Integrating Spiritual, Moral and Ethical Considerations into Science Communication for Improved Decision Making and Public Action on Climate Science

与气候相关的供应链、生产和基础设施中断都可能影响到国家安全和公民的健康和福祉。推进气候科学的需要迫在眉睫，而且正在不断升级。改善基于气候科学的公共行动、公众支持和决策，可以改善我们应对气候挑战的方式。本研究探讨了如何在公众行为中创造持久的变化，以支持有效的行动来应对气候对社会的影响。尽管气候科学传播已经进行了四十年，我们仍在继续寻求公众和决策者的充分行动以及决策者的支持，以实质性地应对气候挑战。这项研究的重点是积极的自我效能框架（当一个人感到有能力采取行动并产生影响时），这种框架已被证明可以促进对气候科学的参与和支持，但在主流对话中却基本上缺席。具体来说，它关注的是道德、伦理和精神问题，这些问题虽然没有得到充分代表，但已被证明对个人的态度和行为有强大的影响。组成该项目的三项研究的结果及其外联部分（多媒体内容、白皮书、视频、网站）可以使决策者、商业领袖和其他相关领导人和利益相关者通过有针对性的干预措施做出更明智的决策。这个项目有三个研究，为期三年。每项研究都集中在一个不同的领域，这些领域显示出对环境行为产生持久变化的希望。第一项名为“促进自我反思”的研究涵盖了深度参与。过去的研究表明，如果一个人在一个问题上积极思考，他们更有可能形成持久的态度变化。这项研究基于三种不同的道德、伦理或精神干预来跟踪90名参与者，以支持积极思考，同时采用定期调查来衡量进展。第二项研究“复述故事”着眼于心理模型。心智模式是影响我们如何应对新情况的内在模式。本研究包括150名参与者对基于道德、伦理或精神叙事的不同环境多媒体干预的反应，使用调查和数字心理建模工具。第三项研究，“建立传染性行为”，研究社会规范，这是集体行为的强大循环。这项研究包括120名参与者，以及他们在道德、伦理或精神立场下的环境自我生成规范实践，包括调查、书面反思和定期记录。本研究由科学之科学：发现、传播与影响计划和社会、行为与经济科学助理主任办公室支持。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Both national security and citizens’ health and well-being can be effected by climate-related disruptions to supply chains, production, and infrastructure. The need to advance climate science is urgent and escalating. Improving public action on, public support of, and decision making based on climate science improves if and how we respond to climate challenges. This research explores how to create enduring change in public behavior to support effective action to address climate impacts on society. Despite four decades of climate science communication, we continue to seek adequate public and decision maker action and decision maker support to substantively address climate challenges. This research focuses on positive self-efficacy frames (when a person feels empowered to take action and make an impact) that have been shown to generate engagement and support for climate science yet have been largely absent from mainstream dialogue. Specifically, it focuses on moral, ethical, and spiritual concerns, which though underrepresented have proven to have powerful sway over individual attitudes and behaviors. The findings of the three studies comprising this project and their outreach components (multimedia content, white papers, videos, a website) can empower decision makers, business leaders, and other relevant leaders and stakeholders to make more informed decisions through targeted interventions. This project has three studies that extend over three years. Each study focuses on a different area that has shown promise for generating enduring change in environmental behavior. The first study, entitled “Promoting Self-Reflection,” covers deep engagement. Past research shows that if a person engages in active thinking on an issue, they are more likely to develop enduring attitudinal change. This research follows 90 participants based on three different moral, ethical, or spiritual interventions to support active thinking while applying periodic surveys to measure progress. The second study, “Retelling the Story,” looks at mental models. Mental models are our internal schema that influence how we respond to new situations. This study includes 150 participants’ responses to different environmental multimedia interventions based on moral, ethical, or spiritual narratives using surveys and a digital mental modeling tool. The third study, “Building Infectious Behaviors,” addresses social norms, which are powerful cycles of collective behavior. This study includes 120 participants and their practice of environmental self-generative norms informed by moral, ethical or spiritual positions and includes surveys, written reflections and regular logging.This research is supported by the Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact program and the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences Office of the Assistant Director.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.