Integrating Spiritual, Moral and Ethical Considerations into Science Communication for Improved Decision Making and Public Action on Climate Science

Both national security and citizens’ health and well-being can be effected by climate-related disruptions to supply chains, production, and infrastructure. The need to advance climate science is urgent and escalating. Improving public action on, public support of, and decision making based on climate science improves if and how we respond to climate challenges. This research explores how to create enduring change in public behavior to support effective action to address climate impacts on society. Despite four decades of climate science communication, we continue to seek adequate public and decision maker action and decision maker support to substantively address climate challenges. This research focuses on positive self-efficacy frames (when a person feels empowered to take action and make an impact) that have been shown to generate engagement and support for climate science yet have been largely absent from mainstream dialogue. Specifically, it focuses on moral, ethical, and spiritual concerns, which though underrepresented have proven to have powerful sway over individual attitudes and behaviors. The findings of the three studies comprising this project and their outreach components (multimedia content, white papers, videos, a website) can empower decision makers, business leaders, and other relevant leaders and stakeholders to make more informed decisions through targeted interventions. This project has three studies that extend over three years. Each study focuses on a different area that has shown promise for generating enduring change in environmental behavior. The first study, entitled “Promoting Self-Reflection,” covers deep engagement. Past research shows that if a person engages in active thinking on an issue, they are more likely to develop enduring attitudinal change. This research follows 90 participants based on three different moral, ethical, or spiritual interventions to support active thinking while applying periodic surveys to measure progress. The second study, “Retelling the Story,” looks at mental models. Mental models are our internal schema that influence how we respond to new situations. This study includes 150 participants’ responses to different environmental multimedia interventions based on moral, ethical, or spiritual narratives using surveys and a digital mental modeling tool. The third study, “Building Infectious Behaviors,” addresses social norms, which are powerful cycles of collective behavior. This study includes 120 participants and their practice of environmental self-generative norms informed by moral, ethical or spiritual positions and includes surveys, written reflections and regular logging. This research is supported by the Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact program and the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences Office of the Assistant Director. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.