Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change

Global climate change poses one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. This article, which introduces the American Psychologist special issue on global climate change, follows from the report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. In this article, we place psychological dimensions of climate change within the broader context of human dimensions of climate change by addressing (a) human causes of, consequences of, and responses (adaptation and mitigation) to climate change and (b) the links between these aspects of climate change and cognitive, affective, motivational, interpersonal, and organizational responses and processes. Characteristics of psychology that cross content domains and that make the field well suited for providing an understanding of climate change and addressing its challenges are highlighted. We also consider ethical imperatives for psychologists' involvement and provide suggestions for ways to increase psychologists' contribution to the science of climate change.     

人以天地之气生:气象对人类心理与行为的影响

从情绪波动到文明兴衰,研究者愈来愈意识到大气现象对人类的重要影响。气象心理学涵盖天气和气候这两大类大气现象作用于人类个体和群体的心理与行为乃至文化特征的各种研究。在个体心理层面,温度、湿度、日照等气象因素会影响个体情绪、工作记忆和认知能力。在个体行为层面,人际亲和行为和反社会行为也会被天气左右。在群体和文化层面,从长程上考察,气温和降水量与多尺度人类群体冲突爆发密切相关;气候冷暖和资源多寡也会共同形塑当地族群的文化心理行为特征。人类世界始终嵌入于天气和气候等宏观生态环境中并受其影响,气象心理学应当在心理学研究体系中占有一席之地。     

The psychological impacts of global climate change

An appreciation of the psychological impacts of global climate change entails recognizing the complexity and multiple meanings associated with climate change; situating impacts within other social, technological, and ecological transitions; and recognizing mediators and moderators of impacts. This article describes three classes of psychological impacts: direct (e.g., acute or traumatic effects of extreme weather events and a changed environment); indirect (e.g., threats to emotional well-being based on observation of impacts and concern or uncertainty about future risks); and psychosocial (e.g., chronic social and community effects of heat, drought, migrations, and climate-related conflicts, and postdisaster adjustment). Responses include providing psychological interventions in the wake of acute impacts and reducing the vulnerabilities contributing to their severity; promoting emotional resiliency and empowerment in the context of indirect impacts; and acting at systems and policy levels to address broad psychosocial impacts. The challenge of climate change calls for increased ecological literacy, a widened ethical responsibility, investigations into a range of psychological and social adaptations, and an allocation of resources and training to improve psychologists' competency in addressing climate change-related impacts.     

AIDS: behavioral contributions to its prevention

AIDS is caused by the human T cell leukemia virus (HTLV) or lymphadenopathy associated virus (LAV) or human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The latter name has been widely accepted. According to the WHO in 1988 there were 5 million infected persons. In Argentina, there were 300 AIDS patients and 30,000 infected people in 1989 and 60,000 in 1990. Obstacles to prevention of the spread of AIDS are: fear which causes some to conceal its existence; prolonged latency; complacency about future negative outcome; the lack of value of life among drug addicts; adolescent behavior of defiance and confrontation; militant denial by many of the possibility of contracting AIDS; and a criminally low level of measures to combat AIDS in the Third World. Primary prevention includes avoidance of contact with body fluids of an infected person submitting to a serological test if infection is suspected massive educational campaigns, study of subcultures such as drug addicts and adolescents, use of disposable needles and sterilization of all medical instruments use of condoms, and analysis of the blood of donated organs and blood for transfusion. Secondary prevention means making sure that seropositive patients undergo periodic medical checkups and receive medical attention when suspicious symptoms are detected and follow various steps to strengthen their immune systems. Tertiary prevention comprises psychological and psychopharmacological treatment of emotional distress to facilitate a less painful progress of the disease and to avert possible complications and relapses.     

Temporal judgments and contextual change

Three experiments investigated effects of environmental context on temporal memory judgments. An equal number of items occurred within each of two equal durations (D1 and D2). Subjects subsequently were asked to judge the length of a given duration in comparison with the other, then to discriminate the correct list and serial position for each recognized item on a test. If environmental context was unchanged, D1 was remembered as being longer than D2; if the context was disrupted during the interval separating D1 and D2, this effect was reduced; and if the context prevailing during D2 also was changed, the effect was eliminated. List discrimination was improved only if the context was changed. Serial-position judgment was not affected by either manipulation. Changes in process context--the internal context produced by the performance of specific cognitive processes--lengthened remembered duration, but the effect did not simply add on to the effects of environmental context. Results are discussed in terms of a contextual-change hypothesis.     

Relative contributions of aggression and reproduction to behavioral endocrinology

Reproductive activity has been the behavior of choice for research in behavioral endocrinology. Why this is so and the consequences to the study of aggression and to behavioral endocrinology in general are explored.     

The psychophsiology of aggressive drivers: comparison to non-aggressive drivers and pre- to post-treatment change following a cognitive-behavioural treatment

Twenty drivers were remanded to our treatment program by the courts following arrests related to serious aggressive driving behaviors. Ten additional drivers entered our program in response to our advertisements thus identifying themselves as aggressive drivers. Psychophysiological assessments were conducted on all 30 drivers and heart rate (HR), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP and DBP), and skin resistance level (SRL) were measured in response to exposure to a mental arithmetic neutral stressor, two idiosyncratic, audio-taped, aggressive driving vignettes (audio 1 and audio 2), and one non-driving related fearful vignette. Fourteen non-aggressive driving controls also completed the assessment. The results indicated that the aggressive drivers (ADs) showed significantly more SBP responsivity during audio 1 and audio 2 and significantly less SBP reactivity during the mental arithmetic stressor than the controls. The aggressive drivers then completed a four-week, group intervention which included relaxation techniques specifically targeting aggressive driving behaviors. The same psychophysiological assessment was conducted at post-treatment. The results showed significant pre- to post-treatment decreases in HR, p<0.003, SBP, p<0.01, and DBP, p<0.02 during audio 1. Similarly, decreases were evident in audio 2 in SBP, p<0.03 only. No decreases in reactivity occurred during the neutral stressor or fearful situation.     

Psychiatric and behavioral problems in aggressive drivers

Motor vehicle accidents (MVAs) are a leading cause of accidental death and injury, and aggressive driving has been identified as a risk factor for MVAs. Assessing psychiatric and behavioral disturbances in aggressive drivers is germane to the development of prevention and intervention programs for this population. The present study compared the prevalence of psychiatric diagnoses and behavioral problems in young adult drivers with self-reported high driving aggression to that of drivers with low driving aggression. Aggressive drivers evidenced a significantly higher current and lifetime prevalence of Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Alcohol and Substance Use Disorders, and Cluster B Personality Disorders, and a significantly greater lifetime prevalence of Conduct Disorder, Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, and Intermittent Explosive Disorder. Aggressive drivers also had a significantly greater prevalence of self-reported problems with anger, as well as a greater family history of anger problems and conflict. The findings suggest that prevention and intervention programs designed to reduce aggressive driving may need to address the presence of psychiatric and behavioral problems that could potentially complicate treatment or impede responses to treatment.     

Beyond change management: a multilevel investigation of contextual and personal influences on employees' commitment to change

The extent to which attitudes toward organizational changes may be affected by contextual (other changes going on) and personal (self-efficacy) factors was investigated with a multilevel design involving 25 different changes. Even after aspects of the change itself were controlled, the interaction between the context and the individual difference explained significant variance in attitudes toward those specific changes. The positive relationship between self-efficacy and commitment to the change was stronger as the amount of simultaneous and overlapping change in the surroundings increased. The implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Popular consensus: climate change is set to continue

Most climate experts agree that human carbon dioxide emissions cause anthropogenic global warming (AGW), reflected in increased global temperatures during every decade since 1970. Nonetheless, some public figures have claimed that AGW stopped in 1998. In a large experiment (N = 200), participants extrapolated global climate data, presented graphically either as share prices or as temperatures. Irrespective of their attitudes toward AGW, and irrespective of presentation format, people judged the trend to be increasing. These results suggest that presentation of climate data can counter claims that AGW has stopped.     

Biopsychological bases and behavioral correlates of sensation seeking: contributions to a multilevel validation

Zuckerman presented a multilevel approach of sensation seeking comprising a hierarchy of seven levels. He primarily focussed on the levels of psychometric trait, psychophysiology and biochemistry. Because Zuckerman was less concerned with behavioral paradigms and experimental task performance the purpose of our study was to identify and validate behavioral paradigms whose behavioral components can be seen as valid indicators of the trait. But within the multilevel perspective, each paradigm should not only be structured and validated in relation to its psychometric dimension but also with regard to at least one other level and preferably through a within-design.Thirty-two undergraduates (18 female) and graduate students took part in the study. Subjects completed the Sensation Seeking Scale (Form V), the Impulsiveness Venturesomeness Empathy Questionnaire, and the Zuckerman Kuhlman Personality Questionnaire and performed three experimental paradigms: the continuous performance task, delayed reaction time task and the augmenting–reducing paradigm.The classical findings on augmenting–reducing were replicated (correlation between TAS and the N1/P2 slope). On this basis the expected positive correlation between sensation seeking and false alarms on the DRTT as a central parameter of experimental task performance was confirmed. This result is a first step to the validation of this task as a paradigm covering relevant aspects of sensation seeking. In addition, by means of communality analysis, it was shown that there is 8.6% of common variance across all three levels of measurement (psychometric, psychophysiological and experimental task performance). This overlapping variance can be regarded as a core region of a multilevel sensation seeking construct if the parameters for each of the levels of measurement involved are sufficiently validated.     

Population and climate change

To review, the four broad dimensions of any complex human problem, including climate change, are the human population, economics, culture, and environment. These dimensions interact with one another in all directions and on many time-scales. From 2010 to 2050, the human population is likely to grow bigger, more slowly, older, and more urban. It is projected that by 2050 more than 2.6 billion people (almost 94% of global urban growth) will be added to the urban population in today's developing countries. That works out to 1.26 million additional urban people in today's developing countries every week from 2010 to 2050. Humans alter the climate by emitting greenhouse gases, by altering planetary albedo, and by altering atmospheric components. Between 1900 and 2000, humans' emissions of carbon into the atmosphere increased fifteenfold, while the numbers of people increased less than fourfold. Population growth alone, with constant rates of emissions per person, could not account for the increase in the carbon emissions to the atmosphere. The world economy grew sixteenfold in the twentieth century, accompanied by enormous increases in the burning of gas, oil, and coal. In the last quarter of the twentieth century, population grew much faster in developing countries than in high-income countries, and, compared with population growth, the growth of carbon emissions to the atmosphere was even faster in developing countries than in high-income countries. The ratio of emissions-to-population growth rates was 2.8 in developing countries compared with 1.6 in high-income countries. Emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are influenced by the sizes and density of settlements, the sizes of households, and the ages of householders. Between 2010 and 2050, these demographic factors are anticipated to change substantially. Therefore demography will play a substantial role in the dynamics of climate changes. Climate changes affect many aspects of the living environment, including human settlements, food production, and diseases. These changes will affect poor people more severely than rich, and poor nations more severely than rich. Yet not enough is known to predict quantitatively many details that will matter enormously to future people and other species. Three kinds of responses are related to demographic issues that affect climate changes: universal secondary education, voluntary contraception and maternal health services, and smarter urban design and construction. These responses may prevent, reduce, or ameliorate the impacts of climate changes. They are as relevant to rich countries as to poor, though in ways that are as different as are rich countries and poor. They are desirable in their own right because they improve the lives of the people they affect directly; and they are desirable for their beneficial effects on the larger society and globe. They are effective responses to the twin challenges of reducing poverty and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.     

Creating a strategy for progress: a contextual behavioral science approach

Behavior analysis is a field dedicated to the development and application of behavioral principles to the understanding and modification of the psychological actions of organisms. As such, behavior analysis was committed from the beginning to a comprehensive account of behavior, stretching from animal learning to complex human behavior. Despite that lofty goal, basic behavior analysis is having a generally harder time finding academic support, and applied behavior analysis has narrowed its focus. In the present paper we argue that both of these trends relate to the challenge of human language and cognition, and that developments within clinical behavior analysis and the analysis of derived relational responding are providing a way forward. To take full advantage of these developments, however, we argue that behavior analysts need to articulate their unique approach to theory, to develop more flexible language systems for applied workers, and to expand their methodological flexibility. This approach, which we term contextual behavioral science, is meant as an evolutionary step that will allow behavior analysis to better capture the center of modern psychological concerns in both the basic and applied areas. Clinical behavior analysis is showing a way forward for behavior analysis to regain its vision as a comprehensive approach to behavior.     

Response-independent food delivery and behavioral resistance to change

Response-independent food was delivered during a dark-key phase between two multiple-schedule components to explore its disruptive effects on responding. Responding in components was maintained by separate variable-interval 120-s schedules, with a 2-s reinforcer in Component 1 and a 6-s reinforcer in Component 2. Across conditions the rate and duration of response-independent food presentations were manipulated. The results showed that response rates in both components decreased as a function of the duration and the rate of response-independent food presentations; moreover, the decrease in response rate relative to the baseline level was larger in Component 1 than in Component 2. These findings were consistent with expectations from behavioral momentum theory, which predicts that if equal disruption (response-independent food in this case) is applied to responding in two components, then the ratio of response-rate change in Component 1 versus Component 2 should remain constant, irrespective of the magnitude of that disruption.     

Assessing ADHD across settings: contributions of behavioral assessment to categorical decision making

Adapted methods of behavioral assessment to assess home and school functioning in a way that maps directly to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed., [DSM-IV]; American Psychiatric Association, 1994). The study was conducted in a school-based sample with 5- to 12-year-old children referred to a school intervention team. A multigate set of procedures was used to assign children to one of 3 groups: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), inattentive group; ADHD, combined group; and a non-ADHD control group. The ADHD Rating Scale-IV was used to assess parent and teacher ratings of ADHD symptoms as delineated in DSM-IV. The findings suggest that the use of a fixed cutoff point (i.e., 6 or more symptoms), which is employed in the DSM-IV, is often not the best strategy for making diagnostic decisions. The optimal approach depends on whether diagnostic information is being provided by the parent or teacher and whether the purpose of assessment is to conduct a screening or a diagnostic evaluation. Also, the results indicate that a strategy that aggregates symptoms in the order in which they are accurate in predicting a diagnosis of ADHD is a more effective strategy than the approach used in DSM-IV, which aggregates any combination of a specific number of items. Implications for using methods of behavioral assessment to make diagnostic decisions using DSM-IV criteria are discussed.     

Contributions of psychology to limiting climate change

Psychology can make a significant contribution to limiting the magnitude of climate change by improving understanding of human behaviors that drive climate change and human reactions to climate-related technologies and policies, and by turning that understanding into effective interventions. This article develops a framework for psychological contributions, summarizes what psychology has learned, and sets out an agenda for making additional contributions. It emphasizes that the greatest potential for contributions from psychology comes not from direct application of psychological concepts but from integrating psychological knowledge and methods with knowledge from other fields of science and technology.     

Frustration in organizations: Relationships to role stress,climate, and psychological strain

A measure of environmental frustration was constructed and administered to 401 young graduate engineers working in industry. Self-reported frustration was associated with the dependent variables of anger reactions, latent hostility, job dissatisfaction and, to a lesser extent, work-related anxiety. Evidence from multiple regression analysis indicated that organizational climate, role stress, and social support all contributed to the level of environmental frustration. These variables were also associated with the dependent variables, but frustration was still associated with anger reactions and latent hostility when their effects were controlled for statistically. The strongest predictors of dissatisfaction were organizational climate and qualitative underload.