Temporal pessimism and spatial optimism in environmental assessments: An 18-nation study

By R. Gifford, L. Scannell, Christine Kormos, L. Smolova, A. Biel, Ștefan Boncu, Víctor Corral, Hartmut Güntherf, Kazunori Hanyu, D. Hine and 17 more. 2009

314 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The personal assessments of the current and expected future state of the environment by 3232 community respondents in 18 nations were investigated at the local, national, and global spatial levels. These assessments were compared to a ranking of each country's environmental quality by an expert panel. Temporal pessimism (“things will get worse”) was found in the assessments at all three spatial levels. Spatial optimism bias (“things are better here than there”) was found in the assessments of current environmental conditions in 15 of 18 countries, but not in the assessments of the future. All countries except one exhibited temporal pessimism, but significant differences between them were common. Evaluations of current environmental conditions also differed by country. Citizens' assessments of current conditions, and the degree of comparative optimism, were strongly correlated with the expert panel's assessments of national environmental quality. Aside from the value of understanding global trends in environmental assessments, the results have important implications for environmental policy and risk management strategies.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Experimental and Cognitive Psychology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/35dcbfc70e1c98e3c0122c344821a6d62262ff2c

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Citations in the corpus

Psychological Barriers to Energy Conservation Behavior: The Role of Worldviews and Climate Change Risk Perception (2018, background): “…and given that most individuals assess the climate change risks to others elsewhere around the world as higher than the risks to themselves (e.g., Gifford et al., 2009; Leiserowitz, 2005; Lima & Castro, 2005; Lorenzoni & Pidgeon, 2006; Safi, Smith, & Liu, 2012), it follows that egalitarians are…”
Psychology and Global Climate Change: Addressing a Multi-faceted Phenomenon and Set of Challenges A Report by the American Psychological Association's Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change Members (2009, background): “A study of over 3000 respondents in 18 countries, showed that environmental conditions are expected by everyday individuals to become worse in 25 years than they are today (Gifford et al., 2009).”
Intentions to make sustainable tourism choices: do value orientations, time perspective, and efficacy beliefs explain individual differences?† (2017, background): “Gifford et al., 2009; Spence, Poortinga, & Pidgeon, 2012), which could be the reason behind why the strength of stated behavioural intentions was more sensitive to individual differences in CFC-Future than in CFC-Immediate. One option for addressing those with strong CFC-Immediate could be temporal ”
Personal and social factors that influence pro-environmental concern and behaviour: a review. (2014, background): “Differences in environmental concern by wealth may also depend on global versus local environmental concern (cf. Gifford et al., 2009).”
We are at risk, and so what? Place attachment, environmental risk perceptions and preventive coping behaviours (2015, background): “However, we predicted that place attachment may negatively moderate this positive relation, according to the possible effect of place-specific biases, such as the optimistic bias applied to environmental risk perception (Gifford et al., 2009; Radcliffe & Klein, 2002; Schultz et al., 2014).”
The Psychological Distance of Climate Change (2012, background): “In fact, whilst cross-national studies do indicate that respondents from developing countries tend to be more concerned about local environmental issues than those from industrialized nations,(37,38) beyond this a general spatial bias appears to exist where people in both developed and developing co”
How social norms are often a barrier to addressing climate change but can be part of the solution (2020, background): “…change are psychologically distant: they are seen as lying in the (distant) future, as geographically distant and as diffuse (Leiserowitz, 2006; Gifford et al., 2009; Leiserowitz et al., 2013).1 Thus, people may perceive little personal risk from climate change, reducing the motivation that…”
Determinants and Measurement of Climate Change Risk Perception, Worry, and Concern (2017, background): “For example, research across nearly 20 nations has revealed that people generally judge environmental risks and the impacts of climate change to be much more likely and more serious for other people and places than for themselves (Gifford et al., 2009; Leiserowitz, 2005; van der Linden, 2015A).”
Pro-environmental behavior correlates with present and future subjective well-being (2016, background): “An 18-nation survey on perceived environmental assessment by the general public has shown that Sweden is one of the top few countries where people give significantly positive assessments about their local and national environments compared to other surveyed countries in Europe, America, and Asia (Gi”
Cross-Cultural Evidence for Spatial Bias in Beliefs About the Severity of Environmental Problems (2014, methodology): “Indeed, our study is consistent with a large cross-cultural body of data showing spatial bias from individuals from at least 40 countries (Dunlap et al., 1993; Gifford et al., 2009; Uzzell, 2000).”
Environmental psychology matters. (2014, background): “Another widespread worldview held by individuals is that threats to the environment are weaker in their own area than in distant places (Gifford et al. 2009).”