Toward Surmounting the Psychological Barriers to Climate Policy-Appreciating Contexts and Acknowledging Challenges: A Reply to Weber (2018)

Abstract

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.

Keywords: application; attitudes; climate change; environment; intergroup relations; judgment; policy; social cognition.