I recently listened to a Freakonomics Radio podcast with Professor Robert Cialdini. The subject matter was how to influence people and drew on his 1984 book Influence – recently expanded.
In it he discusses the 7 levers of Influence and there is one that stands out when it comes to Climate Change.
Social Proof.
It should be very clear to most people that not enough is being done to reduce emissions. That should be a very uncontroversial thing to say. But if the situation is so severe, why aren’t you doing anything about it?
The answer to that question “Why aren’t you doing anything about it?” is because you aren’t doing anything about it.
Simple. Less cryptically, because no-one is doing anything about it.
How often do you read a scientific paper?
How often do you go outside? More often than you read a scientific paper (even in COVID times)
Take a look out the window (if you haven’t blacked it out with aluminium foil to keep a massive heatwave at bay)
Do you see people? If you do are they freaking out about climate change carrying banners and chaining themselves to railings? No?
Are you working? Was the last conversation you had with a colleague a long speech from them about how we are all going to die? Or did they discuss the project you are working on and when you were going to finish it?
The fact is that people are carrying on with their lives and, according to Cialdini this becomes its own evidence – “social proof”
The example he cites in the interview is a couple arriving at a national park where they see a big sign. The sign says that so many people are taking souvenir pieces of the petrified wood home with them, that the forest is endangered, and asks people to refrain. The woman turns to her partner and says that they had better get a piece of wood.
The reason that this happens, Cialdini explains, is that the sign has inadvertently told the couple that everyone does this, the behaviour is normalised, and that is then converted into social proof that it is ok.
For example lamenting that increasing SUV sales are destroying the environment can actually encourage people to buy one, because sales are increasing so it must be ok.
This has terrible consequences for our understanding of the urgency of climate change. When we look around, society is carrying on as normal. Maybe at work you are discussing pensions, maybe someone you know has had a child. Our politicians are arguing about spending on health care. They wouldn’t be doing all this is there was a massive emergency around the corner, would they?
It must be just you right?
Ok, so it should be unnecessary to read scientific papers because the media disseminates that information for you, right?
The media (US) covered climate related issues just 0.7% of the time in 2019. So no urgency there, if it’s not on the news it can’t be important. And the news don’t cover it because people are not concerned by it, because…it’s not on the news.
E.g. the day that Canada set a new temp record by a clear 4C, the headline on the evening news was about a football match.
So presumably this social proof will start to crumble once a few people protest, right? Maybe. But a minority of people can re-inforce the social proof by providing the exception that preoves the rule, because there are always some “bunch of nutters.”
How does Social Proof get broken? Clearly now by scientific evidence.
The next time your colleague asks you when your work is going to be finished tell them that it’s going to be late, because you are sick with the terror of impending climate change and take it from there.