{"id":59178,"date":"2020-09-04T01:40:32","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T06:40:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59178"},"modified":"2020-09-04T01:41:18","modified_gmt":"2020-09-04T06:41:18","slug":"59178","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=59178","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

UNSW: \u201cClimate change and the tyranny of psychological distance\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

The University of New South Wales, birthplace of the\u00a0Ship of Fools expedition<\/a>\u00a0which got stuck in the Antarctic ice, is concerned that people rapidly switch to other priorities, when disasters which don\u2019t affect them personally are no longer front page news.<\/p>\n

Climate change and the tyranny of psychological distance<\/strong><\/p>\n

03 SEP 2020\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0CAROLINE TANG<\/p>\n

With last summer\u2019s bushfires largely out of the headlines, has the psychological distance people might feel towards climate change increased?<\/p>\n

UNSW Sydney\u2019s\u00a0Professor Ben Newell<\/a>\u00a0has been researching climate change psychology for a decade and his work focuses on how to tackle the preconceived notions people have which cloud their decision-making in the face of an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

Prof. Newell said the past summer\u2019s fire season was \u201cextremely bad\u201d but he wondered what would happen to people\u2019s attitudes towards climate change if the bushfires were less severe this summer.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast summer\u2019s smoke haze was a big concern because some people were seeing it as the new norm. They shrugged and said, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s smoky today and we\u2019ve had a couple of months of it, whatever,\u2019 but it seems wrong to already be at the point of accepting that\u2019s just the way things are now,\u201d he said……..<\/p>\n

Prof. Newell\u00a0defined psychological distance as a \u201cconstruct\u201d<\/a>\u00a0in one of his studies: \u201cPsychological distance refers to the extent to which an object is removed from oneself; for example, in likelihood of occurrence, in time, in geographical space or in social distance,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, if people perceive climate change as psychologically distant from themselves, they could construe it in more abstract terms, potentially impeding action if the threat is perceived as less real, tangible or relevant.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor example, the melting of the Arctic and Antarctic has been a wake-up call for years now but because they are sparsely populated, it\u2019s not front and centre of many people\u2019s concerns…….<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of literature that shows people adapt and acquiesce to seeing lots of the same type of stimulus over and over again \u2013 so, people become more and more likely to say, \u2018Oh yeah, it\u2019s just the same thing\u2019,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes even I find myself thinking, \u2018I can\u2019t think about this stuff anymore because it\u2019s just too hard\u2019, but I\u2019m reminded of the necessity to keep talking about it, to keep reiterating the message.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if there is a danger of habituation or disengagement, the danger of not talking about it is much worse. So, the continuous reminder these things are happening now and will keep happening again has to be part and parcel of it.\u201d…………\u2026<\/p>\n

Read more:\u00a0https:\/\/newsroom.unsw.edu.au\/news\/science-tech\/climate-change-and-tyranny-psychological-distance<\/a><\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What I find fascinating about Professor Newell\u2019s words is the suggestion that he has to make a continuous personal effort to overcome his own natural tendency to habituate, to dismiss climate change as a high priority issue.<\/p>\n

If even believers have to keep kicking themselves to believe, the end of the climate movement may be closer than we think.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UNSW: \u201cClimate change and the tyranny of psychological distance\u201d The University of New South Wales, birthplace of the\u00a0Ship of Fools expedition\u00a0which got stuck in the Antarctic ice, is concerned that people rapidly switch to other priorities, when disasters which don\u2019t affect them personally are no longer front page news. Climate change and the tyranny of … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-59178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-econuts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=59178"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59181,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59178\/revisions\/59181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}