Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Psychology

Climate change and group dynamics

Nature Climate Change volume 5, pages 195–196 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

The characteristics and views of people sceptical about climate change have been analysed extensively. A study now confirms that sceptics in the US have some characteristics of a social movement, but shows that the same group dynamics propel believers.

A minority of the public are sceptical about the idea that humans cause climate change. This has received a lot of attention in the media as well as in scientific research. Many became concerned when scepticism — a marginal phenomenon in many countries across the globe — increased in the US and a few other (mainly anglophone) countries towards the end of the 2000s1. Research into the causes of US scepticism has pointed to links with party politics, polarization (that is, conflictual relations between republicans and democrats) and the involvement of conservative think-tanks. Writing in Nature Climate Change, Bliuc and colleagues2 now show that sceptical US citizens see themselves as part of a sceptic movement. This means that their actions are determined not just by their individual beliefs and political views, but also by a shared social identity and by competition with believers. But importantly, Bliuc et al. show that those who believe in climate change also act as members of a group. This finding suggests that to cope with the climate change contrarian movement, efforts on education, persuasion or political messages will not suffice. To convince a sceptical public, believers need to harness knowledge about social movements and intergroup conflict reduction.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The number of scientific articles investigating climate scepticism among the public, or through analysis of discourse in media or books.

References

  1. Capstick, S., Whitmarsh, L., Poortinga, W., Pidgeon, N. & Upham, P. WIREs Clim. Change 6, 35–61 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  2. Bliuc, A. M. et al. Nature Clim. Change 5, 226–229 (2015).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Hmielowski, J. D., Feldman, L., Myers, T. A., Leiserowitz, A. & Maibach, E. Publ. Underst. Sci. 23, 866–883 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Corner, A., Whitmarsh, L. & Xenias, D. Climatic Change 114, 463–478 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  5. Rees, J. H. & Bamberg, S. Eur. J. Soc. Psychol. 44, 466–473 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Duncan, L. E. in The Oxford Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology (eds Deaux, K. & Snyder, M.) 781–803 (Oxford Univ. Press, 2012).

    Google Scholar 

  7. McCright, A. M. & Dunlap, R. E. Sociol. Q. 52, 155–194 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Reicher, S. et al. Policing 1, 403–415 (2007).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Bain, P. G., Hornsey, M. J., Bongiorno, R. & Jeffries, C. Nature Clim. Change 2, 600–603 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bray, D. Environ. Sci. Policy 13, 340–350 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Poortinga, W., Spence, A., Whitmarsh, L., Capstick, S. & Pidgeon, N. F. Glob. Environ. Change 21, 1015–1024 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Tom Postmes is in the Department of Social Psychology, University of Groningen, Grote Kruisstraat 2, 9712 TS Groningen, the Netherlands,

    Tom Postmes

Authors
  1. Tom Postmes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tom Postmes.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Postmes, T. Climate change and group dynamics. Nature Clim Change 5, 195–196 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2537

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nclimate2537

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing