“Excessive optimism”: mega-analysis of 83 studies carried out in 17 countries concludes that most people think climate change will affect others more than themselves. Why?
A meta-analysis of dozens of scientific studies concluded that Most people tend to underestimate their own vulnerability to climate changeviewing risks as more likely and more serious for others than for themselves.
The pattern, identified in investigations carried out in several countries, could help explain why individual and political mobilization for climate action often continues to fall short of the urgency of the problem, he explains. Magnus Bergquistpsychologist at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and leader of the team responsible for the great analysis of 83 published studies, which involved more than 70 thousand participants from 17 countries.
The phenomenon fits into a cognitive bias already known in psychology, called “excessive optimism”more specifically in a variant called “overplacement”. In practical terms, this is the tendency for people to evaluate their own risks as inferior to those of third parties.
All of the studies reviewed recently in Nature Sustainability had in common that they compared respondents’ perception of climate risks to themselves with their perception of risks to other people.
The results show consistency: In 81 of the 83 studies, participants rated their vulnerability as lower than others, or below average. Statistical analysis suggests that, in 68% of cases, people believe that their risk related to climate change is lower than that of others.
“We were surprised by the consistency and strength of the effect,” Bergquist tells .
According to the researchers, this overly optimistic perception could have important implications. As with other risk behaviors — such as quitting smoking or adhering to vaccinations, underappreciation of personal threat can reduce the likelihood of taking protective measures. In the case of climate, this could translate into less support for mitigation or adaptation policies.
O effect was stronger in studies carried out in Europeidentified as the region with the lowest risk among those analyzed, and less evident in Asia, considered the highest risk. In the only two studies in which the phenomenon did not appear, the participants were farmers from China and South Korea who had already directly experienced the impacts of climate change.
The studies analyzed do not allow us to know, however, whether the individual risk assessment is objectively correct, since they do not measure the real exposure of each participant. But it is a fact that the majority believe they are less at risk than others.
Research also suggests that How risk is communicated can make a difference. People show more excessive optimism when comparing their situation with that of the general population or humanity as a whole. This effect is attenuated when the comparison is made with more concrete groups, such as neighbors or inhabitants of the same city.
