Emotions and everyday life in relation to sustainability transitions

 Panu Pihkala, Ph.D.

Adjunct Professor of Environmental Theology (Title of Docent), University of Helsinki, Finland

 

For the Futures Committee of the Finnish Parliament

A hearing of experts, Sustainability Transitions in everyday life

11th June 2021

 

VNS 3/2020 vp Valtioneuvoston selonteko kestävän kehityksen globaalista toimintaohjelmasta Agenda2030:sta Kohti hiilineutraalia hyvinvointiyhteiskuntaa

[The Finnish Government and the UN Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development]

  

Emotions and everyday life in relation to sustainability transitions

 

Various psychological and social factors contribute to sustainability transitions in everyday life. Psychosocial research that looks at these factors is an internationally emerging multidisciplinary field of research.[1] Included are complex questions about change, motivation, and decision-making. In short, people want a way out of feelings of guilt and desire an experience of social acceptance.

The point of view of my statement is related to emotions and psychosocial environmental research. The Futures Committee already mentions many environmental emotions in its background document for this session: feelings of hope, togetherness and motivation. In addition, some of the important environmental emotions in everyday life are, for example, insecurity, responsibility, guilt, anger, sadness and feelings of inadequacy.[2]

Eco-anxiety, which has attracted a lot of attention, is a widespread phenomenon which can include a wide range of emotions. The word anxiety sometimes refers to more intense anxiety, but in essence, anxiety is a response to threats that involve significant uncertainty. Anxiety, or emotion, helps a person realize that they should change their behavior in some way. It would therefore be essential for eco-anxiety to be channeled into problem-solving and increased psychological resources, rather than becoming crippling or provoking irritated defense responses.[3]

Promoting sustainability transformation requires awareness of many different environmental emotions and support for people to deal with them constructively. Emotions are basically a resource: they contain energy and kinetic power.[4] Currently, the energies of environmental emotions are only partially focused on good aims. Fortunately, there are many good developments in Finland, where community-based models for constructively encountering environmental emotions are being developed. These include, for example, the interest for eco-emotions in the education sector[5] and the new national project on eco-anxiety in the social and health sectors.[6]

Guilt and pride are especially significant environmental emotions in relation to everyday life. Both of these emotions contain different manifestations and shades. Guilt is based on feelings of responsibility and a desire to promote good things. Pride does not necessarily mean arrogance, but the satisfaction and pleasure that important purposes have been promoted alone and together. The role of guilt and pride in motivating environmental behavior has been increasingly explored internationally.[7]

Very many Finns feel a sense of responsibility and a desire to do good on sustainability issues.[8] However, it is difficult for many to experience emotional satisfaction or a sense of social acceptance in relation to their pro-environmental behavior. It is perhaps not constructive to blame anyone for the development of this kind of situation where pride is difficult to find, as that situation is affected by a number of different factors. It would be essential for community action to build more strongly a culture where culpability issues can be talked about more safely and addressed through action. There is a need for greater awareness that there is a wide range of actions and choices that can be used to take responsibility for promoting the transition to sustainability.[9]

In surveys and public discussions, it has been found out that many different people feel that it is exactly them who are blamed by others in relation to sustainability issues. The tensions associated with this often lead to social contradictions, the nature of which is twofold in terms of the goals of the sustainability transition. The emergence of new procedures inevitably involves creative conflicts, but it is problematic if aggression grows too much. There are strong tensions in the climate debate in particular, stemming from both the difficulty and the urgency of change (cf. Agenda 2030 Sustainability Goal 13). In the midst of rapid social and ecological change, more emotional skills would be needed, but at the same time their development is challenging.[10]

Ecological emotional skills are part of ecosocial competences.[11] These skills include, for example:

- The ability to feel responsible and guilty about environmental behavior on an appropriate scale. This requires adequate community and societal support so that individuals do not rely solely on their own judgment. This is also linked to the ability to experience healthy eco-pride and satisfaction when people promote pro-environmental behavior.[12]

- The ability to feel sadness and longing in relation to negative environmental changes in ways which help to encounter loss while ultimately freeing up resources to adapt to a new kind of environment. This requires support from the community.[13]

- The ability to feel constructive outrage at the injustices associated with environmental and structural change. Channeling anger to non-violent civic engagement requires community support.[14]

Hope is a kind of ultimate source of motivation. However, the word hope is used in different shades. It can mean both wishful thinking and deep meaningfulness.[15] The knowledge that meaningful goals can be achieved increases people’s hope and motivation.[16] The environmental crisis is a challenging matter in relation to hope, as the problems associated with it cannot be solved easily and quickly. It is difficult to get a sense at different levels that the problems have been adequately addressed, especially when global and national environmental policies have so far not been successful enough, despite their ambition. However, hope can also be experienced through the meaningfulness that arises from the promotion of good things in everyday life.[17] In addition to optimism, it seems important to reinforce people’s experience of the importance of promoting a sustainability transition, regardless of the likelihood of success. Philosophically, it can be argued that the deepest goals in life should be measured by other scales than mundane issues are. Numerous key goals in life, such as raising children, contain strong uncertainty and openness about the future. The most important thing is to promote good and right things, even if one can’t know what the future holds.[18]

More constructive encounters of emotions related to sustainability transitions in everyday life requires the strengthening of emotional skills among different groups of people. This can be supported by resourcing various actors and projects that contribute to the topic. Eco-emotional skills are needed in many areas, but they play a particularly important role in, for example, communication, education and people-to-people negotiations.[19] Promoting different Agenda 2030 goals in everyday life requires a wide range of issues, among which the psychological underpinnings need wider attention.

---

[1] Adams 2021; Hoggett (ed.) 2019.

[2] For climate emotions, see Hyry 2019; more widely see Pihkala 2019a, Albrecht 2019.

[3] Verplanken, Marks & Dobromir 2020; Pihkala 2020a.

[4] For emotion research, see e.g. Barrett, Lewis & Haviland-Jones 2016; in Finnish, e.g. Nummenmaa 2019.

[5] See, for example, the project Toivoa ja toimintaa (Hope and Action), funded by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (www.toivoajatoimintaa.fi) and the report Ilmastoahdistuksesta ilmastoinnostukseen, published by the Ministry of Education (https://www.oph.fi/sites/default/files/documents/ILO-hanke%2C%20Ilmastotunteet%2C%20julkaisu%2C%2021.12.2020_0.pdf).

[6] The website of the national project is www.ymparistoahdistus.fi. See also Pihkala 2019b.

[7] E.g. Jensen 2019; Bissing-Olson, Fielding & Iyer 2016; Bamberg, Rees & Schulte 2018.

[8] See many surveys, e.g. Hyry 2019.

[9] Hormio 2020; Lertzman 2019; Harré 2018; Stoknes 2015; Marshall 2015.

[10] For social tenstions and the difficulty of changes, see e.g. Brulle & Norgaard 2019; Jylhä 2017; Norgaard 2011. For developing eco-emotional skills as part of community resilience see Doppelt 2016.

[11] Pihkala 2019c.

[12] Adams, Hurt & Sintov 2020; Schneider et al. 2017.

[13] Cunsolo & Landman 2017.

[14] Antadze 2020.

[15] E.g. Saarinen 2020.

[16] Sangervo 2020.

[17] Kelsey 2020; Pihkala 2017.

[18] Pihlström 2020.

[19] Pihkala 2020b; Chapman, Lickel & Markovitz 2017; Mah et al. 2020.

 

References

Adams, I., Hurst, K., & Sintov, N. D. (2020). Experienced guilt, but not pride, mediates the effect of feedback on pro-environmental behavior. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 71, 101476.

Adams, M. (2021). Critical psychologies and climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology, 42, 13-18.

Albrecht, G. (2019). Earth emotions: New words for a new world. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

Antadze, N. (2020). Moral outrage as the emotional response to climate injustice. Environmental Justice, 13(1).

Bamberg, S., Rees, J., & Schulte, M. (2018). Environmental protection through societal change: What psychology knows about collective climate action - and what it needs to find out. In S. D. Clayton, & C. M. Manning (ed.), Psychology and climate change: Human perceptions, impacts, and responses. Amsterdam: Academic Press.

Barrett, L. F., Lewis, M., & Haviland-Jones, J. (Eds.). (2016). Handbook of emotions (4th ed.). New York: Guilford Press.

Bissing-Olson, M. J., Fielding, K. S., & Iyer, A. (2016). Experiences of pride, not guilt, predict pro-environmental behavior when pro-environmental descriptive norms are more positive. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 45, 145-153.

Brulle, R. J., & Norgaard, K. M. (2019). Avoiding cultural trauma: Climate change and social inertia. Environmental Politics, 28(5), 886-908.

Chapman, D., Lickel, B., & Markowitz, E. M. (2017). Reassessing emotion in climate change communication. Nature Clim Change, 7(12), 850-852.

Cunsolo, A., & Landman, K. (Eds.). (2017). Mourning nature: Hope at the heart of ecological loss & grief. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press.

Doppelt, B. (2016). Transformational resilience: How building human resilience to climate disruption can safeguard society and increase wellbeing. Saltaire: Taylor & Francis.

Harré, N. (2018). Psychology for a better world: Working with people to save the planet (2nd, revised ed.). Auckland: Auckland University Press.

Hoggett, P. (Ed.). (2019). Climate psychology: On indifference to disaster. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hormio, S. (2020). Yksilön vastuu yhteisöjen jäsenenä. In S. Kyllönen, & M. Oksanen (ed.), Filosofia ja ilmastonmuutos (104-125). Helsinki: Gaudeamus.

Hyry, J. (2019). Kansalaiskysely ilmastonmuutoksesta ja tunteista [National survey on climate emotions: A report]. Helsinki: Sitra, the Finnish Innovation Fund. English summary: https://media.sitra.fi/2019/11/29131052/sitraclimate-emotions-report-2019.pdf

Jensen, T. (2019). Ecologies of guilt in environmental rhetorics. Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.

Jylhä, K. M. (2017). Denial versus reality of climate change. In D. A. DellaSala, & M. I. Goldstein (ed.), Encyclopedia of the anthropocene (487-492). Elsevier.

Kelsey, E. (2020). Hope matters: Why changing the way we think is critical to solving the environmental crisis. Vancouver/Berkeley: Greystone Books.

Lertzman, R. A. (2019). New methods for investigating new dangers: On the radical practice of listening. In P. Hoggett (ed.), Climate psychology: On indifference to disaster (25-39). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.

Mah, A. Y. J., Chapman, D. A., Markowitz, E. M., & Lickel, B. (2020). Coping with climate change: Three insights for research, intervention, and communication to promote adaptive coping to climate change. Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 75, 102282.

Marshall, G. (2015). Don't even think about it: Why our brains are wired to ignore climate change. New York: Bloomsbury.

Norgaard, K. M. (2011). Living in denial: Climate change, emotions, and everyday life. Cambridge: MIT Press.

Nummenmaa, L. (2019). Tunnekartasto: Kuinka tunteet tekevät meistä ihmisiä. Helsinki: Tammi.

Pihkala, P. (2017). Päin helvettiä? Ympäristöahdistus ja toivo. Helsinki: Kirjapaja.

Pihkala, P. (2019a). Mieli maassa? ympäristötunteet. Helsinki: Kirjapaja.

Pihkala, P. (2019b). Ilmastoahdistus ja sen kanssa eläminen. Raportti. Helsinki: Mieli ry.

Pihkala, P. (2019c). Ilmastokasvatus ja tunteet. Helsinki: Biologian ja maantieteen opettajien liitto BMOL ry.

Pihkala, P. (2020a). Anxiety and the ecological crisis: An analysis of eco-anxiety and climate anxiety. Sustainability, 12(19), 7836.

Pihkala, P. (2020b). Eco-anxiety and environmental education. Sustainability, 12(23), 10149.

Pihlström, S. (2020). Ilmastonmuutos eksistentiaalisena uhkana. In S. Kyllönen, & M. Oksanen (ed.), Filosofia ja ilmastonmuutos (297-316). Helsinki: Gaudeamus.

Saarinen, R. (2020). Oppi toivosta. Helsinki: Gaudeamus.

Sangervo, J. (2020). Ilmastoahdistus ja ilmastotoivo: Tunteiden yhteys ilmastotoimiin. Pro gradu -tutkielma. Tampere University, Faculty of Social Sciences.

Schneider, C. R., Zaval, L., Weber, E. U., & Markowitz, E. M. (2017). The influence of anticipated pride and guilt on pro-environmental decision making. PloS One, 12(11), e0188781-e0188781.

Stoknes, P. E. (2015). What we think about when we try not to think about global warming: Toward a new psychology of climate action. White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing.

Verplanken, B., Marks, E., & Dobromir, A. I. (2020). On the nature of eco-anxiety: How constructive or unconstructive is habitual worry about global warming? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 72.