Denial, rationalization, and suppression: How our basic psychological needs may influence why we do not act in the face of climate change

In times of increasing global temperatures and apathy in the face of climatic and social crises, understanding why people do or do not act is critical. Despite high pro-environmental attitudes, most people ignore the reality of climate change in their everyday lives (Moser & Kleinhückelkotten, 2017). This may be a sign for internal conflict and attempts to protect the self from threat (Norgaard, 2011; Stich & Wagner, 2012). Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 2000) assumes the basic psychological needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy to be essential for psychological functioning and our ability to face threatening information. Promoting the satisfaction of the basic psychological needs for relatedness, competence, and autonomy has also been found to foster intrinsic and autonomous motivation for pro-environmental behavior, behavior that is direly needed in the transition to a socially and ecologically just society (Cooke, Fielding, & Louis, 2016; Darner, 2009; Kaplan & Madjar, 2015; Kasser, 2009). This work aims to investigate the associations between satisfaction of basic psychological needs, self-protective strategies, and pro-environmental behavior. A long-term objective of this work is to develop effective interventions, which render the use of self-protective strategies redundant. Such interventions could aid people in facing threatening information and, thus, foster intrinsic motivation for pro-environmental behavior, taking basic need satisfaction into account, in times in which social-ecological change is urgently needed. In this short report, however, preliminary results of two first studies will be presented and implications for practitioners in the field will be explored.