From the “cats think they are psychokinetic because they sit in front of a door and will it to open, and eventually it does” department comes this inane study that says we [are] basically able to stop climate change via beliefs
Warwick Research: Believe you can stop climate change and you will
If we believe that we can personally help stop climate change with individual actions — such as turning the thermostat down — then we are more likely to make a difference, according to research from the University of Warwick
- Individuals’ motivation to prevent climate change is negatively affected by climate change helplessness — belief that climate change is out of our personal control, so our actions will make no difference
- But those who believe individual actions do make a difference are more likely to perform them — which leads to lower energy consumption
- Public messages should focus on how we can make a personal difference to climate change, say psychologists
If we believe that we can personally help stop climate change with individual actions – such as turning the thermostat down — then we are more likely to make a difference, according to research from the University of Warwick.
Dr Jesse Preston in the Department of Psychology has demonstrated that people are often negatively affected by climate change helplessness — the belief that climate change is so massive and terrifying, as to be out of our personal control, and that our actions are too small to help.
This feeling of helplessness, however, makes people less likely to bother with individual eco-friendly actions – and actually leads to higher energy consumption.
In one study, the researchers tested a group of over two hundred people, and gave different members of the group varying messages about climate change.
Some were given a High Efficacy Climate Change message (that personal actions do make a difference in the fight against climate change); others a Helpless Climate Change message (that personal actions make no difference); and some were given no message at all.
Over the next week, the group reported whether or not they adopted behaviours to help stop climate change – such as driving less, hanging washing on the line instead of using the dryer, using less water, or turning the heating down.
The people who had received the High Efficacy Climate Change message reported 16.5% more of these behaviours than those who read a Helpless Climate Change message – and 13% more actions than the control group which received no message.
Moreover, people in the group which was told their actions couldn’t make a difference to climate change actually reported higher energy usage than before — showing how destructive a feeling of helplessness can be.
The researchers also found that a belief that personal behaviours make a difference enhances the moralisation of our actions – the notion that they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — and an awareness that the energy we individually consume could either prevent or cause damage to human life.
Public messages about climate change which focus on how we can help make a difference as individuals will be far more effective in encouraging people to consume less energy, according to the researchers.
Dr Preston commented:
“Often climate change messages try to persuade the public by increasing belief that climate change is real, or through fear of its dire consequences. But mere belief in climate change is not enough, and fear can backfire if we feel helpless and overwhelmed.
“It is vitally important that individuals appreciate the impact and value of their own actions for us to make a meaningful change as a whole.”
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The paper, ‘Climate Change Helplessness and the (De)moralization of Individual Energy Behavior’, is published in Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.
http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&doi=10.1037/xap0000105
The Cargo Cult lives on in the Alarmist Climate Change movement. They should build more straw models.
So, it is a religion. Does it work faster if they all clap while clicking their heels together?
I think I can, I think I can, I think I can…
A fundamental kernel of truth in this post… global warming/climate change is all about belief. Forget facts, observations and the scientific process, just believe as in “I believe we can make environmentalists sane again, I believe, I believe…..”
I think the authors are correct. Imagination can indeed fix an imaginary problem.
/snark
Sing with me:
“Imagine there’s no warming
It’s easy if you try…”
I think we are overreacting here. All they are saying is that a human who believes they can make a difference is more likely to try and make a difference than a human who does not believe they will make a difference. I think that is such a reasonable conclusion that it seems like a waste of time and money to even study it.
They are simply pointing out the best way to manipulate people to do something. In this case, they are trying to manipulate people to do something that is utterly foolish and crazy, but that is not the subject of the study. The subject is ‘how to we get people to comply’. For that subject, this is a perfectly good study, although highly unnecessary. We humans have known this since before history began.
There is some truth to what you say, but the authors are going beyond motivational thought to the point of believing we can control the climate through ceremonial practices. That is potentially very dangerous superstition.
It’s true, andrew. All I have to do is chant ‘snow, snow, snow’ facing the four quarters in the winter, and somehow, through the magic of thought and chanting, I get snow. I have pictures. I once had 4.5 feet drifted up on my front steps.
It’s the thought that counts.
Not only that, but they are assigning moral values – good bad – to these actions. Historically, people who view themselves as morally superior are capable of doing some pretty horrible things.
It works! I was told climate change was real and they handed me a bill for electricity that was double what it had been and I eat more chicken and less beef now and I drink more beer.
I wondered how long it would take for science to be corrupted into a form of religion. Didn’t take as long as I thought it would. Well, I do have some suggestions, so here they are.
1 – All those who are concerned about global warming can do a great deal to contribute to lower CO2 levels by not breathing, speaking, or eating food any longer.
2 – The AGW peeps and their guru science peeps need their own planet, so let’s find one for them and send them there ASAP.
3 – As a Reformed Druid, I will attempt to enlighten those less fortunate and unseeing around me by sacrificing a wheel of brie, some nice,crusty bread and a cheap Tuscan red with a nice nose to it on my lawn on Memorial Day. And I will put out fliers to attract a crowd to join me.
For the uninformed, Orthodox Druids worship oak trees. Reformed Druids worship bushes.
I will go back to herding cats now.
Perhaps with your enlightened outlook, you can endow a Chair of Druid Studies at Warwick University, AKA “Woo-Woo U.”
Brie, crusty bread, Etruscan red, careful about invitations like this, Sara!
This is the same as rain dancing – you just have to do it long enough
Oh and the cat starring at the door? He conditioned the owner by piddling on the Persian carpet after waiting at the door for five minutes.
..You too ?? LOL
As someone once told me:
Dogs have family
Cats have servants
Warmists in general are piddling on our carpet. It’s what they do to enforce their all-consuming self-will.
MarkW,
I heard it as dogs have owners, cats have staff.
I find the cat, after sitting at the door waiting for it to open, usually stalks off in high dudgeon.
In the opposite direction.
” There, that will teach you for taking so long”
If I stop driving my car I can change the weather.
The cargo cult at work again.
So, those who received the HECC message were primed to feel guilt, and had that much more motivation to lie about their “climate behaviors”. Besides, they already “know” that it isn’t their behavior that’s the problem; it’s other people’s. There are always plenty of people who have gargantuan carbon hoofprints compared to yours.
“Department of Psychology”
There’s your problem, right there.
Such technospeak: High Efficacy Climate Change message, climate change helplessness, enhances the moralisation of our actions. Next they will join the likes of Lew with claims akin to, ‘the ideation of initiation of personal cognition of climate responsibility’ or some other drivel.
Uri Geller meets climate change alarmism. Put your spoons away. Or get them all out for the next spoon march in a city near you. Simon Says!!
Wasn’t it the case snake oil peddlers really didn’t believe in their product, it was just a way to make a living.
I wonder how many sceptics actually do things (out of just saving money), that reduce energy usage? I drive a Prius (fuel frugal), live in a energy efficient home (average electric bill is $45, nat gas bill $35), installed LED lighting in my restaurant and maintain them to ensure they stay efficient. I’m a deplorable denier CO2 is nothing more than life giving.
Do they suggest we attempt to bend a cloud with our minds or that we secretly proceed with bomb making for ecoterrorism?
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTgvgyVd_bOMoLm9zq6TCD-cm_AZnELvAuYO06a6hWNsQlgdRSV9w
I have seen a cat open a door, repeatedly.
It was one of those jobs opened by breaking the light beam in front of it.
This cat had it down, he/or she may have been a physicist, or may have ordered it off Amazon.
I’ve seen a cat that could open a door that had one of those lever type knobs.
Cat windows (mounted at the bottom of doors) can be set for entry or exit only. My heighbour cat is able to enter a window that is set to exit only.
This article gives me great hope: If I wish hard enough, then the claim that humans cause catastrophic climate will go away. Notice, I said the CLAIM.
Off to bend some forks with my mind now.
The principle is the same for any collective effort for which each individual contribution is very small. If we live in a democracy, this system depends on voting. But each individual’s vote almost always makes no difference. We need some way to encourage everyone to cooperate and vote anyway. Tragedy of the commons is similar. The common could be preserved if everyone cooperated, bit each individual’s sacrifice by not grazing their cattle makes little difference on its own, so the common is ruined. There needs to be some mechanism to encourage or enforce cooperation. Collectively, the behavior does make a difference.
This is just the same. If people think their contribution matters, they will change behavior. If they do not, they won’t. Since it is actually the case that individual efforts on their own make almost no difference, this approach is probably doomed to failure. However, a sense of obligation, as we get with voting, might be more successful.
You forgot a whole section of the population that simply don’t care. But that is another misunderstanding of the liberal leftists. They think everyone agrees with their “it takes a village” philosophy.
For many people, fortunately, collectivist behavior is anathema to their freedom, although the resistance to it can only be found in any numbers in the US and eastern Europe (the climatism movement was aimed specifically at the US since they already long had the rest of the West in proudly-worn nose rings) . Since the great experiment in collectivity, started in October 1917 and run until 1991, failed, a long patient campaign, started in 1992 to broaden it to cover the world. For this reason, it has been thought that the sacrifice of the USSR was a penultimate move for checkmate. While ‘freedom’ rushed in through the iron curtain breach, aparатчикs walked out, climbed the ladders of power in world environmental, UN, other NGOs, scientific and humanities organizations, government agencies, universities… A conspiracy theory perhaps, but worthy of a nation of chess players. Yes, seaice, you do have a point.
There’s a core of science here.
When people believe that they can’t do something, or that nothing they do will make a difference, they give up, or at least give up more easily.
Many times a coaches first job is to get those he is coaching to believe that what they are training towards is possible.
a basic emotion that controls human behaviour is fear. Coaches take away fear by adding confidence. The call for austerity is caused by fear , the Club of Rome was the result of fear , climate alarmism is fear. So we need a method to restore confidence (in human ingenuity) to eliminate fear. Environmental movements are activists that exploit fear as profitable business model.
Don’t forget about money. Many, many people will sell out for the money no matter what they believe. Although I suppose fear of not having enough money is the driving force.
Hate is the other key motivational component of the progressive left. Any one who disagrees with them are labeled and despised, and every effort is made to silence them.
Isn’t hate the result of fear? And indeed, many things are quite different in reality then the propaganda wants you to believe. The collectivists movements (communism, socialism, environmentalism) promise heaven on earth but create slave states. So in reality they are the revolt of an elite. (Lenin called his followers “usefull idiots”)
And remember, the only thing stronger than fear is hope. A little hope is good, too much hope is dangerous.
The cynic seeks comfort in hopelessness, because to hope is too scary.
Following my recent ordination I can wholeheartedly recommend belief in “Doing The Right Thing”.
Unfortunately on a blog like this I suspect there may well be an argument about “How Right?” , “What Thing?” or even some incantation about Kant and what we actually mean by “Doing”.
Good ! I can’t wait .
Here’s the Rev Baj’s thought(s) for today…
If one claims to be interested in science and the truth of understanding how something really works (say the atmosphere/AGW) is it the right thing for there to be in existence blogs (on either side, pro or anti AGW) who censor talk about certain subjects which clearly have a relevance ? Now I am not talking about UFOs or things which you have to really stretch your imagination for but I am referring to things which are related to climate/AGW. There are, as we know, plenty of sites/blogs with opinions that do not support the supposed consensus on AGW, but interestingly a large number do have a view on which bits of science theory they are willing to BELIEVE and which bits they reject. (See WUWT site policy for example). Note also the line taken at Dr.Judith Curry’s climate etc and Dr.Roy Spencer’s offering . Tallbloke looks a bit more open minded but recently seems to have dropped some ideas although its not clear if they are “banned”.
Now I know these sites are all owned/run by individuals (or teams) who are perfectly entitled to set their own site rules, as indeed one would expect them to do based upon their own views, opinions or beliefs but I ask this; If one criticises John’s Cooke’s blatant censorship can one do that while maintaining effectively censorship on ones own site without appearing to be hypocritical ?
On a matter of science is it ever acceptable to close off certain theories because you don’t believe them ?
Particularly as with respect to the theory of AGW we have a theory which is relatively difficult to support via experimental evidence (repeatable lab experiments). Competing theories may fall into the same camp (e.g. lukewarmers) or completely different (e.g. no GHE at all, there are several like that). I suggest that if you start by categorising all the not yet tested theories into 2 groups, those you do believe and those you don’t believe and then base your entire blog/site on those 2 nicely boxed sets of ideas you may in fact be wrong even though you BELIEVE you are right.
Would it not be better to adopt the ideas Richard Feynman talked about in that if there may be 2 or more theories which explain something we should keep them ALL in mind because it is important for the future, even if one theory seems to be fully supported by evidence? In the case of AGW we have a fundamental theory that is NOT entirely supported by evidence (well it looks likes most of the community has been so arguing for a Looooong time!) but the different theories of how the atmosphere works, be they small GHE or (heaven forbid) no GHE seem to me to be no better supported. Yet some are “allowed” and some are “we don’t talk about them”.
So I pose this interesting thought : Is a blog/site based upon a BELIEF system which allows some theories to be aired and others to be kept in the dark a SCIENCE site or a RELIGION site ?
I think I know what I believe.
The Rev. Badger,
In my sett,
UK
I think on this site, it has been demonstrated over time that certain subject matter leads to nothing more than long winded arguments that serve no purpose and end up using valuable moderating time and effort.
Badge, it’s only a belief system when a scramble for money makes it so. By gaining support through extortionate means and appealing to hysterical emotions as well as playing to the lowest common denominator, the ignorant masses, it becomes a belief system that scrambles after money. Offering to persecute or prosecute or incarcerate people who disagree is medieval extortion.
I don’t see that going on here, nor do I see anyone barred from arguing the opposite side of the coin represented here (including you) but I do see it coming FROM the opposite side of the coin. If that’s what you’re promoting, you are pathetic.
I didn’t see anything in the description of the study that said that the enhancement of subjects’ compliance with reducing CO2 based on belief that it would make a difference, would actually reduce climate change. It simply found that if they believed they would make a difference, then they would take those actions. It didn’t take the next step and say that would reduce climate change in the real world.