Approaching Global Climate Crisis with Psychology

Abstract

This paper explores how psychological approaches can aid in addressing the global climate crises. The starting point is an outline of how climate change has historically been addressed in psychology, and the prevailing theoretical notions that inform current research approaches. On the basis of Robert Gifford’s seminal body of work, The Dragons of Inaction, it is critically examined to which degree the predominance of research in the psychological barriers to pro-environmental behaviour translates into means of individual change. Next, a social practice approach is introduced to explore change as the sustainable development of social practices. It is argued that existing psychological approaches are challenged by a disconnect between theory and praxis, making it unclear how they contribute to concrete scopes of possibilities in the face of global climate change. As an attempt to strengthen this relationship, an alternative approach that seeks to account for the contradictory conditions under which we attempt to address the climate crisis is presented.