Realizing the full potential of behavioural science for climate change mitigation
Behavioural science has yielded insights about the actions of individuals, particularly as consumers, that affect climate change. Behaviours in other spheres of life remain understudied. In this Perspective, we propose a collaborative research agenda that integrates behavioural science insights across multiple disciplines. To this end, we offer six recommendations for optimizing the quality and impact of research on individual climate behaviour. The recommendations are united by a shift towards more solutions-focused research that is directly useful to citizens, policymakers and other change agents. Achieving this vision will require overcoming challenges such as the limited funding for behavioural and social sciences and structural barriers within and beyond the academic system that impede collaborations across disciplines.
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Acknowledgements
K.S.N. gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Carlsberg Foundation, grant number CF22-1056. V.C. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation Postdoc Mobility Fellowship (P500PS_202935). S.B. acknowledges support from the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SI/502093-01). T.D. was supported in part by Michigan AgBio Research. F.L. was supported by an FWO postdoctoral fellowship (12U1221N).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
- Department of Management, Society and Communication, Copenhagen Business School, Frederiksberg, Denmark Kristian S. Nielsen & Jan M. Bauer
- Department of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA Viktoria Cologna
- Department of Sociology, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland Sebastian Berger
- Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, Netherlands Cameron Brick
- Department of Psychology, Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Elverum, Norway Cameron Brick
- Department of Sociology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Thomas Dietz
- Environmental Science and Policy Program, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA Thomas Dietz
- Faculty of Psychology, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland Ulf J. J. Hahnel
- Swiss Center for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland Ulf J. J. Hahnel
- Faculty of Business, Economics and Social Sciences, University of Hohenheim, Hohenheim, Germany Laura Henn
- Behavioral Economics and Engineering Group, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium Florian Lange
- Social and Environmental Research Institute, Shelburne Falls, MA, USA Paul C. Stern
- Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA Kimberly S. Wolske
- Kristian S. Nielsen