Psychological scientists incorporate climate into their studies
When a researcher or student applies for money to conduct research, they have to convince the funders not only that their idea is a good one, but that they are the person who should be doing that research. Funders look at a lot of things including the impact of the research, the way the knowledge will be shared, the time it will take to complete, and the return on their investment (value for money).
In the Prime Family Lab at York University, lab director Dr. Heather Prime is discussing the future with her student Alex Markwell. Because of how they apply for and receive their funding, their research projects must be closely tied to the lab itself – in their case, that is the study of family dynamics. How parents and siblings influence children from birth to adolescence, or how major or minor external events affect families. The lab launched in 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic became a major external event that upended family dynamics across Canada and around the world.
Students come to a lab because of the expertise that the research program and supervisor bring to that lab. This is what drew Alex to the Prime Family Lab. Her area of interest is child development within a family systems framework and this is the lens through which she looks at potential projects. She has a keen interest in acting on climate change, but this was not something that was part of the discussion before her arrival. Only through conversations with her new lab director did they discover that this was a shared passion. Heather says,
“Alex brought up a year or two ago that the way we study the pandemic is really transferrable to the way we might study climate change.”
So they started thinking about ways they could integrate climate change into their established research program. As Alex thinks ahead to her Ph.D., which she will be starting in September, she has written a proposal for a scholarship focused on the pathways linking climate change to child and family well-being. One aspect of this proposal is the creation of a theoretical model from a family system perspective.
“Because climate change is going to be more and more relevant to more and more people, you need a map – which sounds annoying because it’s theoretical, but it can create a framework of ‘here’s what we think is going to happen based on everything we already know’. That takes a lot of work – you’re scouring the literature, bringing together a number of theories, and then creating this ‘map’.”
Specifically, Alex is talking about looking at how climate changes and climate change-related events may affect children’s mental health through disruptions to family functioning. She’s thinking that would be similar to the COVID family-disruption model that Heather published, about how the pandemic’s social and economic disruptions trickle down into families and affect their dynamics.
They can start looking at feasible interventions – something psychoeducational that could teach parents and caregivers how to talk to their children about climate change. Or maybe the social and economic ripple effects of climate change impacting family relationships where children may suffer, given that kids are so dependent on their relationship with their parents. First though, they must define the parameters of their study.
Are we talking about families who have experienced a major climate event – like losing a home to a wildfire – or families who are under threat of such an event (live in proximity to a flood zone) – or are we talking to families who are just generally anxious about the whole thing? Can they survey those people in Toronto?
There are many questions to answer before applying for research funding. Many more questions arise after that funding is secured.
Canadian climate scientists are still feeling stifled
Many of us remember the protests staged by scientists in 2013 over what they described as the ‘war on science’ being waged by the federal government at that time. Science funding was drastically cut, and the scientists who were still able to do research were prevented from communicating the results of that research to the public – which is kind of the point of doing research in the first place. An enormous amount of that muzzling was done around climate science, as the federal government sought to downplay the most dangerous effects – and even the very existence – of climate change.
Dr. Alana Westwood at the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie University researches natural resource management and science. Her lab recently completed two studies into interference with environmental research in Canada. Of the 741 environmental scientists surveyed, 92% reported experiencing interference with either the conducting or the communicating of their research. Dr. Westwood, along with her research associate Manjulika E. Robertson and Master’s student Samantha M. Chu, wrote an article in The Conversation discussing their findings and the ramifications of these pervasive invisible barriers.
Since that time, the policies at the federal level have changed. In theory, this means that scientists can get back to their work and can share their results with impunity. Alana’s studies suggest that this is, sadly, not the case.
An atmosphere of uncertainty is partly to blame – for a long time, certain kinds of science went unfunded and specifically shunned. Can scientists go back to those subjects, studying pollution and endangered species and emissions? Will they get funding if they do? What about funders – there is now a fair amount of external pressure on them to fund only certain kinds of research, pressure which has not necessarily abated just because of a change in federal policy. Alana says,
“We identified interference in two categories. One is externally imposed – when a researchers’ employer is putting restrictions on their ability to conduct or communicate their research. That could come from workplace policies, it could come from their manager, senior leadership, or their communications departments. The category we found that was new and more insidious was internalized interference. This happens when researchers themselves don’t want to communicate with the media, either out of fear of being misrepresented or of public backlash.”
Climate scientists exist within a system where the trickle-down effects of the war on science are still being felt. What has resulted is that a Canadian climate science environment that became fractured a decade ago remains fractured to this day, and important work in this space has been delayed or shelved entirely.
Back in the Prime Family Lab at York, Dr. Prime says she has not felt any external pressure that could be considered muzzling, and has not experienced any interference when it comes to the subjects she chooses to tackle. This may partly be a result of her lab being so new. It might also be because until now, her lab has chosen to focus mainly on COVID. But it’s likely that a lot of the reason is that the Prime Family Lab is a psychology lab – a discipline that has not been targeted by the same kind of scrutiny and interference over the past two decades.
Psychology has a role in the climate science conversation
“I think at this point, psychology probably has a primary role in the response to the climate crisis. Climate scientists and ecologists and environmental engineers have pretty much figured out the solutions to our problems. There’s a lot of work to do still, obviously, but now it’s more about people taking up those solutions.”
Dr. Katherine Arbuthnott is Professor Emeritus from Campion College at the University of Regina. She has spent the past couple of decades studying the health benefits of connection with - and spending time in - nature. Spending time outdoors, interacting with trees and wildlife and sun, has benefits for both our physical and mental health – and it has the added bonus of nudging us in the direction of environmental sustainability.
Katherine is quick to point out that psychology has long been a science focused on individual behaviours. What makes A person do A thing. In her time as a cognitive neuroscientist she would study individual brains to look at the processes of cognition. Clinical psychologists generally work with one person at a time, to help that individual in a personalized way that works best for them. A lot of the psychology around climate change interventions has been focused in this area.
Dr. Jiaying Zhao is the Canada Research Chair in Behavioural Sustainability and an associate professor in the Department of Psychology and the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. She has led studies like the one demonstrating that putting images of turtles and dolphins trapped in plastic debris on recycling bins and garbage cans reduced the amount of plastic waste people threw away.
“We found that when we placed those images on garbage stations, the amount of plastic waste was reduced – that is, the amount of plastic waste going into all streams, garbage and recycling alike. People are responsive to those images, and the principle is trying to connect our actions (throwing stuff away) to the downstream consequences of those actions (dolphins in distress).”
Jiaying has also launched an effort to connect sustainable behaviours with happiness. Jiaying, a behavioural scientist, collaborated with her colleague Dr. Elizabeth Dunn, a UBC psychology researcher specializing in the study of human happiness. What resulted was an idea for reframing the discussion around climate change from one of sacrifice (give up meat, shop less) to one of happiness. So many things that are better for the environment (eating more vegetables, riding a bicycle) are also things that improve our mental health and make us happier people!
Jiaying gave a TED Talk on that very subject which includes what the kids would call “hacks” to make you happier while benefiting the environment at the same time – like feng shui-ing your fridge. Or making the effort to carpool with people who can make the dreary drive in to work in rush hour traffic a more enjoyable and brain-stimulating experience.
To truly make a difference in the battle against climate change, it will take many people doing many little things, and many countries doing many big things. Individuals who do the little things are more likely to demand the big things of their communities and countries. And we’re getting there. More people than we realize are willing to take the actions that are required to stave off the worst of what climate change might bring.
Katherine speaks a lot about trust. The trust we have in other people to do the right thing, and the gap between our perceptions and the reality when it comes to the intentions of others. We, as people, tend to greatly underestimate the level of commitment in strangers to do the right thing, when in fact each of us is more likely than not to want to take actions that benefit all of us collectively. She also recognizes that truly addressing the climate crisis goes beyond simply engaging individuals to act differently.
Psychology can help. Yes, psychological science is a little late to the game. But it is now a player in the climate discussion – and can be an essential one, bridging the gap between the conclusions and solutions proposed by climate scientists and the implementation of those solutions by people and communities. Environmental scientists in Canada have been set back, and are only now starting to regain their footing. But they’ve done a tremendous amount of work over decades telling us all what’s happening and what we need to do. They are not ringing the alarm bell alone. Jiaying, Katherine, Heather, and soon Alex and many others like her will be adding their expertise in a truly interdisciplinary collaborative effort to put us all on the right path – toward sustainability, planetary health, and our own collective happiness.