UNIVERSITY OF BERN
When it comes to climate-friendly behaviour, there is often a gap between what we want and what we actually do. Although most people want to see climate change slowed down, many do not behave in an appropriately sustainable way. Researchers at the University of Bern have now used brain stimulation to demonstrate that the ability to mentalise with the future victims of climate change encourages sustainable behaviour.
Global climate change may be the biggest challenge faced by humanity today. Despite decades of warnings and political resolutions, however, sustainability remains a long way from being achieved. “The fact that people aren’t acting in a more climate friendly way isn’t because we know too little about this critical situation, though.” explains Daria Knoch, Professor for Social Neuroscience at the University of Bern. To find out more about the reasons that prevent us from acting sustainably, Daria Knoch and her team have conducted a neuroscientific study. The findings have just been published in the renowned international journal Cortex.
While some effects of global warming are already visible today, those affected more strongly will be people in the future who we do not know. “It is precisely our inability to mentalise with these strangers that discourages climate-friendly action,” says Daria Knoch, commenting on the findings of the new study that she carried out with her research group in the “Social Neuro Lab” at the University of Bern. During the study, participants received stimulation to a part of their brain which plays an important role for taking the perspective of others. This stimulation led to more sustainable behaviour.
Stimulation of the part of the brain responsible for forming perspectives
During the experiment, participants in groups of four withdrew real money from a shared pool. Each participant decided for themself: the more money they withdrew from the pool, the more they ultimately had in their pocket. However, if the group of four withdrew too much money overall, this had consequences for the next group: the payment they received was much lower. Thus, the experiment mimicked a real situation in which the overuse of a resource has negative consequences for other people in the future.
While deciding on the amount of money to withdraw, some participants received a brain stimulation (experimental group): a non-invasive, harmless, mild electrical current was applied to the skull to increase the function of the stimulated brain area. The researchers in Bern stimulated an area which plays a strong role in taking the perspective of others, and discovered that it had a considerable impact: the stimulated individuals made more sustainable decisions than the participants without the stimulation (control group), by deciding not to withdraw an excessive amount of money from the pool.
Benefits for climate communication
“Applying brain stimulation to the general public is out the question, of course,” explains Benedikt Langenbach, lead author of the study and a former PhD student at the Social Neuro Lab. However, according to the researchers, the functioning brain area in question can also be enhanced, for example, through neurofeedback and meditation. According to Benedikt Langenbach, who now works at the University of Duisburg-Essen, additional strategies are also available to improve the forming of perspectives: “We know that people are more likely to empathise with someone – a victim of climate change, for example – if they are able to identify with them.”
Daria Knoch adds: “Our neuroscientific findings can therefore help to make communication on the climate crisis more effective, for instance by giving those affected a name and a face instead of talking about an anonymous ‘future generation’.”
JOURNAL
Cortex
DOI
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Experimental study
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
People
ARTICLE TITLE
Mentalizing with the future: Electrical stimulation of the right TPJ increases sustainable decision-making
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Another study designed by Professor Venkman? (as portrayed by Bill Murray in Ghostbusters? Couldn’t find an ad-free clip)
I think the main reason everyone isn’t on the climate change squad is that it isn’t actually detectable by human senses. If it was really happening and also really terrible, I should be able to go outside and see for myself. Since everyone everywhere can go outside and see things for themselves, the delusion of climate change just doesn’t stick
If they forced everyone, everywhere, to stay inside at all times, replaced all windows with centrally controlled monitors, they might be able to sell the illusion better.
Oh no, what have I done?
The mirrors are the images of climate dire that are constantly consumable in the media that trigger and reinforce the suggestion of climate change threat, which sustains a undetectable level of fear. The entrenched fear and growing sense of reality of the threat creates self righteous action as people begin to plan how they are going to address the threat t everyone around them is facing….even the morally higher threat to innocent plants and animals since it is ingrained in us to be good stewards.. The self righteous action further reinforces the belief in the threat, which in turn creates a syndrome similar to hysteria when every one further exaggerates the threat to maintain their self righteous stance. Working in the center of healthcare industry I have seen this dynamic play out first hand during the pandemic.
Pseudoscience is as much about career building as it is about self righteous belief.
“I think the main reason everyone isn’t on the climate change squad is that it isn’t actually detectable by human senses.”
I think that is exactly right. That’s the problem the alarmists have, and so they try to talk us into believing that the weather we experience is worse than ever in human history, and the cause is CO2.
The problem with this line of argument is the weather we are currently experiencing in not unprecedented. It’s all happened before, when CO2 was a minor factor, so not the cause.
“Our neuroscientific findings can therefore help to make communication on the climate crisis more effective, for instance by giving those affected a name and a face instead of talking about an anonymous ‘future generation’.”
OK, I’m mentalizing with a future couple, Michael and Katharine, who are freezing in the dark with their only child Zeke as the batteries go dead on the second day of the Blizzard of 2051.
Am I doing this right?
I think you have the idea. 🙂
So they admit belief in human caused climate change is a mental disorder and they want to spread that mental disorder to the entire human race. Wow, that Master Plan out of Germany never went away, they just changed their costumes and names and moved on.
How to sell something deservedly unpopular 101?
During the experiment, participants in groups of four withdrew real money from a shared pool. Each participant decided for themself: the more money they withdrew from the pool, the more they ultimately had in their pocket. However, if the group of four withdrew too much money overall, this had consequences for the next group: the payment they received was much lower. Thus, the experiment mimicked a real situation in which the overuse of a resource has negative consequences for other people in the future.
No it didn’t as the participants intuitively knew there was plenty of thin air credits and subsidies to go around with more helicopter money printed in the real climate changer world. You’d think a bunch of taxeaters at Burn Universal would grasp that.
Wrong title. Should be:
Exploring the powers of the mind: Brain Study on How to Mentally Slow Down Climate Change
Climate communication. Absurd!
https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/cell-phone-use-stimulates-brain-activity-201102231548
I have avoided being neuralized, mentalized, fried all these years buy never buying or owning a cell phone. Could this explain why I read WUWT and not CNN everyday. LOL
Would you rather have an electric shock or a cookie?
The correct answer is they get a publication and a promotion. You get another look at bad science emanating out to more corners of pseudoscience.
Absurd-science, silly-science, fake-science, fraudulent-science…..! Many young folks have no idea what pseudo means. It’s the Ps that throws them. LOL. I suggest that WUWT throw in some youth oriented fun post using Anime, cartoon motifs and simple internet popular lingo to inform and influence. Posts like how eating Ramen has no impact on climate and how nerf foam used in nerf darts are climate neutral. There is a growing hoard of American Anime artists and writers who could be leveraged for the task LOL.
Wait till our dear leaders hear about it…..
Our Dear Leaders are Old School. They use the Leftwing Media for their brainwashing efforts.
Just imagine the size of electric shocks they would have to give to the likes of Al Gore or De Caprio
Turn it up to 11 !
This is the result when we give children, with a mind like Greta’s, a degree and then set them loose in academia. Surely this must be a parody.
OK, last time.
This is climate propaganda.
This is your brain on climate propaganda.
Any questions?
From the article: “While some effects of global warming are already visible today,”
Really? Like what?
From the article: “During the study, participants received stimulation to a part of their brain which plays an important role for taking the perspective of others. This stimulation led to more sustainable behaviour.”
Lol !
Sustainable behavior = Compliance.
I think she is talking about brainwashing.
Hey, instead of brainwashing people to believe in Human-caused Climate Change, why don’t you just show a little evidence that this problem actually exists? I think if people saw a little evidence, they could be easily convinced.
Oh, you say you don’t have any evidence? Well, that is a problem. That’s why you are having a hard time convincing people. It has nothing to do with psychology.
So is it a race with the Chinese or a collaboration?
US accuses Chinese tech firms, research institutes of weaponizing biotechnology, creating ‘brain-control weaponry’ – ABC News (go.com)