Nadine Andrews | Lancaster University (original) (raw)
Journal papers by Nadine Andrews
Environmental Research Letters, 2020
There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adapt... more There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adaptation. The necessity to consider different knowledge systems in climate change research has been established in the fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, gaps in author expertise and inconsistent assessment by the IPCC lead to a regionally heterogeneous and thematically generic coverage of the topic. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed academic literature to support better integration of the existing and emerging research on indigenous knowledge in IPCC assessments. The research question underpinning this scoping review is: How is evidence of indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation geographically and thematically distributed in the peer-reviewed academic literature? As the first systematic global evidence map of indigenous knowledge in the climate adaptation literature, the study provides an overview of the evidence of indigenous knowledge for adaptation across regions and categorises relevant concepts related to indigenous knowledge and their contexts in the climate change literature across disciplines. The results show knowledge clusters around tropical rural areas, subtropics, drylands, and adaptation through planning and practice and behavioural measures. Knowledge gaps include research in northern and central Africa, northern Asia, South America, Australia, urban areas, and adaptation through capacity building, as well as institutional and psychological adaptation. This review supports the assessment of indigenous knowledge in the IPCC AR6 and also provides a basis for follow-up research, e.g. bibliometric analysis, primary research of underrepresented regions, and review of grey literature.
Ecopsychology Journal, 2018
Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-ba... more Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-based methods. But this approach is not well suited to investigating the nuances and unconscious processes of subjective experience. This paper addresses these limitations by using an alternative approach. I analyze the lived experience of nature connectedness using a post-positivist transdisciplinary methodology. Research participants report restorative benefits from connecting with nature, but tensions and inconsistencies in their felt sense of connectedness can also be discerned. Using frame and metaphor analysis, I explore how particular ways of conceptualizing nature, which can be inferred by use of language, may be contributing to these tensions and inconsistencies. The analysis and interpretation I offer is informed by concepts and theories from ecopsychology, environmental philosophy, cognitive linguistics, and ecolinguistics. In this paper, language is understood to be a psychosocial phenomenon. In the research participants' accounts I find language that promotes the nonhuman natural world as an object, that abstracts and homogenizes living beings and their habitats, that encourages seeing nature as external and separate, and that primes us to be fast and busy. How these conceptualizations could affect sense of connectedness is discussed. The insights generated in this paper contribute to our understanding of nature connectedness as a subjective experience and the ways in which particular conceptualizations may affect the quality of this experience. The paper also shows the methodological potential of frames and metaphor analysis and the contribution that ecolinguistics can make to ecopsychology research.
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustai... more Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustainability professionals in their work to lead by influencing and improving pro-environmental decision-making in their organisations and to increase understanding of psychosocial factors that affect their effectiveness in achieving desired results.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a framework, the study enquires into the lived experience of six research subjects. The participants are sustainability professionals and leaders from the UK and Canada. The primary data source is semi-structured interviews, analysed with micro-discourse analysis.
Findings
Key psychosocial factors involved in participants’ experience are identified, specifically psychological threat-coping strategies, psychological needs, motivation and vitality, finding complex interactions between them. Tensions and trade-offs between competency, relatedness and autonomy needs and coping strategies such as suppression of negative emotion and “deep green” identity are modelled in diagrams to show the dynamics. How these tensions are negotiated has implications for psychological well-being and effectiveness.
Practical/implications
The concepts and models presented in this paper may be of practical use to sustainability professionals, environmentalists and organisation leaders, for example, in identifying interventions to develop inner resources, support authentic and effective action and disrupt maladaptive responses to ecological crisis.
Originality/value
The study contributes insight to understanding of underlying processes shaping environmental cognition and behaviour, particularly in relation to psychological threat-coping strategies and interacting factors. With a transdisciplinary approach, the methodology enables nuanced interpretation of complex phenomena to be generated.
Global Discourse, 2017
Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to incre... more Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to increases in temperature critically important. Adaptation comes in many forms, none of which are neutral. All responses have ethical and equity dimensions. With transformational adaptation, changes in values are likely. Looking ahead to 2100, Heatley anticipates that universalism values will come under threat from the impacts of 3-4°C warming. But breakdown of solidarity and disruption of international systems of trade and security is already within sight: self-protection values and isolationist tendencies are gaining in salience.
Self-protection values and unrealistic optimism are discussed in this paper as defences against the profound psychological threat posed by climate change. The dominant cultural worldview of progressivism is rendered untenable: we are not in control of nature. The project of progress as it is currently conceptualised must be forgotten not just for a hundred years as Heatley pleads, but altogether, and an alternative idea of human flourishing promoted instead. But who are the custodians of values that help us live in more harmonious relationship with the natural world? Who can champion adaptation as universalism? This paper asks whether spiritual leaders will be able to step up and perform this role.
Book chapter by Nadine Andrews
This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underly... more This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underlying philosophy and procedures for generating, analysing and interpreting data. This methodology was used to research psychosocial factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by sustainability managers. The study situated the research subjects in the dynamics of their work settings and the socio-cultural context in which they and their organisations are embedded. The methodology is transdisciplinary, integrating Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with frame and metaphor analysis, and draws upon systems thinking concepts as well as theories of psychological threat and coping, needs, emotion and embodied cognition. The methodology enabled the identification and modelling of multiple cross-level factors. An example of analytic commentary is included, demonstrating the nuanced in-depth insights that can be generated with this approach.
Facing the facts of climate change and ecological crisis involves encountering powerful feelings ... more Facing the facts of climate change and ecological crisis involves encountering powerful feelings such as loss, guilt, anxiety, shame and despair that can be difficult to bear. How we deal with these feelings shapes how we respond to the crisis and is critical in determining whether these responses are ultimately adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive responses support psychological adjustment to the emerging new realities and stimulate appropriate and proportional action ). Maladaptive responses work against this in some way.
Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and it... more Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and its impacts is generally high, actual behaviour has matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Understanding why despite good intentions appropriate action is not forthcoming is critical if we wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for social justice and the wellbeing of humans and other species. Research gaining insight into underlying psychosocial processes has an important contribution to make in this regard, yet it tends to be overlooked.
This paper draws on an empirical interdisciplinary study enquiring into the experience of individuals acting to influence the organisation with regard to envi- ronmental decision-making. The study investigated psychosocial factors that may influence motivation, resilience and effectiveness, specifically psychological threat coping strategies, innate psychological needs, identity salience and ways of conceptualising experience.
Our study illuminates the complex nonlinear dynamics between these psycho- social forces, and reveals tensions in satisfying needs, and in the effectiveness of coping strategies such as suppressing ‘deep green’ identity, suppressing negative emotion about climate change, and in going into nature places.
The findings contribute nuanced insight to the body of knowledge about the dynamics of underlying psychosocial forces that influence approaches to climate change and other pro-environmental behaviours.
Evaluation reports by Nadine Andrews
A Mission Models Money project investigating the competencies, qualities and attributes which wil... more A Mission Models Money project investigating the competencies, qualities and attributes which will enable creative practitioners and organisations to thrive in the challenging environment of the 21st Century.
PhD thesis by Nadine Andrews
While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, the... more While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, they also show that such values are not necessarily enacted consistently across all areas of our lives. There are many psychosocial factors that can affect congruent enactment. ‘Psychosocial factors’ refer to psychological processes interacting with social contextual forces to shape cognition and behaviour. Improving our understanding of what these factors are and how they influence us is important because it could help us subvert our maladaptive response to the ecological crisis that we have caused. Without major transformation in how we respond, severe negative consequences for humans and other living beings are highly likely. Researching factors influencing our inadequate response is both vital and urgent, yet there is much that remains under-explored. It is an area that has been largely overlooked in environmental and sustainability research, which tends to focus on cognition and behaviour and on interventions to change behaviour, rather than on the underlying drivers of behaviour, which occur largely below the level of conscious awareness.
My research investigates factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by individuals in organisational contexts. I enquire into the lived, embodied and situated experience of 6 sustainability managers and leaders in the UK and Canada, in their work to influence pro-environmental policy, strategy and practice in their organisations. My findings enrich our understanding of psychological threat coping strategies from a systemic perspective.
With an innovative transdisciplinary cross-level approach, I use Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a methodological framework and integrate it with frames and metaphor analysis. I draw on a number of theories from various strands of psychology, philosophy and linguistics to inform my analysis and interpretation, such as environmental identity, coping, and self-determination theory. My analysis is rooted in a particular philosophical perspective that regards human separation from nature as a root cause of ecological crisis.
Using semi-structured interviews as the primary data source, I identify key factors influencing the participants’ cognition and behaviour, and affecting how their pro-environmental values are enacted. The methodology I used enabled me to generate over 70 highly nuanced and in-depth findings. The key contributions to knowledge relate to:
Sources of threats and tensions that arise for sustainability managers in their work to influence organisational practices (e.g. thwarted autonomy, competency or relatedness needs, incongruence in values)
Types of coping strategies used to negotiate these tensions (including identity work, emotion regulation, seeking support from external partners, constructing a motivational story, nature connection)
Ecologically adaptive and maladaptive outcomes and implications of these responses for the individual (including indirect impacts on vitality and effectiveness) and for the organisation
Factors affecting the efficacy of adaptive coping strategies (e.g. type of motivation, type of self-awareness, cognitive frames about nature)
Contextual factors (organisational, cultural worldview) that support or undermine enactment of pro-environmental values
Modelling how these factors interact with each other, creating feedback loops and tensions
My findings enrich our understanding of the complex phenomena that is environmental behaviour, specifically in relation to sustainability professionals. The focus for my theoretical contribution is the body of literature on coping (in which I include identity work and emotion regulation), and employee green behaviour.
The models I have constructed bring what are often unconscious psychosocial processes to the surface. In making them visible, my findings may be of practical use to individuals in facilitating deeper awareness of the dynamics in their situation and helping to identify where interventions can be made to improve their efficacy and resilience in influencing pro-environmental change in their organisations.
Conference proceedings by Nadine Andrews
Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental ... more Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental change is generally high, adaptive responses have matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Inertia at individual and organisational levels is a troubling conundrum. In this paper, we analyse the psychosocial factors at work for individuals attempting to influence their organisations' pro-environmental actions. Our study focuses on six individuals with pro-environmental values who have formal roles in their organisation with regard to environmental policy, strategy and practice. This in-depth qualitative study enquires into the experience of research participants as they act to influence their organisations in this regard. Our analysis draws from, and develops, understanding of psychological threat coping strategies, basic psychological needs and cognitive frames in relation to pro-environmental behaviour. We identify and model key dynamics and interactions in psychosocial forces and reveal tensions that impact individuals' motivation, resilience and effectiveness in influencing pro-environmental decisions. In particular, our analysis highlights tensions in competency, autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction; and in coping strategies such as suppressing 'deep green' identity, suppressing negative emotion about the ecological situation, and in going into natural places to gain restorative benefit and renew motivation. These findings contribute important insight to our understanding of human cognition, motivation and behaviour in relation to (mal)adaptive responses such as inertia to ecological crisis. Our results also offer the potential for practical implications: bringing these dynamics to conscious awareness has the potential to enable the identification of points of intervention and, ultimately, the ability to enhance rather than undermine authentic and effective action.
Research reports & articles by Nadine Andrews
The way we conceptualise nature matters. Thinking of nature as a resource to be harnessed, a vict... more The way we conceptualise nature matters. Thinking of nature as a resource to be harnessed, a victim to be saved or a mother that nurtures us shapes the way we behave towards nature. As Lakoff & Johnson (1980) say, we act according to how we perceive.
Media articles by Nadine Andrews
Environmental Research Letters, 2020
There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adapt... more There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adaptation. The necessity to consider different knowledge systems in climate change research has been established in the fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, gaps in author expertise and inconsistent assessment by the IPCC lead to a regionally heterogeneous and thematically generic coverage of the topic. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed academic literature to support better integration of the existing and emerging research on indigenous knowledge in IPCC assessments. The research question underpinning this scoping review is: How is evidence of indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation geographically and thematically distributed in the peer-reviewed academic literature? As the first systematic global evidence map of indigenous knowledge in the climate adaptation literature, the study provides an overview of the evidence of indigenous knowledge for adaptation across regions and categorises relevant concepts related to indigenous knowledge and their contexts in the climate change literature across disciplines. The results show knowledge clusters around tropical rural areas, subtropics, drylands, and adaptation through planning and practice and behavioural measures. Knowledge gaps include research in northern and central Africa, northern Asia, South America, Australia, urban areas, and adaptation through capacity building, as well as institutional and psychological adaptation. This review supports the assessment of indigenous knowledge in the IPCC AR6 and also provides a basis for follow-up research, e.g. bibliometric analysis, primary research of underrepresented regions, and review of grey literature.
Ecopsychology Journal, 2018
Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-ba... more Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-based methods. But this approach is not well suited to investigating the nuances and unconscious processes of subjective experience. This paper addresses these limitations by using an alternative approach. I analyze the lived experience of nature connectedness using a post-positivist transdisciplinary methodology. Research participants report restorative benefits from connecting with nature, but tensions and inconsistencies in their felt sense of connectedness can also be discerned. Using frame and metaphor analysis, I explore how particular ways of conceptualizing nature, which can be inferred by use of language, may be contributing to these tensions and inconsistencies. The analysis and interpretation I offer is informed by concepts and theories from ecopsychology, environmental philosophy, cognitive linguistics, and ecolinguistics. In this paper, language is understood to be a psychosocial phenomenon. In the research participants' accounts I find language that promotes the nonhuman natural world as an object, that abstracts and homogenizes living beings and their habitats, that encourages seeing nature as external and separate, and that primes us to be fast and busy. How these conceptualizations could affect sense of connectedness is discussed. The insights generated in this paper contribute to our understanding of nature connectedness as a subjective experience and the ways in which particular conceptualizations may affect the quality of this experience. The paper also shows the methodological potential of frames and metaphor analysis and the contribution that ecolinguistics can make to ecopsychology research.
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy, 2017
Purpose The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustai... more Purpose
The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustainability professionals in their work to lead by influencing and improving pro-environmental decision-making in their organisations and to increase understanding of psychosocial factors that affect their effectiveness in achieving desired results.
Design/methodology/approach
Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a framework, the study enquires into the lived experience of six research subjects. The participants are sustainability professionals and leaders from the UK and Canada. The primary data source is semi-structured interviews, analysed with micro-discourse analysis.
Findings
Key psychosocial factors involved in participants’ experience are identified, specifically psychological threat-coping strategies, psychological needs, motivation and vitality, finding complex interactions between them. Tensions and trade-offs between competency, relatedness and autonomy needs and coping strategies such as suppression of negative emotion and “deep green” identity are modelled in diagrams to show the dynamics. How these tensions are negotiated has implications for psychological well-being and effectiveness.
Practical/implications
The concepts and models presented in this paper may be of practical use to sustainability professionals, environmentalists and organisation leaders, for example, in identifying interventions to develop inner resources, support authentic and effective action and disrupt maladaptive responses to ecological crisis.
Originality/value
The study contributes insight to understanding of underlying processes shaping environmental cognition and behaviour, particularly in relation to psychological threat-coping strategies and interacting factors. With a transdisciplinary approach, the methodology enables nuanced interpretation of complex phenomena to be generated.
Global Discourse, 2017
Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to incre... more Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to increases in temperature critically important. Adaptation comes in many forms, none of which are neutral. All responses have ethical and equity dimensions. With transformational adaptation, changes in values are likely. Looking ahead to 2100, Heatley anticipates that universalism values will come under threat from the impacts of 3-4°C warming. But breakdown of solidarity and disruption of international systems of trade and security is already within sight: self-protection values and isolationist tendencies are gaining in salience.
Self-protection values and unrealistic optimism are discussed in this paper as defences against the profound psychological threat posed by climate change. The dominant cultural worldview of progressivism is rendered untenable: we are not in control of nature. The project of progress as it is currently conceptualised must be forgotten not just for a hundred years as Heatley pleads, but altogether, and an alternative idea of human flourishing promoted instead. But who are the custodians of values that help us live in more harmonious relationship with the natural world? Who can champion adaptation as universalism? This paper asks whether spiritual leaders will be able to step up and perform this role.
This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underly... more This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underlying philosophy and procedures for generating, analysing and interpreting data. This methodology was used to research psychosocial factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by sustainability managers. The study situated the research subjects in the dynamics of their work settings and the socio-cultural context in which they and their organisations are embedded. The methodology is transdisciplinary, integrating Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with frame and metaphor analysis, and draws upon systems thinking concepts as well as theories of psychological threat and coping, needs, emotion and embodied cognition. The methodology enabled the identification and modelling of multiple cross-level factors. An example of analytic commentary is included, demonstrating the nuanced in-depth insights that can be generated with this approach.
Facing the facts of climate change and ecological crisis involves encountering powerful feelings ... more Facing the facts of climate change and ecological crisis involves encountering powerful feelings such as loss, guilt, anxiety, shame and despair that can be difficult to bear. How we deal with these feelings shapes how we respond to the crisis and is critical in determining whether these responses are ultimately adaptive or maladaptive. Adaptive responses support psychological adjustment to the emerging new realities and stimulate appropriate and proportional action ). Maladaptive responses work against this in some way.
Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and it... more Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and its impacts is generally high, actual behaviour has matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Understanding why despite good intentions appropriate action is not forthcoming is critical if we wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for social justice and the wellbeing of humans and other species. Research gaining insight into underlying psychosocial processes has an important contribution to make in this regard, yet it tends to be overlooked.
This paper draws on an empirical interdisciplinary study enquiring into the experience of individuals acting to influence the organisation with regard to envi- ronmental decision-making. The study investigated psychosocial factors that may influence motivation, resilience and effectiveness, specifically psychological threat coping strategies, innate psychological needs, identity salience and ways of conceptualising experience.
Our study illuminates the complex nonlinear dynamics between these psycho- social forces, and reveals tensions in satisfying needs, and in the effectiveness of coping strategies such as suppressing ‘deep green’ identity, suppressing negative emotion about climate change, and in going into nature places.
The findings contribute nuanced insight to the body of knowledge about the dynamics of underlying psychosocial forces that influence approaches to climate change and other pro-environmental behaviours.
While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, the... more While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, they also show that such values are not necessarily enacted consistently across all areas of our lives. There are many psychosocial factors that can affect congruent enactment. ‘Psychosocial factors’ refer to psychological processes interacting with social contextual forces to shape cognition and behaviour. Improving our understanding of what these factors are and how they influence us is important because it could help us subvert our maladaptive response to the ecological crisis that we have caused. Without major transformation in how we respond, severe negative consequences for humans and other living beings are highly likely. Researching factors influencing our inadequate response is both vital and urgent, yet there is much that remains under-explored. It is an area that has been largely overlooked in environmental and sustainability research, which tends to focus on cognition and behaviour and on interventions to change behaviour, rather than on the underlying drivers of behaviour, which occur largely below the level of conscious awareness.
My research investigates factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by individuals in organisational contexts. I enquire into the lived, embodied and situated experience of 6 sustainability managers and leaders in the UK and Canada, in their work to influence pro-environmental policy, strategy and practice in their organisations. My findings enrich our understanding of psychological threat coping strategies from a systemic perspective.
With an innovative transdisciplinary cross-level approach, I use Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a methodological framework and integrate it with frames and metaphor analysis. I draw on a number of theories from various strands of psychology, philosophy and linguistics to inform my analysis and interpretation, such as environmental identity, coping, and self-determination theory. My analysis is rooted in a particular philosophical perspective that regards human separation from nature as a root cause of ecological crisis.
Using semi-structured interviews as the primary data source, I identify key factors influencing the participants’ cognition and behaviour, and affecting how their pro-environmental values are enacted. The methodology I used enabled me to generate over 70 highly nuanced and in-depth findings. The key contributions to knowledge relate to:
Sources of threats and tensions that arise for sustainability managers in their work to influence organisational practices (e.g. thwarted autonomy, competency or relatedness needs, incongruence in values)
Types of coping strategies used to negotiate these tensions (including identity work, emotion regulation, seeking support from external partners, constructing a motivational story, nature connection)
Ecologically adaptive and maladaptive outcomes and implications of these responses for the individual (including indirect impacts on vitality and effectiveness) and for the organisation
Factors affecting the efficacy of adaptive coping strategies (e.g. type of motivation, type of self-awareness, cognitive frames about nature)
Contextual factors (organisational, cultural worldview) that support or undermine enactment of pro-environmental values
Modelling how these factors interact with each other, creating feedback loops and tensions
My findings enrich our understanding of the complex phenomena that is environmental behaviour, specifically in relation to sustainability professionals. The focus for my theoretical contribution is the body of literature on coping (in which I include identity work and emotion regulation), and employee green behaviour.
The models I have constructed bring what are often unconscious psychosocial processes to the surface. In making them visible, my findings may be of practical use to individuals in facilitating deeper awareness of the dynamics in their situation and helping to identify where interventions can be made to improve their efficacy and resilience in influencing pro-environmental change in their organisations.
Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental ... more Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental change is generally high, adaptive responses have matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Inertia at individual and organisational levels is a troubling conundrum. In this paper, we analyse the psychosocial factors at work for individuals attempting to influence their organisations' pro-environmental actions. Our study focuses on six individuals with pro-environmental values who have formal roles in their organisation with regard to environmental policy, strategy and practice. This in-depth qualitative study enquires into the experience of research participants as they act to influence their organisations in this regard. Our analysis draws from, and develops, understanding of psychological threat coping strategies, basic psychological needs and cognitive frames in relation to pro-environmental behaviour. We identify and model key dynamics and interactions in psychosocial forces and reveal tensions that impact individuals' motivation, resilience and effectiveness in influencing pro-environmental decisions. In particular, our analysis highlights tensions in competency, autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction; and in coping strategies such as suppressing 'deep green' identity, suppressing negative emotion about the ecological situation, and in going into natural places to gain restorative benefit and renew motivation. These findings contribute important insight to our understanding of human cognition, motivation and behaviour in relation to (mal)adaptive responses such as inertia to ecological crisis. Our results also offer the potential for practical implications: bringing these dynamics to conscious awareness has the potential to enable the identification of points of intervention and, ultimately, the ability to enhance rather than undermine authentic and effective action.
The way we conceptualise nature matters. Thinking of nature as a resource to be harnessed, a vict... more The way we conceptualise nature matters. Thinking of nature as a resource to be harnessed, a victim to be saved or a mother that nurtures us shapes the way we behave towards nature. As Lakoff & Johnson (1980) say, we act according to how we perceive.
ontheplatform.org.uk, 2014
Nadine Andrews explores Manchester's ability to transform into an eco-city, by beginning at the b... more Nadine Andrews explores Manchester's ability to transform into an eco-city, by beginning at the beginning, with life.
![Research paper thumbnail of [CLOSED] Call for Papers/Posters/Panels The 4 th International Conference on Ecolinguistics (ICE-4](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58264941/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The 4th International Conference on Ecolinguistics (ICE-4) Languaging and Eco-civilizations: Towa... more The 4th International Conference on Ecolinguistics (ICE-4)
Languaging and Eco-civilizations: Towards Consilience with the Life Sciences
University of Southern Denmark (Odense Campus)
12th to 15th of August 2019
The conference aims to bring about consilience (a bringing forth of new knowledge) that can unite those who acknowledge human responsibility for the well-being of the living world. Accordingly, we aim to connect ecolinguists with work in fields that include bio-ethics, ecocriticism, biosemiotics, economics and the environmental sciences.
Climate change management, 2016
Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and it... more Whilst global awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate climate change and its impacts is generally high, actual behaviour has matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Understanding why despite good intentions appropriate action is not forthcoming is critical if we wish to avoid catastrophic consequences for social justice and the wellbeing of humans and other species. Research gaining insight into underlying psychosocial processes has an important contribution to make in this regard, yet it tends to be overlooked.
Frontiers in climate, Jun 17, 2022
for their feedback that has strengthened this thesis immeasurably, and for their questions that h... more for their feedback that has strengthened this thesis immeasurably, and for their questions that helped push my thinking into new cycles of learning and discovery. I would also like to thank them for their commitment in guiding me through what was at times a difficult process. I would also like to acknowledge the supervisory support of Professor Mike Chaisson in the early part of the PhD when the ideas were just beginning to form. Professor Gordon Blair, as Director of HighWire Centre for Doctoral Training, gave me the opportunity and the freedom to explore beyond disciplinary boundaries. His keen support and interest over the years has been very much appreciated. This research has also benefitted immensely from the guidance I received from a number of academics and practitioners who shared their knowledge and gave their time and energy with generosity and kindness. In different ways, they were vital supports as I negotiated my way through the complexity. My conversations with them helped deepen my understanding of the theory, and grow my confidence in working with the theory in the way that I have. A huge thanks goes to
Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental ... more Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental change is generally high, adaptive responses have matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Inertia at individual and organisational levels is a troubling conundrum. In this paper, we analyse the psychosocial factors at work for individuals attempting to influence their organisations' pro-environmental actions. Our study focuses on six individuals with pro-environmental values who have formal roles in their organisation with regard to environmental policy, strategy and practice. This in-depth qualitative study enquires into the experience of research participants as they act to influence their organisations in this regard. Our analysis draws from, and develops, understanding of psychological threat coping strategies, basic psychological needs and cognitive frames in relation to pro-environmental behaviour. We identify and model key dynamics and interactions in psychosocial forces and reveal tensions that impact individuals' motivation, resilience and effectiveness in influencing pro-environmental decisions. In particular, our analysis highlights tensions in competency, autonomy and relatedness need satisfaction; and in coping strategies such as suppressing 'deep green' identity, suppressing negative emotion about the ecological situation, and in going into natural places to gain restorative benefit and renew motivation. These findings contribute important insight to our understanding of human cognition, motivation and behaviour in relation to (mal)adaptive responses such as inertia to ecological crisis. Our results also offer the potential for practical implications: bringing these dynamics to conscious awareness has the potential to enable the identification of points of intervention and, ultimately, the ability to enhance rather than undermine authentic and effective action.
Frontiers in Climate
In facing up to the reality of the climate crisis and the risks it poses, people encounter powerf... more In facing up to the reality of the climate crisis and the risks it poses, people encounter powerful emotions that can be difficult to bear. Consequently, various defences and coping strategies may be used to suppress or avoid feeling these emotions. The way in which emotions are regulated has important implications for wellbeing and decision-making. In recent years there has been growing interest in using citizens' assemblies to inform government climate policy. Assembly members learn about and discuss the subject, and produce recommendations for action. Given this element of learning about climate change, it is likely that difficult emotions will come up for assembly members. This paper investigates the emotional experience of members of Scotland's Climate Assembly to explore which, if any, emotions are experienced and how they are regulated. The findings are compared to a population survey, and discussed in relation to the assembly process including the evidence presented ...
Frontiers in Climate
In facing up to the reality of the climate crisis and the risks it poses, people encounter powerf... more In facing up to the reality of the climate crisis and the risks it poses, people encounter powerful emotions that can be difficult to bear. Consequently, various defences and coping strategies may be used to suppress or avoid feeling these emotions. The way in which emotions are regulated has important implications for wellbeing and decision-making. In recent years there has been growing interest in using citizens' assemblies to inform government climate policy. Assembly members learn about and discuss the subject, and produce recommendations for action. Given this element of learning about climate change, it is likely that difficult emotions will come up for assembly members. This paper investigates the emotional experience of members of Scotland's Climate Assembly to explore which, if any, emotions are experienced and how they are regulated. The findings are compared to a population survey, and discussed in relation to the assembly process including the evidence presented ...
Environmental Research Letters, 2020
There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adapt... more There is emerging evidence of the important role of indigenous knowledge for climate change adaptation. The necessity to consider different knowledge systems in climate change research has been established in the fifth assessment report (AR5) of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). However, gaps in author expertise and inconsistent assessment by the IPCC lead to a regionally heterogeneous and thematically generic coverage of the topic. We conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed academic literature to support better integration of the existing and emerging research on indigenous knowledge in IPCC assessments. The research question underpinning this scoping review is: How is evidence of indigenous knowledge on climate change adaptation geographically and thematically distributed in the peer-reviewed academic literature? As the first systematic global evidence map of indigenous knowledge in the climate adaptation literature, the study provides an overview of the ev...
Global Discourse, 2017
Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to incre... more Global efforts to mitigate climate change are inadequate, making planning for adaptation to increases in temperature critically important. Adaptation comes in many forms, none of which are neutral. All responses have ethical and equity dimensions. With transformational adaptation, changes in values are likely. Looking ahead to 2100, Heatley anticipates that universalism values will come under threat from the impacts of 3-4°C warming. But breakdown of solidarity and disruption of international systems of trade and security is already within sight: self-protection values and isolationist tendencies are gaining in salience. Self-protection values and unrealistic optimism are discussed in this paper as defences against the profound psychological threat posed by climate change. The dominant cultural worldview of progressivism is rendered untenable: we are not in control of nature. The project of progress as it is currently conceptualised must be forgotten not just for a hundred years as Heatley pleads, but altogether, and an alternative idea of human flourishing promoted instead. But who are the custodians of values that help us live in more harmonious relationship with the natural world? Who can champion adaptation as universalism? This paper asks whether spiritual leaders will be able to step up and perform this role. Key words Transformation, adaptation, climate change, values, psychological threat, defence May 2016 was the 13 th month in a row to break global temperature records, with 2016 set to become the hottest year ever recorded, completing a run of three record years in a row (Carrington 2016). Temperatures have risen by 1˚C since pre-industrial times, and the symbolic milestone of 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere has now been passed. As Heatley argues, optimism about preventing dangerous climate change is unrealistic. And it is diverting attention away from where it needs to be focussed: planning our adaptation to the 3-4˚C increase that seems more likely, and acting to prevent even higher temperature increases. I will discuss optimism later but first I respond to the issue of adaptation. Adaptation begins with accepting the reality of the situation we are in. Acceptance enables us to make the psychological adjustments necessary for responding in ways appropriate to the new reality (Crompton & Kasser 2009). But according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC's) most recent Assessment Report (AR5), maladaptation is a growing concern. There are many factors thought to be contributing to maladaptation, including different perceptions of risks, competing values, as well as assumptions that adaptation will be a rational-linear problem-free process (IPCC 2014 pp.187, 199), thereby underestimating the complexity of adaptation decision-making. AR5 describes two types of adaptation: incremental and transformational. Incremental adaptation is often referred to as 'business-as-usual' because unlike transformational adaptation, it does not challenge or disrupt existing systems and structures. Given these are the systems that are contributing to climate change in the first place, how effective incremental adaptation can really be is doubtful. AR5 states that for avoiding intolerable risks "transformational adaptation may be required if incremental adaptation proves insufficient" (p.189). Based on the success of our
Ecopsychology, 2018
Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-ba... more Nature connectedness tends to be understood as a relatively stable trait, studied using survey-based methods. But this approach is not well suited to investigating the nuances and unconscious processes of subjective experience. This paper addresses these limitations by using an alternative approach. I analyse the lived experience of nature connectedness using a post-positivist transdisciplinary methodology. Research participants report restorative benefits from connecting with nature but tensions and inconsistencies in their felt sense of connectedness can also be discerned. Using frame and metaphor analysis, I explore how particular ways of conceptualising nature, which can be inferred by use of language, may be contributing to these tensions and inconsistencies. The analysis and interpretation I offer is informed by concepts and theories from ecopsychology, environmental philosophy, cognitive linguistics and ecolinguistics. In this paper, language is understood to be a psychosocial phenomenon. In the research participants' accounts I find language that promotes the non-human natural world as an object, that abstracts and homogenises living beings and their habitats, that encourages seeing nature as external and separate, and that primes us to be fast and busy. How these conceptualisations could affect sense of connectedness is discussed. The insights generated in this paper contribute to our understanding of nature connectedness as a subjective experience, and the ways in which particular conceptualisations may affect the quality of this experience. The paper also shows the methodological potential of frames and metaphor analysis, and the contribution that ecolinguistics can make to ecopsychology research.
Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal
Purpose The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustai... more Purpose The purpose of this study is to gain insight into psychosocial factors influencing sustainability professionals in their work to lead by influencing and improving pro-environmental decision-making in their organisations and to increase understanding of psychosocial factors that affect their effectiveness in achieving desired results. Design/methodology/approach Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis as a framework, the study enquires into the lived experience of six research subjects. The participants are sustainability professionals and leaders from the UK and Canada. The primary data source is semi-structured interviews, analysed with micro-discourse analysis. Findings Key psychosocial factors involved in participants’ experience are identified, specifically psychological threat-coping strategies, psychological needs, motivation and vitality, finding complex interactions between them. Tensions and trade-offs between competency, relatedness and autonomy needs and co...
Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental ... more Whilst awareness of the importance and urgency of acting to mitigate anthropogenic environmental change is generally high, adaptive responses have matched neither the scale nor the complex nature of the challenge. Inertia at individual and organisational levels is a troubling conundrum. In this paper, we analyse the psychosocial factors at work for individuals attempting to influence their organisations’ pro-environmental actions. Our study focuses on six individuals with pro-environmental values who have formal roles in their organisation with regard to environmental policy, strategy and practice. This in-depth qualitative study enquires into the experience of research participants as they act to influence their organisations in this regard. Our analysis draws from, and develops, understanding of psychological threat coping strategies, basic psychological needs and cognitive frames in relation to pro-environmental behaviour. We identify and model key dynamics and interactions in ps...
This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underly... more This chapter describes a methodology for investigating lived experience, and explains the underlying philosophy and procedures for generating, analysing and interpreting data. This methodology was used to research psychosocial factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by sustainability managers. The study situated the research subjects in the dynamics of their work settings and the socio-cultural context in which they and their organisations are embedded. The methodology is transdisciplinary, integrating Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with frame and metaphor analysis, and draws upon systems thinking concepts as well as theories of psychological threat and coping, needs, emotion and embodied cognition. The methodology enabled the identification and modelling of multiple cross-level factors. An example of analytic commentary is included, demonstrating the nuanced in-depth insights that can be generated with this approach.
While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, the... more While studies indicate there is a strong link between pro-environmental values and behaviour, they also show that such values are not necessarily enacted consistently across all areas of our lives. There are many psychosocial factors that can affect congruent enactment. Improving our understanding of what these factors are and how they influence cognition and behaviour is critical for subverting our inadequate response to ecological crisis, yet it is an area that remains under explored. In this thesis I investigate factors affecting enactment of pro-environmental values by individuals in organisational contexts. Integrating Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis with frame and metaphor analysis in an innovative transdisciplinary and cross-level methodology, my study enquires into the lived, embodied and situated experience of six sustainability managers and leaders in the UK and Canada in their work to influence pro-environmental practices in their organisations. Using semi- struc...
