THE INDIVIDUAL'S CLIMATE DENIAL:
SOCIETAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL INFLUENCES
The layperson understands climate change through lens tinted by their personal values and beliefs, life experiences, emotions, and interpretation of scientific information in the media (often framed to further certain stakeholders' social, political and economical interests.)
On top of that, the individual is vulnerable to cognitive biases.
Evidently, it is difficult for a layperson to be objective about climate change.
Some may take the stand of denying climate change or the climate consensus.
​
On this page, you will find some answers to:
(1) What are some reasons causing the average person to deny climate change?
(2) What are the consequences of individuals' denial of climate change?
INTRINSIC INFLUENCES ON INDIVIDUALS' CLIMATE CHANGE DENIAL
​​
-
Individuals are susceptible to the optimism bias:
-
​The optimism bias is a cognitive bias in which an individual wrongly believes they are less at risk of experiencing negative events, and more likely to experience positive events.
-
In a study by The British Academy, optimists and non-optimists read reports on climate change while their moment-to-moment gaze fixations were tracked. (A gaze fixation is when the eye is aligned with a target location for a certain duration to process the image.)
-
These reports contained information and evidence that either supported or opposed whether climate change was real.
-
Optimists were found to fixate shorter durations on information that supported climate change than for information opposing climate change.
-
Non-optimists did not vary their fixation durations between the two types of information.
-
-
​​​
(A) Eye gaze fixations of optimists.
(B) Eye gaze fixations of non-optimists.
Hotspot analysis of gaze fixations of (A) optimists and (B) non-optimists when reading information on climate change.
Redder spots indicate higher duration density, which mean longer gaze fixations on those locations.
Images from https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/optimism-bias-and-climate-change
Source: Free Wix Images
-
Individuals have inaccurate perceptions of risk:
-
Individuals are more likely to be aware of threats which hit them with immediate and heavy impacts, such as when a hurricane strikes.
-
The gradually-increasing negative effects of climate change are hard to observe;
-
This could lead to a higher likelihood of undermining the risks of climate change, as the individual's senses are unable to perceive its effects (compared to a hurricane's effects).​
-
-
-
This leads to individuals being more hesitant in accepting the climate consensus, especially because climate change and its science is complicated
-
Some individuals may even deny climate change altogether​​
-
-
We may engage in self-deception because we are afraid to confront the scary reality of climate change.
-
Climate change is often depicted to become a catastrophe if left unchecked.
-
This forces us to face the reality of our mortality, which we are uncomfortable with, and thus create "positive illusions", such as by denying that climate change is taking place.
-
Likewise, cognitive dissonance theory also explains how we deny climate change because the fear from the reality of climate change conflicts with our deep-set beliefs (which could include a belief that the Earth is a safe place to be in),
-
Causing us to reject or warp evidence for climate change and believe in information that does not scare us.
-
​​
