A Research Agenda to Better Understand the Human Dimensions of Energy Transitions.

The Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) have a key role to play in understanding which factors and policies would motivate, encourage and enable different actors to adopt a wide range of sustainable energy behaviours and support the required system changes and policies. The SSH can provide critical insights into how consumers could be empowered to consistently engage in sustainable energy behaviour, support and adopt new technologies, and support policies and changes in energy systems. Furthermore, they can increase our understanding of how organisations such as private and public institutions, and groups and associations of people can play a key role in the sustainable energy transition.

On Modeling Worldviews in Quantitative Decision Support.

To inform decisions under deep uncertainty, risk analysts need to consider how best to deal with the fact that stakeholders often do not share specific concerns or fundamental perspectives. Lempert and Turner propose that deliberation can improve if models incorporate three worldviews defined in social science theory. This commentary suggests that competence and legitimacy are more likely to emerge from deliberation when models are built inductively, inquiring first about stakeholders' decision-relevant concerns and then developing models to speak to them.

How psychology can help limit climate change.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5°C or 2°C of global warming. To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change.

The Promise and Limitations of Using Analogies to Improve Decision-Relevant Understanding of Climate Change.

To make informed choices about how to address climate change, members of the public must develop ways to consider established facts of climate science and the uncertainties about its future trajectories, in addition to the risks attendant to various responses, including non-response, to climate change. One method suggested for educating the public about these issues is the use of simple mental models, or analogies comparing climate change to familiar domains such as medical decision making, disaster preparedness, or courtroom trials. Two studies were conducted using online participants in the U.

Online purchasing creates opportunities to lower the life cycle carbon footprints of consumer products.

A major barrier to transitions to environmental sustainability is that consumers lack information about the full environmental footprints of their purchases. Sellers' incentives do not support reducing the footprints unless customers have such information and are willing to act on it. We explore the potential of modern information technology to lower this barrier by enabling firms to inform customers of products' environmental footprints at the point of purchase and easily offset consumers' contributions through bundled purchases of carbon offsets.

Risks and risk governance in unconventional shale gas development.

A broad assessment is provided of the current state of knowledge regarding the risks associated with shale gas development and their governance. For the principal domains of risk, we identify observed and potential hazards and promising mitigation options to address them, characterizing current knowledge and research needs. Important unresolved research questions are identified for each area of risk; however, certain domains exhibit especially acute deficits of knowledge and attention, including integrated studies of public health, ecosystems, air quality, socioeconomic impacts on communities, and climate change.

Public and stakeholder participation for managing and reducing the risks of shale gas development.

Emerging technologies pose particularly strong challenges for risk governance when they have multidimensional and inequitable impacts, when there is scientific uncertainty about the technology and its risks, when there are strong value conflicts over the perceived benefits and risks, when decisions must be made urgently, and when the decision making environment is rife with mistrust. Shale gas development is one such emerging technology. Drawing on previous U.

Public understanding of climate change in the United States.

This article considers scientific and public understandings of climate change and addresses the following question: Why is it that while scientific evidence has accumulated to document global climate change and scientific opinion has solidified about its existence and causes, U.S. public opinion has not and has instead become more polarized? Our review supports a constructivist account of human judgment.

Contributions of psychology to limiting climate change.

Psychology can make a significant contribution to limiting the magnitude of climate change by improving understanding of human behaviors that drive climate change and human reactions to climate-related technologies and policies, and by turning that understanding into effective interventions. This article develops a framework for psychological contributions, summarizes what psychology has learned, and sets out an agenda for making additional contributions. It emphasizes that the greatest potential for contributions from psychology comes not from direct application of psychological concepts but from integrating psychological knowledge and methods with knowledge from other fields of science and technology.

Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change.

Global climate change poses one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. This article, which introduces the American Psychologist special issue on global climate change, follows from the report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. In this article, we place psychological dimensions of climate change within the broader context of human dimensions of climate change by addressing (a) human causes of, consequences of, and responses (adaptation and mitigation) to climate change and (b) the links between these aspects of climate change and cognitive, affective, motivational, interpersonal, and organizational responses and processes.

Paraphilic Coercive Disorder in the DSM: the right diagnosis for the right reasons.

The recommendation to include a Paraphilic Coercive Disorder (PCD) diagnosis in the DSM-5 represents an improvement over current options and would lead to the shrinking of the pool of individuals considered for detention as Sexually Violent Predators. A precise description of the diagnostic criteria for PCD would permit psychologists and psychiatrists to use more specific and narrow criteria for those who seek sexual gratification by coercing others to engage in unwanted sexual behavior. This might permit mental health professionals to abandon the Paraphilia NOS designation in favor of the more defined PCD in appropriate cases.

Household actions can provide a behavioral wedge to rapidly reduce US carbon emissions.

Most climate change policy attention has been addressed to long-term options, such as inducing new, low-carbon energy technologies and creating cap-and-trade regimes for emissions. We use a behavioral approach to examine the reasonably achievable potential for near-term reductions by altered adoption and use of available technologies in US homes and nonbusiness travel. We estimate the plasticity of 17 household action types in 5 behaviorally distinct categories by use of data on the most effective documented interventions that do not involve new regulatory measures.

How safe are trick-or-treaters? An analysis of child sex crime rates on halloween.

States, municipalities, and parole departments have adopted policies banning known sex offenders from Halloween activities, based on the worry that there is unusual risk on these days. The existence of this risk has not been empirically established. National Incident-Base Reporting System crime report data from 1997 through 2005 were used to examine daily population adjusted rates from 67,045 nonfamilial sex crimes against children aged 12 years and less.

The struggle to govern the commons.

Human institutions--ways of organizing activities--affect the resilience of the environment. Locally evolved institutional arrangements governed by stable communities and buffered from outside forces have sustained resources successfully for centuries, although they often fail when rapid change occurs. Ideal conditions for governance are increasingly rare.