). Going green to be seen: Status, reputation, and conspicuous conservation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98, 392–404. doi:10.1037/a0017346
11.
HempsteadK.DeLiaD.CantorJ. C.NguyenT.BrennerJ. (2014). The fragmentation of hospital use among a cohort of high utilizers: Implications for emerging care coordination strategies for patients with multiple chronic conditions. Medical Care, 52(Suppl. 3), S67–S74. doi:10.1097/MLR.0000000000000049
12.
KahanD. M. (2015). Climate-science communication and the measurement problem. Advances in Political Psychology, 36, 1–43. doi:10.1111/pops.12244
13.
LewinK. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: Concept, method and reality in social science; social equilibria and social change.Human Relations, 1, 5–41. doi:10.1177/001872674700100103
14.
PaluckE. L.ShepherdH. (2012). The salience of social referents: A field experiment on collective norms and harassment behavior in a school social network. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 103, 899–915. doi:10.1037/a0030015
15.
PaluckE. L.ShepherdH.AronowP. M. (2016). Changing climates of conflict: A social network experiment in 56 schools. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 11, 566–571. doi:10.1073/pnas.1514483113
16.
PearsonA. R.SchuldtJ. P. (in press). A diversity science approach to climate change. In ClaytonS.ManningC. (Eds.), Psychology and climate change: Human perceptions, impacts, and responses. Cambridge, MA: Academic Press.
17.
PearsonA. R.SchuldtJ. P.Romero-CanyasR. (2016). Social climate science: A new vista for psychological science. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 11, 632–650. doi:10.1177/1745691616639726
18.
RozinP. (2001). Social psychology and science: Some lessons from Solomon Asch.Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5, 2–14. doi:10.1207/S15327957PSPR0501_1
TamK. P.ChanH. W. (2017). Environmental concern has a weaker association with pro-environmental behavior in some societies than others: A cross-cultural psychology perspective. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 53, 213–223. doi:10.1016/j.jenvp.2017.09.001
Van BovenL.EhretP. J.ShermanD. K. (2018). Psychological barriers to bipartisan public support for climate policy. Perspectives on Psychological Sciences, 13, 492–507. doi:10.1177/1745691617748966.
23.
WeberE. U. (2018). The pitfalls of misperceiving psychological barriers to climate policy. Perspectives on Psychological Sciences, 13, 508–511. doi:10.1177/1745691618767910
24.
ZallerJ. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
