Understanding (un)sustainable action: Examining the dynamics of resistance and motivation in the sustainability transition

Despite progress in understanding how climate change unfolds and how behaviour change might contribute to mitigating climate change, the engagement in sustainability behaviour is insufficient. This dissertation examines the factors that might influence sustainability engagement and psychological resistance to it, with a particular focus on how communication messages shape general sustainability choices. Three forms of psychological resistance may be particularly relevant in understanding why people may resist the transition to a sustainable lifestyle: scepticism, reactance, and inertia. First (Chapter 2), this dissertation provides a measurement tool for climate change scepticism, that comprises four factors. Doubt about the reality of climate change (trend scepticism), the anthropogenic nature (attribution scepticism), the impact climate change will have (impact scepticism), and (newly added) doubt about the meaningfulness of efforts to curb climate change (response scepticism). In Chapter 3, it was assessed how individuals respond to threatening climate change messages. In two experimental studies it was found that presenting climate change as highly threatening did not increase adaptive sustainability engagement, nor psychological resistance to it. In Chapter 3, it was examined how message fatigue is related to sustainability engagement. In a cross-sectional study, it was found that message fatigue decreases sustainability engagement through increased reactance (mediation), but not through inattention. To explore pathways for encouraging smart charging, Chapter 5, described a qualitative study into electrical vehicle users’ perceptions regarding their capability, opportunity and motivation to engage in smart charging of their electrical vehicles. It was found that the most important barriers to engage with smart charging were related to the physical and social environment. For people without the opportunity to charge at a private charging station, there was the concern of being seen as a “charging station hog” and concerns about the availability of public charging spots. Concerns about the desired battery level might also be a barrier. There were also several factors that might facilitate increased engagement with smart charging: the belief that smart charging is the sustainable option; the perception that smart charging is a socially responsible action; the potential of cost savings; and a general enjoyment of optimizing technological advancements. Together, the studies in this dissertation found that sustainability engagement, and resistance to sustainability behaviour were not influenced by whether communication about climate change frames climate change as highly threatening, compared to less threatening. However, continued exposure to climate change messaging might lead to message fatigue, which was found to decrease people’s sustainability engagement through increased reactance. Furthermore, the research in this dissertation indicated that the environment or social context in which behaviour occurs, might significantly influence people’s willingness to engage in sustainability actions as well.