Search

The construct of psychological distance has gained traction as an explanation of why climate change is difficult to act on; it often feels far removed, with impacts arising in remote locations to other people or in an uncertain future. However, recent studies and narrative reviews have pointed out inconsistencies in the conceptualisation, operationalisation and results regarding the psychological distance of climate change, with research evidently struggling to develop the construct and determine its place in explaining and promoting pro-environmental behaviour. This paper presents a systematic review of the literature aimed at building an evidence base on which to develop research on psychological distance. Following a systematic search of three databases, 73 records with 84 individual studies were identified, which measured or manipulated the concept in relation to climate change. We find that psychological distance in the context of climate change is a dynamic, context-specific, multidimensional construct, with a wide variety of approaches to measurement and manipulation. Current theorising (primarily Construal Level Theory) is insufficient in describing the diversity and complexity of distance in the climate-change context. Based on the reviewed studies, we give recommendations for the measurement and manipulation of the construct. However, our overarching suggestion is to focus on specific contexts in which distance plays a role in climate-change cognition and action, such as the perception of impacts, policy or behaviour. We discuss how describing distance within these contexts can help researchers to understand current findings, to disentangle different components of distance beliefs and to incorporate theory and insights from related perspectives.

As climate impacts become more visible, an increasing number of people experience or hear about distressing events such as flooding, landscape change and biodiversity loss. Most of these reports refer to specific places. It is therefore likely that people’s relationships with these places influence their perception of the climate crisis overall. In this paper, we draw together various strands of climate psychology to introduce a framework that addresses people’s perceptions of impacted places and the effect of these perceptions on considerations relating to risks. We propose that there are certain place beliefs (e.g., those related to distance, identity, similarity and caring) which make up our place affinity, which in turn influences our reaction to the place under threat. Additionally, we suggest there may be personal characteristics, termed susceptibility variables (e.g., empathy, values and thinking styles), which could shape these beliefs and their effect on risk perceptions. We report a mixed-method study that explores this framework in a sample of UK participants (N = 200). Participants expressed mixed feelings of familiarity, similarity and caring towards places impacted by climate change now or in the immediate future. Those with a higher affinity for an affected place were more likely to indicate higher concern, but not worry, about climate change overall. Participants expected to feel higher affinity for places impacted in the distant future; however, this was not associated with concern or worry. Qualitative data suggested that additional place beliefs may be related to climate justice, specifically the extent to which a place is thought be vulnerable or responsible for contributing to climate change. We conclude by discussing how our framework may facilitate effective messaging relating to climate change. We also highlight the need to conduct further exploratory and confirmatory work to identify and understand people’s complex beliefs and reactions to p

Recognition following long delays is superior for highly attractive and highly unattractive faces (cf. medium-attractive faces). In the current work, we investigated participants’ ability to recreate from memory faces of low-, medium- and high physical attractiveness. In Experiment 1, participants constructed composites of familiar (celebrity) faces using the holistic EvoFIT system. When controlling for other variables that may influence face recognition (memorability, familiarity, likeability and age), correct naming and ratings of likeness were superior for composites of low attractiveness targets. Experiment 2 replicated this design using the feature based PRO-fit system, revealing superiority (by composite naming and ratings of likeness) for medium attractiveness. In Experiment 3, participants constructed composites of unfamiliar faces after a forensically-relevant delay of 1 day. Using ratings of likeness as a measure of composite effectiveness, these same effects were observed for EvoFIT and PRO-fit. The work demonstrates the importance of attractiveness for method of composite face construction.

The role of information context, judgment perspective and cue type on the “accuracy” of first impressions of another’s Big5 personality was studied in three phases of data collection (n = 173). Accurate judgments were defined as the level of agreement between a target person’s aggregated personality score (i.e., average of self and informant ratings of personality) and a personality judgement about the target, indexed using item correlations. Results for Phase 1 found that completing a different task with the same partner improved accuracy for conscientiousness. Phase 2 investigated the relationship between a person’s role (judgment perspective) within an interaction (interactants, observers) and showed that Observers were better at judging the less interpersonal traits of conscientiousness and openness relative to Interactants. Finally, Phase 3 examined the types of cues that people used when rating another’s personality. Although Observers and Interactants had access to the same interaction, analyses revealed that they employed different types of cues when judging others. Findings are discussed in terms of Funder’s Realistic Accuracy Model (1995, 1999) along with practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.