Abstract
This chapter argues for the need to take a hard look at our current methodologies, and what it would look like to adopt more innovative approaches to understanding the psycho-social dimensions of climate, energy, and environmental threats. At a time when increasing attention is directed toward understanding people’s motivations, perceptions, and attitudes when it comes to climate change, it behooves us to think very carefully about our research methods. What assumptions are they based on, when it comes to the interplay of subjective and social influences? Are they up to the task? What might we be overlooking? Drawing on a project interviewing conservative Republicans in the States about climate, this chapter argues that paying attention to the “Three A’s”—Anxiety, Ambivalence, and Aspiration—can amplify our investigations, and ideally supplant a reductive tendency to focus on values alone as a key driver of behavior change.
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Lertzman, R. (2019). New Methods for Investigating New Dangers. In: Hoggett, P. (eds) Climate Psychology. Studies in the Psychosocial. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11741-2_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-11741-2_2
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