Editorial
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Editorial Reviews on the climate crisis in Latin American psychology |
* 0000-0003-3209-9204, Universidad Católica de
Colombia.
ifmedina@ucatolica.edu.co
The planetary crisis caused by the acceleration of climate change, in particular, global warming, is at the heart of the most important binding multilateral measures in the last few years. In this regard, the recent COP26 meeting in Glasgow included a list of governmental actions associated with the control and mitigation of emissions within the goal of containing the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees, a course of action outlined in the 2015 Paris Agreement that will have a significant impact on the budgets and efforts of UN member countries.
As a phenomenon partly explained by the aggregate effects of human behavior, climate change has also been the subject of study in psychology for several decades. For example, in 1992, Stern published the article "Psychological dimensions of global environmental change" in the Annual Review of Psychology; and Pawlik, in 1991, published "The Psychology of Global Environmental Change" in the International Journal of Psychology. According to historical reviews on the subject, the thematic shift of environmental psychology towards its more predominant view today is directly related to the climate crisis of the last 40 years (Gifford, 2014; Páramo, 1996).
In this context, it is consistent that the expression psychology of climate change, as a specialized field to which multiple areas of psychology -such as environmental, social, educational, cognitive, etc. - contribute, has had in 2021 an important presence in multiple journals of the discipline. In particular, Latin American psychology has participated in this scientific and social movement with different studies.
As for review articles, these have been oriented, on the one hand, to document extensively the work and contributions of studies in the area, especially with Latin American samples, with regional, national or international scope; and, on the other hand, to propose scientific agendas in which disciplinary findings and social demands converge. Whatever the case may be, these reviews should be included in the reading list of those interested in the subject.
For example, it is worth highlighting the work of Braga et al. (2018), which compiles the work done in Brazil on the psychology of disasters, including those associated with the climate crisis, with a synthesis of eleven articles on the subject; or that of Sapians and Ugarte (2017), where the findings from Chile and Latin America are synthesized - in studies obtained from a search in different international databases (including Scielo) - around psychology on climate change. The results of this study are organized into four major themes: (a) climate change communication; (b) beliefs, attitudes, values, and behaviors associated with climate change; (c) psychological facilitators and barriers or inhibitors to the implementation of mitigation and adaptation practices; and (d) impacts of the climate crisis on mental health.
In a related line, Cruz Castaño and Páramo (2020) document works on education for mitigation and adaptation to climate change in the region, based on a search in international databases. Here they identify the main research topics and methodologies from the review of 36 studies, where research on the social representations of climate change in members of educational communities and citizens, in general, stand out, and secondly, the works that socialize educational proposals to intervene or incorporate the climate crisis in the curricula.
Finally, concerning articles aimed at establishing scientific agendas on the phenomenon, the works by Corral-Verdugo (2021) and Meira-Cartea et al. (2018) deserve to be highlighted, in which the specific contributions of environmental psychology to the study of mitigation and adaptation to climate change are documented, and in which, in agreement with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - among other panels - the priorities of the field of psychology for the coming years are established.
This panorama shows that, although there is an important number of works in the region -which are analyzed in these reviews-, in general the participation of research on climate change is still a minority within the scientific activity of Latin American psychology. May these references serve to invite the community to broaden the disciplinary perspective and include in the immediate agenda of each of the subfields the different areas on the perspectives of international declarations, in order to legitimize and link the scientific practice of psychology with the global social needs felt.
References
Braga, A. P. de A., Martins-Silva, P. de O., Avellar, L. Z., Tristão, K. G., & Ribeiro-Neto, P. M. (2018). Produção científica sobre psicologia dos desastres: Uma revisão da literatura nacional. Estudos de Psicologia (Natal), 23(2), 179-188. https://dx.doi.org/10.22491/1678-4669.20180018
Corral-Verdugo, V. (2021). Psychology of climate change. PsyEcology, 12(2), 254-282. https://doi.org/10.1080/21711976.2021.1901188
Cruz Castaño, N., & Páramo, P. (2020). Educación para la mitigación y adaptación al cambio climático en América Latina. Educación y Educadores, 23(3), 469-489. https://doi.org/10.5294/edu.2020.23.3.6
Gifford, R. (2014). Environmental psychology matters. Annual Review of Psychology, 65, 541-579. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010213-115048
Páramo, P. (1996) Psicología ambiental. Suma Psicológica, 3(1), 1-12. http://publicaciones.konradlorenz.edu.co/index.php/sumapsi/article/view/282/359
Meira-Cartea, P., González-Gaudiano, E., & Gutiérrez-Pérez, J. (2018). Climate crisis and the demand for more empiric research in social sciences: emerging topics and challenges in environmental psychology. PsyEcology, 9(3), 259-271. https://doi.org/10.1080/21711976.2018.1493775
Pawlik, K. (1991). The psychology of global environmental change: Some basic data and an agenda for cooperative international research. International Journal of Psychology, 26(5), 547-563. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207599108247143
Sapians, R., & Ugarte, A. M. (2017). Contribuciones de la Psicología al abordaje de la dimensión humana del cambio climático en Chile (Primera parte). Interdisciplinaria, 34(1), 91-105. http://www.ciipme-conicet.gov.ar/ojs/index.php?journal=interdisciplinaria&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=280&path%5B%5D=36
Stern, P. C. (1992). Psychological dimensions of global environmental change. Annual Review of Psychology, 43(1), 269-302. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.ps.43.020192.001413