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Understanding normative change to address the climate emergency

Consider all the actions that individuals, businesses or governments could take to limit climate change, to make the world greener, cleaner and safer for our children. WHAT STOPS US? Is it the costs, conflict of interests, complex intertwined structures, people’s resistance against giving up convenience and embracing radical change? The usual response is to find the least costly pathways and technological innovations that ask as little as possible from people, businesses, legislation and administration. But let’s be honest, we haven’t made much progress with this so far, precisely because we avoid the difficult question of social change.

But what did we do some centuries, decades, or even two years ago, that seems so unthinkable now? Clearly, social change is possible, and the COVID-19 crisis has shown that social change can happen rapidly, if an emergency is recognised as such and if there is a moral imperative to act to stop or prevent large-scale harm. The pandemic showed the capability for governments to take radical action and the possible rapid pace of technological innovation if money is channelled accordingly. So, our research is about understanding how social change can be made possible, how it can be accelerated, what factors hinder social change and how can we avoid them.

Previous research has suggested that normative change (change in what behaviours and attitudes are socially accepted) can drive large-scale social change and that this normative change is often triggered by social movements (e.g. abolitionist movement, suffragettes). The three goals of this research project are accordingly:
1. Understanding what normative change is happening now,
2. Understanding what is blocking change,
3. Understanding what can be done to amplify the change.

We use a mixed-methods approach of big data analysis, interviews, experiments, surveys and computational models and we collaborate with civil society and policy makers.

Contact:

Dr Viktoria Spaiser, Principal Investigator (PI)/ UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, v.spaiser@leeds.ac.uk, on X (former Twitter): viktoria_sp , on Blue Sky: @viktoriaspaiser.bsky.social and on Linked In

 

Dr Nicole Nisbett, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, n.nisbett@leeds.ac.uk and on X (former Twitter): NicoleDNisbett and on Linked In

 

Susan Ann Samuel, PhD student, ptsas@leeds.ac.uk, and on X (former Twitter): @SusanAnnSamuel1 and on Linked In

Output

Academic Output

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News

Dr Viktoria Spaiser and Susan Ann Samuel are members of the University's COP28 delegation team

Dr Viktoria Spaiser and her PhD student Susan Ann Samuel are both attending this year's COP28 as part of the University of Leeds COP28 delegation. Dr Viktoria Spaiser will participate at COP28 mainly to promote the Global Tipping Points Report, to which she has contributed significantly and which will be launched on the 6th of...

Dr Viktoria Spaiser presents her work at the Senedd (Welsh Parliament)

Dr Viktoria Spaiser will present some of the work she has been doing as part of her UKRI FLF award at the Senedd’s Climate Change, Environment and Infrastructure (CCEI) Committee Areas of Research Interest (ARIs) event on the 30th of November 2023. She has been invited along with other researchers and experts to provide insights...

New Article by Dr Nicole Nisbett and Dr Viktoria Spaiser published in Frontiers in Climate

Dr Nicole Nisbett and Dr Viktoria Spaiser from POLIS have had their article – “How convincing are AI-generated moral arguments for climate action?” – published in the Frontiers in Climate journal on 6th July 2023. For more details and the link to read the open access article, please click here.

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