Act Now! Enhancing Psychological Interventions to Strengthen Pro-Environmental Behavior

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Eva Asselmann
• Subject Area: Social Psychology, Industrial and Organisational Psychology ; Personality Psychology, Clinical and Medical Psychology, Methodology
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558841485

Climate change represents one of the greatest threats to humanity. However, current efforts to achieve global climate goals are progressing too slowly. Psychology plays a central role in promoting pro-environmental attitudes and behaviors at both individual and collective levels. It provides valuable insights into the causes, mechanisms, and outcomes of pro-environmental behavior, including within-person and between-person differences, and relevant behavioral barriers. Moreover, it offers evidence-based strategies for fostering pro-environmental behaviors in the short and long term. Psychological theories and research therefore serve as an important foundation for supporting climate action across individuals, groups, and society at large. To effectively combat climate change, we must fully harness this vast potential of psychology and behavioral sciences. However, research on psychological interventions to promote pro-environmental action remains fragmented, often restricted to individual areas of psychology, with concerted, interdisciplinary research efforts beyond environmental psychology still being rare. This scientific network aims to address this gap. It brings together researchers from different career stages and disciplines, including environmental and sustainability psychology, cognitive psychology, differential and personality psychology, clinical psychology and psychotherapy, health psychology, behavioral medicine, social psychology, economic and political psychology, as well as behavioral and data sciences. Additionally, it incorporates related fields such as environmental science, geophysics, human geography, sociology, economics, sustainability, and climate policy. Major aims are to consolidate existing knowledge on psychological approaches to promoting pro-environmental behaviors, identify research gaps, and initiate new studies to address these gaps. Various theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and practical experiences will be integrated. Findings will be disseminated to the scientific community, policymakers, and the general public. Planned activities include systematic reviews, meta-analyses, combined data analyses, joint research proposals, publications in leading scientific journals, national and international conference contributions, comprehensive support for early-career researchers, and science communication. Through these activities, interdisciplinary, innovative, and effective strategies for fostering pro-environmental behavior at individual and collective levels will be developed, significantly advancing the current state of research.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks