Writing the post with Carya was one of the most enjoyable things I did this year for work. We had a lot of fun and hope you enjoy reading it just as much.

🔗 spsp.org/news/charact... (blog) & journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.... (study)

#sustainability #psychology #BehavioralScience #BehaviorChange

💡Why? A single message isn’t enough. People need to hear it from many others—like you. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐧𝐞𝐰𝐬: 𝐲𝐨𝐮’𝐫𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐠𝐥𝐨𝐛𝐚𝐥 𝐦𝐚𝐣𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐭𝐲. One that can be louder, more visible, and more connected. And that shift, from silence to solidarity, is exactly what the climate movement needs right now.

🌱 To test whether breaking this illusion can spark #action, we told half of our participants that 71–88% of their fellow citizens believe climate change is real and humans are responsible. Hearing this didn’t immediately make people more willing to change their lifestyle or support climate action.

🌏 Everywhere we looked, the same pattern emerged: a collective illusion where climate believers think they’re swimming against the tide when in fact they’re riding the wave. The real misunderstanding isn’t about the facts or hard science—it’s the belief that people are divided on the issue.

@hirotakaimada.bsky.social, Carya Maharja, Nattavudh Powdthavee, Valeria Vitale, @lei-zhang.bsky.social, Claudio Rosa, Zenith Delabrida, @kristiansn89.bsky.social, @franzessl1.bsky.social, Mathew White, @envpsyvienna.bsky.social, @acee.princeton.edu

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🌱 Our hope: By making biodiversity conservation efforts more visible, we can shift norms and inspire both individual and systemic action to protect and restore biodiversity worldwide.

1️⃣ Identify where and among whom these misperceptions arise
2️⃣ Understand how they affect conservation action and policy, with case studies from Brazil to Japan
3️⃣ Test interventions that make shared agreement visible and reduce misperceptions

Thanks for sharing, Sabine 😊