CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 39Environmental Education and SustainabilityClimate Change Communication and PerceptionEvolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior

The evolutionary psychology of climate change behaviors: Insights and applications

Open access
Palomo-Vélez, Gonzalo, van Vugt, Mark·2021·Current Opinion in Psychology
DOI 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.03.006
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

We examine climate-related activities through an evolutionary psychology lens, zooming in on factors that motivate or discourage people to behave sustainably to mitigate climate change. Complementing current knowledge, we discuss five core ancestral psychological motivations that shape people's environmental decisions in fundamental ways. We review recent studies that explore how evolved psychological mechanisms related to self-interest, status, sensing, discounting tendencies, and social imitation can be used to promote proenvironmental behavior. We discuss the potential strengths and limitations of evolutionary-based behavioral interventions and briefly reflect on outstanding research questions that can further the integration of evolutionary approaches into mainstream environmental psychology.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.03.006

Cites

76 of 76 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Group polarisation and perceiving the beliefs of close friends and family members may be a large factor in whether information is ignored, depreciated, or embraced.

    “Group polarisation and perceiving the beliefs of close friends and family members may be a large factor in whether information is ignored, depreciated, or embraced [48][49][50].”

    From Climate Distress: A Review of Current Psychological Research and Practice (2023) · cites this paper as [48]

    The “Social imitation: climate role models and norms” section says that perceived concern among close friends and family reduces the gap in climate-change beliefs between conservative and liberal voters, and that people show ingroup bias in behaviors they copy (page not provided). It does not establish that group polarisation or those perceived beliefs are a large factor in whether information is ignored, depreciated, or embraced. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • Place-and legacy-based interventions have been explored as effective motivational strategies.

    “Place-and legacy-based interventions have also been explored as effective motivational strategies [44,48,50,53,54].”

    From Climate Distress: A Review of Current Psychological Research and Practice (2023) · cites this paper as [48]

    The Self-interest section reports that appeals about environmental harms to people’s children increase proenvironmental intentions, and the Myopia section describes nature exposure as a possible climate-action intervention. These are related to legacy- and place-based motivation, respectively, but the paper does not establish that place- and legacy-based interventions, as such, are effective strategies. (LLM, conf=0.72)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

  • A lack of eco-friendly behaviour may be explained by myopia and temporal discounting, such that as impacts/rewards seem too far away, it is less likely for one to take consistent action.

    “A lack of eco-friendly behaviour may also be explained by myopia and temporal discounting.In other words, as the impacts/rewards of climate change/climate actioncan seem too far away, it is less likely for one to take consistent action [48].”

    From Climate Distress: A Review of Current Psychological Research and Practice (2023) · cites this paper as [48]

  • Evolutionary psychology identifies self-interest as a strong motivator deterring one from eco-friendly behaviour.

    “Evolutionary psychology concurs with this understanding, identifying self-interest as a strong motivator deterring one from eco-friendly behaviour [48].”

    From Climate Distress: A Review of Current Psychological Research and Practice (2023) · cites this paper as [48]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 77 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. Steg L, de Groot J: Environmental psychology: an introduction. Wiley-Blackwell; 2018.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

Authors
Palomo-Vélez, G., & van Vugt, M.
Venue
Current Opinion in Psychology
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2021-12
Volume
42
Pages
54-59
ISSN
2352-250X (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1016/j.copsyc.2021.03.006
OpenAlex
W3151953960
Cited by
39
References
77
Citations by year
2026: 5 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 10 · 2022: 5 · 2021: 4
FWCI
0.81
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Current Opinion in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • VU Research Portal (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Funders
Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica
Topics
  • Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law › Environmental Education and Sustainability
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Climate Change Communication and Perception
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Evolutionary Psychology and Human Behavior
Keywords
climate change behavior, pro-environmental behavior, evolutionary psychology, self-interest, status, sensing, discounting, social imitation, behavioral interventions, environmental decision-making
MeSH terms
Biological Evolution, Humans, Motivation, Social Behavior, Climate Change

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review