Presented by the USC Schaeffer Behavioral Science & Policy Initiative, in conjunction with USC Social Psychology and the Wrigley Institute for Environment and Sustainability 

Event Details

Monday, January 26 | 12:00 – 1:00 pm

RGL219 or on Zoom (https://usc.zoom.us/my/wandbdb)

Lunch will be provided

Join us for a seminar with Leaf van Boven 

As the world burns: Psychological barriers to addressing societal challenges — and how to overcome them.

Addressing the most pressing issues of our time, from climate change to pandemics, requires the enactment of effective public policies. What are the psychological barriers to broad, bipartisan public support for such policies? What do these barriers tell us about how the social mind works? Our research suggests that liberals and conservatives disagree about effective policy solutions mainly for the sake of disagreement. Liberals and conservatives support climate and COVID-19 policies when they are proposed by political leaders from their own political party more than when the same policies are proposed by political leaders from the opposing political party. Such arbitrary partisanship is multiply determined. In part, people expect their partisan peers to toe the party line, and they follow these (exaggerated) partisan norms. People also dislike and distrust the opposing political party, which undermines support for proposals from opposing parties. Partisans also interpret policy costs and benefits in ways that their own party’s proposals. Appreciating these psychological barriers suggests strategies to overcome them. These findings illustrate how psychological scientists can help solve daunting societal challenges.  

Leaf Van Boven is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Colorado Boulder. He has a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Washington (1995) and a Ph.D. in Psychology from Cornell University (2000). Professor Van Boven’s research integrates social, environmental, and political psychology. He uses laboratory experiments, national surveys, and field studies to examine factors that shape people’s everyday lives. His research has been funded by the National Science Foundation. Professor Van Boven co-directs the Environment, Decision, Judgment, and Identity lab and the Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavior Change.

To request a meeting with the speaker, please email [email protected]