This issue of Philosophical Transactions examines the relationship between scientific uncertainty about climate change and knowledge. Uncertainty is an inherent feature of the climate system. Considerable effort has therefore been devoted to understanding how to effectively respond to a changing, yet uncertain climate. Politicians and the public often appeal to uncertainty as an argument to del...

Understanding human behavior lies at the heart of responses to climate change. Many environmentally relevant behavior patterns are frequent, stable, and persistent. There is an increasing focus on understanding these patterns less in terms of deliberative processes and more in terms of habits and routines embedded in everyday life. Examinations of the ‘habitual’ nature of environmentally conseq...

Extending tokenism theory, the authors investigate psychological climate of gender inequity as a way to understand how token women experience their work environments. In the first study, responses from a sample of 155 women across varied occupations confirm the expectation that token women tend to perceive their organizational climates to be inequitable for women. The results of a second survey...

Climate change is occurring: where is psychology? The conventional wisdom is that amelioration of the impacts of climate change is a matter for earth and ocean science, economics, technology, and policy-making. This article presents the basis for psychological science as a key part of the solution to the problem and describes the challenges to this both from within psychology and from other poi...

A national, representative survey of the U.S. public found that Americans have moderate climate change risk perceptions, strongly support a variety of national and international policies to mitigate climate change, and strongly oppose several carbon tax proposals. Drawing on the theoretical distinction between analytic and experiential decision-making, this study found that American risk percep...

Evolutionary psychological theories have engendered much skepticism in the modern scientific climate. Why? We argue that, although sometimes couched in the language of unfalsifiability, the skepticism results primarily from the perception that evolutionary theories are less verifiable than traditional psychological theories. It is more difficult to be convinced of the veracity of an evolutionar...

The purpose of the article is to outline a comprehensive conceptual framework for life skills interventions by integrating aspects of Basic Needs Theory (BNT) and Life Development Intervention (LDI). In particular, we advocate the integration of (a) the three basic psychological needs of autonomy, competence, and relatedness and (b) the needs-supportive motivational climate from BNT with the LD...