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Emphasizing the co-benefits of climate policy can motivate action across ideological, age and gender divides regardless of existing levels of concern about climate change, as global survey data shows. Personal and political action on climate change is traditionally thought to be motivated by people accepting its reality and importance. However, convincing the public that climate change is real faces powerful ideological obstacles 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , and climate change is slipping in public importance in many countries 5 , 6 . Here we investigate a different approach, identifying whether potential co-benefits of addressing climate change 7 could motivate pro-environmental behaviour around the world for both those convinced and unconvinced that climate change is real. We describe an integrated framework for assessing beliefs about co-benefits 8 , distinguishing social conditions (for example, economic development, reduced pollution or disease) and community character (for example, benevolence, competence). Data from all inhabited continents (24 countries; 6,196 participants) showed that two co-benefit types, Development (economic and scientific advancement) and Benevolence (a more moral and caring community), motivated public, private and financial actions to address climate change to a similar degree as believing climate change is important. Critically, relationships were similar for both convinced and unconvinced participants, showing that co-benefits can motivate action across ideological divides. These relationships were also independent of perceived climate change importance, and could not be explained by political ideology, age, or gender. Communicating co-benefits could motivate action on climate change where traditional approaches have stalled.

As an object which is new, complex and potentially challenging some of the foundations of the Social Order (SO), we sought to study the influence of the Political Orientation (PO) and Social Representations (SR) of the Social Order (Staerklé et al., 2007). . PUG) on the socio-representational construction of the Universal Basic Income (UBI) and stances towards this measure (attitude and estimated fair amount). Data were collected via Facebook from 264 French general population participants (Mage = 37.8; SD = 12.7; 174 women). Our Structural Equation Model revealed that the PO would be associated with the stances towards the UBI, mediated by the different ways of representing it and the representations of the SO. Results show two differents socio-representational logics in relation to being right-wing and one in relation to being left-wing. This leads to contrasting stances towards the UBI and seems to reflect different desires to maintain or change the SO.

‘Proximizing climate change’ is a widely used strategy for promoting public engagement in environmental communication. However, experimental manipulations of psychological distance often fail to substantially reduce the perceived distance of climate change, and, do not systematically affect responses to this issue. In this study, we test the effectiveness of a new proximizing method that combines two strategies on a sample of French students ( N = 349). First, we communicated about the immediate (vs. distant) consequences of climate change. Then, participants were asked to relate these consequences to their own direct experiences to accentuate the level of distance induced (versus a no-accentuation condition). We found that presenting proximal events reduces the perceived distance of climate change, but only when proximity is accentuated. This combined method also leads to greater risk perception, stronger emotional response, and increased engagement in mitigation, as it influences the perceived distance. Our results suggest that proximizing climate change is a valuable communication strategy in environmental campaigns when psychological closeness to climate change is made relevant to individuals’ personal experience.

Nature Climate Change 6, 154–157 (2016); published online 28 September 2015; corrected after print 18 March 2016. In the version of this Letter originally published, the following affiliation was missing for Paul G. Bain: Institute for Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.

Weiss and Girandola (Qualité de l’environnement et comportements écocitoyens. In Lecomte J (ed) Introduction à la psychologie positive. Dunod, Paris, pp 251–263, 2009; Les enjeux de la psychologie face au développement durable. In Weiss K, Girandola F (eds) Psychologie et développement durable. Editions InPress, Paris, pp 9–19, 2010a; Pour une psychologie positive du développement durable: vers de nouveaux enjeux et développements. In Weiss K, Girandola F (eds) Psychologie et développement durable. Editions InPress, Paris, pp 277–282, 2010b) suggested developing a positive psychology of sustainable development, dealing with social and dispositional factors that enable satisfaction, quality of life and, even more, individual well-being. In line with this idea, we focus in this chapter on action research developing positive interactions between humans and the environment. More precisely, we review commitment-making strategies and the effects of binding communication on the adoption of pro-environmental behaviors such as waste sorting, recycling, non-activist behaviors in the public sphere and energy saving, likely to be positively perceived by the individual and contributing to quality of life. Firstly, we describe the basis of commitment theory, the binding communication paradigm and its objectives: to optimize awareness and information campaigns in order to favor behavioral adhesion. Then, we focus on the effects of commitment, dissonance and binding communication on behaviors and attitudes toward the environment. We explore how these effects strengthen the positive characteristics of interactions between humans and the environment and, thereby, quality of life. To illustrate the proposals of Uzzell and Moser (Eur Rev Appl Psychol 56(1):1–4, 2006), we review the action research based on binding communication in the field of pro-environmental behavior promotion. This paradigm may be applied at different levels of human-environment interactions: (1) the private space level, (2) the proximal environment level, and (3) the public space level. Finally, we present the current limitations of works on commitment, especially the lack of precise measures of quality of life following research actions and the “top-down” logics they use.