Some behavioral aspects of energy descent: how a biophysical psychology might help people transition through the lean times ahead

Abstract

We may soon face biophysical limits to perpetual growth. Energy supplies may tighten and then begin a long slow descent while defensive expenditures rise to address problems caused by past resource consumption. The outcome may be significant changes in daily routines at the individual and community level. It is difficult to know when this scenario might begin to unfold but it clearly would constitute a new behavioral context, one that the behavioral sciences least attends to. Even if one posits a less dramatic scenario, people may still need to make many urgent and perhaps unsettling transitions. And while a robust response would be needed, it is not at all clear what should be the details of that response. Since it is likely that no single response will fix things everywhere, for all people or for all time, it would be useful to conduct many social experiments. Indeed, a culture of small experiments should be fostered which, at the individual and small group level, can be described as behavioral entrepreneurship. This may have begun, hidden in plain sight, but more social experiments are needed. To be of help, it may be useful to both package behavioral insights in a way that is practitioner-oriented and grounded in biophysical trends and to propose a few key questions that need attention. This paper begins the process of developing a biophysical psychology, incomplete as it is at this early stage.

Full text

REVIEW ARTICLE
published: 03 November 2014
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01255
Some behavioral aspects of energy descent: how a
biophysical psychology might help people transition
through the lean times ahead
Raymond De Young*
Environmental Psychology Lab, School of Natural Resources and Environment, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA
Edited by:
Marc Glenn Berman, The University of
South Carolina, USA
Reviewed by:
Joshua Rottman, Boston University,
USA
Jessica Lambert, Next Generation
Energy Initiative, USA
*Correspondence:
Raymond De Young, Environmental
Psychology Lab, School of Natural
Resources and Environment,
University of Michigan,
440 Church Street, Ann Arbor,
MI 48109, USA
e-mail: rdeyoung@umich.edu
We may soon face biophysical limits to perpetual growth. Energy supplies may tighten and
then begin a long slow descent while defensive expenditures rise to address problems
caused by past resource consumption. The outcome may be significant changes in daily
routines at the individual and community level. It is difficult to know when this scenario
might begin to unfold but it clearly would constitute a new behavioral context, one that the
behavioral sciences least attends to. Even if one posits a less dramatic scenario, people
may still need to make many urgent and perhaps unsettling transitions. And while a robust
response would be needed, it is not at all clear what should be the details of that response.
Since it is likely that no single response will fix things everywhere, for all people or for all
time, it would be useful to conduct many social experiments. Indeed, a culture of small
experiments should be fostered which, at the individual and small group level, can be
described as behavioral entrepreneurship. This may have begun, hidden in plain sight, but
more social experiments are needed. To be of help, it may be useful to both package
behavioral insights in a way that is practitioner-oriented and grounded in biophysical trends
and to propose a few key questions that need attention. This paper begins the process of
developing a biophysical psychology, incomplete as it is at this early stage.
Keywords: biophysical psychology, environmental psychology, conservation psychology, energy descent, behavior
change, prefamiliarization, embedded benefits, psychological well-being
INTRODUCTION
Since its beginning, the environmental movement has docu-
mented the declining state of the world. Stark language is used
to catalog the many threats to the planet’s natural systems and to
the human settlements that depend on those systems. These deeply
pessimistic outlooks continue to proliferate despite the fact that,
when used alone, such accounts almost never increase concern or
motivate action. Thankfully,there are also published inspirational
stories—case studies of responses to environmental problems
(Hertsgaard, 1999). There is no better antidote to social and envi-
ronmental pessimism than Hawken’s (2008) Blessed Unrest.Yet,
if either the gloomy or the inspirational efforts had their desired
effect then it might not be necessary to keep publishing quite so
much on the topic.
This seems to call for a frank reassessment of our prospects
starting with an update on the current context (Benson and Craig,
2014). The idea that context matters has long been embedded in
the social sciences (Sommers, 2011). Yet, the changing biophys-
ical context of everyday behavior has received little attention. It
is not the goal of this paper to present another catalog of the
downward spiral or to provide a selection of rousing success sto-
ries, although the importance of the latter is well-established. The
intent is to show how a slowly changing biophysical context may
be causing an entirely new behavioral context to emerge. Further-
more, the intended audience is not the general public but the many
behavioral scientists and environmental practitioners who strive
to better the world. The paper ends with several questions that
might help direct research aimed at responding to the new behav-
ioral context. From such research might emerge new approaches
to helping people to live well while they live within ecological
limits.
THE NEW BIOPHYSICAL CONTEXT
How ever vast were the resources used to create industrial civiliza-
tion, they were never limitless. Biophysical constraints, always a
part of human existence, could be ignored during these past few
centuries, a unique era of resource abundance. This is no longer
possible.
Many of the difficulties now being faced have their origins in a
centuries-long consumption and construction binge and, soon, in
its abrupt culmination. Both individual and collective behaviors
have spawned multiple challenges, each now beginning to weaken
industrial civilization. This is the premise of McKibben’s (2010)
book Eaarth. The world onto which we were born has been so
disrupted that it’s not the world on which we now live. McKibben
(2010, p. 33) points out that, “We know, definitively, that the old
planet “worked.” That is, it produced and sustained a modern
civilization. We don’t know that about the new one.”
These difficulties are manifestations of Harris’s (1979) theory
of cultural materialism which provides a scientific explanation for
the ecological origins of civilization. Harris argues for the primacy
of society’s relationship with its environment—what he labels
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De Young Biophysical psychology
infrastructure and includes all forms of provisioning and support-
ing of daily life. Heinberg (2014, p. 5), in a superb synopsis, applies
Harris’ theory to emerging environmental circumstances and sug-
gests that, “...we probably face an infrastructural transformation
at least as significant as the Industrial Revolution.” The reason why
western industrial society may be on the verge of a major transi-
tion can be appreciated by reviewing the current natural resource
and environmental situation.
ENERGY DESCENT
Western society may be challenged by the declining rate of extrac-
tion of global energy resources (Bardi, 2014) and in particular the
liquid fossil fuels that are the lifeblood of industrial civilization
(Hirsch et al., 2005;Princen et al., in press). The fossil fuels era,
that period when fossil fuels came to dominate all other energy
sources, began in the United states and worldwide as recently as
the 1890s (Smil, 2011,2012). This era is bounded by two unassail-
able facts—the planet’s carbon stores are finite and the exponential
growth in the use of these resources is unsustainable (Hubbert,
1996). But a sometimes overlooked issue here is not how much of
a resource was once in place or now remains; but the geophysical
limit on its rate of extraction.
For each reservoir of liquid fossil fuel, a maximum rate of
extraction is eventually reached after which production plateaus,
before an immutable decline. This limit to the rate of extraction
is a matter of geology, not economics or technology or policy, a
fact long understood by geologists but little appreciated by others.
The maximum rate of oil production in the United States occurred
in 1970 (Heinberg, 2012). The global on-shore peak occurred in
1984, Alaska’s North Slope in 1989 and the North Sea in 1999.
Over 60% of oil-producing countries have peaked or plateaued
their rate of petroleum production.
One point of clarification about peak production is that it
refers to the rate of extraction; it has nothing to do with the
volume of the planet’s energy stocks. And thus, despite a great
deal of misinformation and misunderstanding, it is not about
suddenly running out of fossil fuels. The peak in the produc-
tion rate of petroleum typically happens near the point where
half a reservoir’s resource still remains. Given their enormous vol-
ume, fossil fuels will likely be extracted from the Earth’s crust for
years to come; what will decline is the amount available to society
over any given time period. The concern here is the downslope
from the peak rate of production, a psychologically unchartered
territory.
Fortunately,the decline in the rate of production is often a slow,
prolonged process. In the past, when a particular reservoir’s pro-
duction rate peaked, this slow decline provided the time needed
to transition to new sources and develop new technologies. Pre-
viously, this adjustment occurred seamlessly, behind the scenes,
as a normal part of the hydrocarbon exploration and develop-
ment process. However, recently, as more reservoirs pass their
peak extraction rate, this adjustment has become difficult, with
one manifestation being the end of cheap energy (Campbell and
Laherrère, 1998). Apparently, there are fewer high-quality sources
whose production rate has not yet peaked. Now, the transition
might need to be to realistic expectations and new patterns of
end-use behavior.
The dynamics of the peaking of production rates at the global
scale and the consequences of descending from that peak are being
vigorously debated, albeit by a relatively small number of experts
(Maugeri, 2004;Heinberg, 2007a,b;Hall and Day, 2009). The eco-
nomic and political vulnerabilities are important (Kerschner et al.,
2013) but so too are the social and psychological dynamics, yet the
latter are only rarely explored (Frumkin et al., 2009;Friedrichs,
2010;Lambert and Lambert, 2011;Neff et al., 2011;Butler et al.,
2012;De Young and Princen, 2012). The high emotions and huge
stakes that play out in this debate (as well as the eerie political
and media silence) make it hard for individuals and commu-
nities to form a coherent understanding or a timely behavioral
response.
However, slowly, an agreement is emerging: industrial society is
leaving the era of cheap and abundant energy; it will not return to
it but for short respites. The global production rate of liquid fossil
fuels soon may begin, or is already beginning, a drawn-out lev-
eling and then slow descent, with other fuels and materials soon
to follow the same pattern. Then industrial civilization, having
already scoured the planet of new sources, will experience bio-
physical limits as a steady headwind against which it must labor.
At that point will start, as Klare (2012) writes, a race for the lit-
tle that is left. Indeed, that race may have already begun (IEA,
2014).
Thus, it might seem that a lively public discussion about the
dynamics and timing of energy descent should be initiated. Yet,
from a psychological point of view, exactly when these events begin
is much less important than acknowledging that they will occur.
In fact, given how essential material resources, and in particular
energy flows, are to the smooth functioning of modern society,
debating the exact timing might become a dangerous distraction.
Certainly western nations should understand and acknowledge the
biophysical limits they face but rather than dwell on the causes, it
might be more useful to invoke the precautionary principle—what
was previously referred to as common sense (i.e., a responsibility to
help society protect itself from exposure to harm when systematic
investigation identifies a plausible risk). The task would then be
to construct and test affirmative responses to unfolding resource
constraints.
NET ENERGY
It takes energy to get energy and transform it into socially usable
forms. Maintaining a sufficient net surplus is what has become
harder to do. This is due to declines in an ecological met-
ric referred to as energy returned on energy invested (EROEI,
sometimes EROI). This notion, also referred to as net energy,
is the ratio of the amount of usable energy society acquires
from a particular energy resource to the amount of energy it
expends to obtain that energy. EROEI was first studied as the
concept of net energy by White (1959), and particularly Odum
(1973). It was developed by Hall (1972) in a biological con-
text and later applied to the study of biophysical economics
(Cleveland et al., 1984) and energy systems (Cleveland, 2005;Hall,
2011,2012).
Energy returned on energy invested is hardly ever used in
policy-making, dominated as the latter is by economistic reason-
ing. This history, and the simplicity of the concept itself, should
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De Young Biophysical psychology
not distract from its profound implications and future utility.
The metaphor of low-hanging fruit can be used to explain the
notion from a decision-making perspective. Extraction occurs first
at the more attractive opportunities in easy to reach, hospitable
regions containing high-quality resources (e.g., uncontaminated,
high density) near the surface which thus makes them easy to
extract, process and transport. Later, the resources are sought
in inhospitable locations (e.g., offshore, deep-water, arctic, dan-
gerous) and are of lower quality, thus becoming much harder
to recover, refine and deliver. Harder here means the need to
employ more equipment, larger systems and complicated logis-
tics, all of which themselves consume energy during their lifecycle.
For instance, many of the newer unconventional energy sources
require advanced technologies, massive capital investment and,
most significantly, increased amounts of energy which from a ther-
modynamic perspective is the ultimate determinant of net energy
availability.
This pattern—pursue the easiest to get first and the more
difficult to obtain later—while a perfectly sensible decision eco-
nomically and technologically, means that over time the net energy
available to society inevitably declines. Perhaps this would be noth-
ing more than an interesting story for technocrats except that now
is later. We are at the part of the story where there is less and
less net energy with which to operate society. Political scientist
Homer-Dixon (2006) argues that just such a declining EROEI was
one factor underlying the collapse of the Western Roman Empire
in the fifth century CE. Tainter (1988) presents the complemen-
tary idea of diminishing marginal returns of societal complexity to
explain the decline of that and numerous other civilizations, and
then goes on to apply this concept to contemporary civilization
(Tainter, 2000,2006,2011,2013).
At the beginning of the petroleum era the EROEI ratio was
extremely high. The initial massive surplus of net energy may have
misled society with the false prospect of endless physical growth.
False because, while it went unnoticed, net energy has been on a
relentless decline (Hall, 2012). Certainly, when the EROEI ratio
of an energy source is less than one then that source becomes an
energy sink and is useless to society as a means of maintenance,
let alone growth. That a vast store of the Earth’s fossil carbon
could become an energy sink is not an outlandish idea. Heinberg
(2007b) reports that a large amount of the coal remaining under-
ground will require more energy to extract than it will produce
when burnt, thus becoming an energy sink rather than an energy
source.
The question of what minimum EROEI is needed to support
a complex society has been considered by Hall etal. (2009,2014),
Guilford et al. (2011),Hall (2011,2012),Lambert and Lambert
(2011), and Lambert et al. (2013,2014). In this analysis it matters
tremendously what features of society are believed to be nec-
essary or desirable. As the services included in the definition
increase, so too does the EROEI ratio needed to support that
society.
Most often the EROEI ratio is calculated upstream at the well-
or mine-head and includes only those energy costs directly related
to the hydrocarbon exploration and production process. In an
effort to make the EROEI concept more useful for social decision-
making, Hall et al. (2009) and Hall and Klitgaard (2012) have
expanded the methodology to also account for the many indi-
rect energy costs experienced when providing services to society
(e.g., the energy costs of transport, infrastructure, manufacturing,
provisioning, maintenance). This is the net energy downstream,
near the point of end-user consumption, and is reported as the
extended-EROEI ratio.
A 3:1 extended-EROEI ratio is considered the “bare minimum
for civilization” (Hall et al., 2009, p. 45; Hall and Klitgaard, 2012,
pp. 318–319). Although at such a level modern society would lack
the surplus energy needed to support most of the higher-level ser-
vices that it has come to expect. In Western society, more than
the most basic provisioning would require an extended-EROEI
ratio of about 7 or 8:1, adding basic education would require a
ratio closer to 9 or 10:1, health care and higher education would
require a ratio near 12:1 and the arts and other noble pursuits push
the required ratio even higher (Hall and Klitgaard, 2012;Lambert
et al., 2013). Dadeby (2012) applied the extended-EROEI method-
ology to global production data and estimates that the current
global ratio is at 6:1. Equally concerning is that most alternative,
unconventional and biologically based sources of energy also have
very low ratios.
A similar analysis can be applied to food production. The
United States food system, as a result of the juggernaut of indus-
trialization, consumes the vast majority of the energy it utilizes
in post-farm processing, distribution and household preparation.
Based on 2002 USDA data, the United States now invests over 12
calories of energy for each calorie of food consumed once waste
and spoilage are accounted for. Of these, only 1.6 calories are
used on the farm (Canning et al., 2010). This analysis suggests
that industrial food production is unsustainable without fossil fuel
inputs.
As the overall EROEI declines, society has less and less net
energy to use for its needs as an ever-increasing percentage of
the extracted energy is consumed by the hydrocarbon exploration
and production industry itself. The day may be approaching
when the surplus net energy from conventional and unconven-
tional hydrocarbon sources becomes insufficient for maintaining,
let alone building out, complex industrial society or the much
hoped for renewable energy systems. Furthermore, if there is
not enough surplus net energy to respond effectively to the
many environmental issues being faced then a reallocation away
from discretionary uses may be unavoidable. Taken together, this
poses a psychological challenge: how might people, individually
and collectively, respond to a substantial decline in discretionary
resource use?
TECHNOLOGY
It is here that technology is commonly invoked as a solution. It has
become a habit to celebrate modern technical ingenuity, and in
fact its application has produced innovations that have propelled
dramatic and absolute increases in material well-being. This leads
many people to be extremely optimistic, even complacent, about
finding technological solutions to all problems challenging society.
This is a dominant outlook, what has been called the industrial
progressive worldview (Princen etal., in press). But there is reason
to be less optimistic and certainly not complacent (Costanza, 2000;
Alexander, 2014).
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De Young Biophysical psychology
The great bulk of inventiveness has been aimed at increasing
efficiency in all the many stages of material and energy extrac-
tion, conversion, use and reuse. But initial efficiency gains are the
easiest to attain—they are the proverbial low-hanging fruit—after
which the law of diminishing returns makes further improvements
ever more difficult to achieve. Butler et al. (2012) point out that
while efficiency-driven approaches have great potential they can
never keep up with exponential growth in the use of materials or
energy.
There is a behavioral side story here. Some energy-efficient
technologies have paradoxically contributed to an increase in
resource use (e.g., energy-efficient light bulbs actually increase
electrical consumption when it seems justified to install them in
greater numbers to provide increased illumination). This rebound
effect is well documented (Hofstetter et al., 2006;Hanley et al.,
2009;Madlener and Alcott, 2009;Norgard, 2009;Otto et al., 2014)
but Princen (2005) has expanded on its implications by explaining
how efficiency-driven modernization has misled us, and calling for
a shift toward a logic of sufficiency.
Overall, despite a century of technological progress that pro-
vided noteworthy efficiency gains and innovations in design,
policy and practice, there has been not the expected decrease but
an absolute increase in aggregate natural resource consumption
(Princen, 2005). Whether this is incorrectly attributed solely to
population growth, or it is correctly noted that per capita con-
sumption has also grown, the negative environmental outcomes
remain unchanged. Society may be experiencing the unwelcome
consequences of having used its technological ingenuity to attempt
limitless growth on a finite planet.
But there is another and more fundamental reason to worry
about whether technology can be an aid in dealing with energy
descent. The technological foundation for an industrial society
(e.g., logic and mathematics, physics, chemistry, engineering)
and even the demonstration of advanced concepts and devices
all existed for a great many centuries. But the available energy
sources of muscle, biomass, water- and wind-power were unable
to provide the energy quantity or quality needed to support an
industrial revolution. It took the discovery and large-scale extrac-
tion of fossil fuel energy to enable the building of an industrial
civilization. Simply put, the process of technological moderniza-
tion was energy limited not knowledge limited. As Greer (2012,
p. 97) points out, “It’s as arrogant as it is silly to insist that peo-
ple in past ages weren’t as resourceful and ingenious as we are.”
Thus, while technical cleverness is credited with creating a vibrant
industrial society, and it is hoped that its continued application
will solve all forthcoming problems, history suggests that it was
instead a one-time gift of resource abundance that got us here.
After all, inspired technologies cannot create energy and indus-
trial prowess cannot negate the laws of thermodynamics, they can
only transform finite energy and material resources into forms
useful to society.
Nonetheless, boosters will claim that new technologies are
unleashing vast amounts of energy from new sources, as, for
instance the assertion that the recent innovation of hydraulic
fracturing is releasing natural gas and light tight oil from new
formations. What may go unnoticed is that neither the technol-
ogy nor the low-permeability formations being mentioned are
new; both have been long known to the hydrocarbon indus-
try. What make feasible such extraction are the high fossil fuel
prices that allow the use of previously prohibitively expensive tech-
nologies. But even this process of alchemic transformation may
reach a limit. Research suggests that, to sustain urban growth,
technical and social innovations must emerge at a continually
accelerating rate (Bettencourt et al., 2007). Yet, requiring that
individuals and organizations invent and adapt at an exponen-
tial rate in order to avoid stagnation and eventual collapse quickly
reaches a limit; exponential growth in any process is, after all,
unsustainable.
The end of resource abundance may require that techno-
optimism be tempered since energy descent will make the effective-
ness of technology that much lower. And while technical skill will
be frequently called upon, the most that might be expected from
it is to slow the approach of a resource-limited future; technology
cannot fundamentally change that outcome.
THE NEW BEHAVIORAL CONTEXT
Previously,when growth was an easy thing to do, it was possible to
disregard the biophysical foundation of civilization. During a rela-
tively brief period of material affluence behavioral scientists could
focus on social and psychological needs unhindered by natural
resource constraints. Later, as ecological limits were first antici-
pated (Meadows et al., 1972) and then became apparent (Meadows
et al., 2004;Bardi, 2011), some among us advocated for the study of
conservation behavior (Daly, 1977;Stern and Kirkpatrick, 1977;
Henion and Kinnear, 1979;Cone and Hayes, 1980;Cook and
Berrenberg, 1981;Stern and Gardner, 1981). This was followed by
decades of environmental and conservation psychology research
that has led to an explosion of insights on theories of social change
and intervention guidelines for promoting environmental stew-
ardship behavior (Clayton and Myers, 2009;Clayton, 2012;De
Young, 2013).
Earlier, it seemed that the major task facing modern society was
to create a shared vision of a sustainable society providing a per-
manent prosperity lived within ecological constraints (Costanza,
2000). The changing biophysical context may foreshadow a less
optimistic outcome and it certainly foreshadows a more difficult
social transition. One reason for this is that the earlier behav-
ioral context assumed that a consumer-focused, industrial society
could be made sustainable. The observations above—that the rate
of energy and material production may soon plateau and then
decline, and that technological innovation may help ease a soci-
etal transition but will not eliminate the need for one—brings
that prospect into question. It is at least conceivable that society
soon will face the biophysical situation just outlined and need to
learn to function within a newer, perhaps more austere, behav-
ioral context. In an effort to aid this transition it might be useful
to merge insights from across the social sciences into a biophysical
psychology.
A TRANSITION, NOT A PROBLEM SOLVED
Re-emerging biophysical constraints are not problems, at least not
in the normal definition of that word. They are complex ecolog-
ical predicaments, unsolvable situations that likely will play out
over the rest of this century and the next. As Greer (2008) points
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De Young Biophysical psychology
out, we approach a problem by looking for a solution, if one is
found and can be made to work then the problem is solved. In
contrast, complex predicaments do not have solutions, they must
be endured (Smith, 2014). Certainly, in order to thrive, we must
acknowledge and respond to them, but even an effective response
does not make the predicament go away. The response does not
alter but rather accommodates the new reality. This is adaptation
in its classic usage: to recast or change behavior patterns into new
forms so as to fit the new ecological situation.
Furthermore, biophysical limits present behavioral challenges
that are unlike those of emergencies and crises. The needed
responses might be better characterized as transitions, processes
that differ from an emergency or crisis in the depth of change
required, the time frame involved and the prospects about the
future (Princen, 2014). An emergency is immediate, with a cen-
tral precipitating event calling for a rapid and focused reaction
designed to restore life to the condition before the emergency. A
fire consumes, prompting reaction and rebuilding, after which
life resumes as before. Likewise, a crisis unfolds over months
and years, and although it may resist a complete resolution, with
recovery and remediation there is eventually a return to business-
as-usual. The oil shocks in the 1970s created a crisis among the
industrialized nations, stalling consumer spending and thus eco-
nomic growth. But with new policies and behaviors (e.g., strategic
petroleum reserves, residential energy conservation) and a shift to
other energy sources, industrial activity ever-so-slowly returned
to growth.
It may be possible to analyze an energy descent as a crisis, at
least in its very early stages. Lambert and Lambert (2011) have
anticipated a crisis response by the American people to declining
EROEI by examining the resulting individual and social-system
stress as well as the coping mechanisms employed and the result-
ing institutional effects (see also Hobföll, 1989). Then again, in
a transition, the trajectory may be fundamentally different. The
triggering issues are likely complex and may involve multiple inter-
acting events (i.e., simultaneous geopolitical instability, energy
descent and climate disruption). The effects may be broadly spread
over physical and social systems, very slow to emerge and even
slower to be widely acknowledged. The resulting changes, and the
response to them, can span decades, entire lifetimes, even cen-
turies. Suffice it to say that in an emergency or crisis the intention
is to weather the storm and “get back to normal.” Whereas in tran-
sition it is understood by the leaders and public alike that there is
no possibility of going back, the intent is to “get to a new normal.”
Behaviors in an emergency or crisis are reaction and recovery; in
transition they are innovation and adaptation.
Moreover, in a transition, the responses likely would need to be
maintained and periodically updated over a lengthy period. Unfor-
tunately, society has little familiarity with the long-drawn-out
planning and management needed to respond well to biophysical
limits. For while social institutions and individual behaviors exist
for handling a comparatively brief emergency or crisis, and while
changes that occur exceedingly slowly over a period of centuries
rightfully can be left to the process of normal social adjustment,
there exists little guidance for the mid-range, a many decade- or
century-long transition. Parts of a science of such mid-range trans-
formations are being developed. For instance, a psychology of
prospection is emerging and will be useful to long-drawn tran-
sitions (Seligman et al., 2013). Navigating long timeframes can
be difficult. The effects of behaviors changed today might only
be appreciated in 80 years’ time. This lag has the potential to
undermine motivation. Or, in a more positive framing, we must
understand the conditions under which long-term planning is
possible (Princen, 2009) and discover those situations where a
lag between cause and effect does not undermine motivation but,
perhaps unexpectedly, strengthens it.
Such an extended behavioral timeframe is inherent in the
wedges concept proposed for keeping carbon emissions in check.
Here, instead of searching for a single large-scale solution, Pacala
and Socolow (2004) note that a number of smaller options already
exist for reducing our collective environmental impact. They pro-
pose breaking the required changes down into manageable wedges
each addressed by a different existing technology or policy. This
idea has a behavioral version whereby over one third of the needed
reductions can be accomplished by currently understood changes
in everyday household activities (Dietz et al., 2009).
Yet, when viewed as a century-long process of behavior change,
two significant issues emerge. The technological and behavioral
wedges adopted early on must stay adopted, perhaps difficult in
a world seemingly addicted to frenetic change and social reinven-
tion. This needed durability presents an intervention challenge
since the behavioral sciences are only starting to understand how
to initiate robust self-sustaining and/or easily restarted behavior
change (De Young, 2000,2011;Abrahamse et al., 2005;We r ner,
2013). Equally challenging is that to stabilize the positive out-
comes, each wedge adopted must expand over time. Since the
early changes do not solve the problem, there is a need to con-
stantly innovate and adopt new behaviors and policies. While
the near-term changes involve the adoption of currently known
approaches (e.g., green consumer behaviors, efficiency-focused
policies), changes a few decades hence can scarcely be imag-
ined. Behavioral scientists acknowledge this difficulty by stating
that later on, “[l]ifestyle changes may become necessary in the
out-years under constrained energy supply or economic growth
scenarios ...”(Dietz et al., 2009, p. 18455).
But to label these needed future responses as“lifestyle changes”
may mislead in two ways. First, the term itself would seem to imply
that gentle and slight changes in daily habits will suffice. Yet, shift-
ing consumer and living habits toward more green choices might
prove to be a totally insufficient response should the biophysical
events unfold as outlined above. Second, near the end of this cen-
tury, day-to-day behavior patterns will need to consume nearly
an order-of-magnitude less energy and materials than are cur-
rently used. The environmental movement has previously argued
for major reductions in resource consumption but rarely have
changes of this magnitude been envisioned.
It is not at all clear that the general outline, let alone the details,
of these future behaviors are now known. It is difficult to imag-
ine what daily life might be like after such a drastic reduction in
resource consumption. Certainly it is possible to live at such a
low-energy and material flux, indeed almost all of human history
occurred within a pre-industrial low-energy context. But what
is not known is how to live at such an austere level while still
enjoying the comforts and conveniences afforded by industrial
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De Young Biophysical psychology
society. Frankly, it may not be possible for members of Western
societies to maintain anything close to a contemporary life pat-
tern while also living within the new biophysical context. If this
proves to be the case, then the responsibility of behavioral sci-
entists is to now explore and then prepare people for the social
and psychological implications of that realization. At a most basic
level, many people will grieve from losing an affluent lifestyle
or from losing the belief that material growth will one day pro-
vide for such an existence. If nothing else can be accomplished,
then it will be praiseworthy to help people cope throughout
this transition, to help them to function better than they would
otherwise.
There is interesting work along this line that explores the effects
of energy descent on public health (Frumkin et al., 2009;Neff et al.,
2011;Poland et al., 2011) and societal-level quality-of-life indica-
tors (Lambert et al., 2014). Likewise, the possible mental, physical
and community health impacts of other forms of environmen-
tal disruption are being mapped out; potentially useful are the
guidelines on how communities can prepare for the psychologi-
cal impacts of such disruption (Doherty and Clayton, 2011;Reser
and Swim, 2011;Clayton et al., 2014). Similar efforts are needed
to prepare individuals and communities for the dramatic yet long-
drawn-out social and psychological impacts of energy descent and
declining net energy.
Perhaps an affirmative outcome is possible. If handled well,
an energy descent could be an opportunity to bring out the best
in people (Baker, 2011). This potential was earlier suggested by
Hubbert (1996) who analyzed the decline in fossil fuel production
rates. Hubbert (1996, p. 126) suggests that if action is taken before
the situation becomes unmanageable then, “there is promise that
we could be on the threshold of achieving one of the greatest
intellectual and cultural advances in human history.” Notice that
instead of using wording like stress, disintegration or collapse,
Hubbert (1996) envisions a response to biophysical limits as an
advance. It is here that the behavioral sciences might be of most
use by helping people facing a changing biophysical context to
craft new visions of their future, identify new behavior patterns,
acquire and share the required skills and motivate the venture. But
it is important to start the process while there are still options and
surpluses of energy and social capital.
NOT JUST ANOTHER APPLICATION AREA
Henry David Thoreau famously asked, “What’s the use of a fine
house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?” (Sanborn,
1894). This same logic—that some things are foundational and
must be treated as such—might be applied to the current topic.
All through the last century, when cheap energy was available
in ever-increasing amounts, the behavioral sciences treated bio-
physical limits—when thought about at all—as an economic or
technological issue more suitably addressed by other disciplines.
Such inattentiveness was supported with the widespread assump-
tion that unlimited growth could continue and not adversely
affect the earth’s ecosystem—what Daly calls “empty world” think-
ing (Daly and Farley, 2010). Later, when ecological constraints
were finally acknowledged, the behavioral effects and interactions
were taken up primarily by sub-disciplines such as environmen-
tal and conservation psychology (De Young, 2013). This tendency
to specialize the servicing of social needs has been commonplace
and generally effective. But it is important to note that the growth
and ubiquity of specialization may itself have been made possi-
ble by an era of large and predictable surpluses of net energy.
Absent those surpluses it may be difficult to continue such an
approach.
Stated plainly, helping society to thrive while living within
ecological limits should no longer be treated as just another appli-
cation area of the behavioral sciences. Responding to biophysical
constraints has become an existential issue, global in scope, local in
impact. Whatever social good can be achieved through the applica-
tion of empirical discoveries and clinical practices, that good may
remain unrealized should society falter in its response to energy
descent. Thus, developing a biophysical psychology is an essen-
tial pre-condition for attaining the other worthy goals of all social
scientists and practitioners.
Ironically, just as it once proved easy to relegate biophysical
limits, psychology itself has been ignored by the energy descent
community,except occasionally as an instrument for“getting peo-
ple to behave right.” The real action was argued tobe in the physical
and policy sciences. Sometimes this dismissal comes from the per-
spective that since most environmental problems originate from
individual behavior (i.e., the sovereign consumer), people can-
not be counted on to voluntarily make things right. Other times
the negation emerges when behavioral interventions are being
compared with other non-behavioral approaches. To present just
one example, Newton (2014), in a discussion of energy-efficient
neighborhoods, compares technological intervention and volun-
tary behavior change to sustainable urban design, the latter being
that paper’s focus. Despite highlighting the potential for rapid
change at low public costs, behavior change is dismissed as being
unable to scale-up and spread quickly enough to make a difference.
Note, however, that the modifier being used here is voluntary; in
the absence of an outside force or precipitating event, so the argu-
ment goes, behavior is unlikely to voluntarily change sufficiently.
This is a critique that is taken up shortly.
While it is not appropriate to arrogate to the behavioral sci-
ences a special role in forming a response to biophysical limits,
it can be noted that, under certain conditions human behavior
can innovate quickly and that the behavioral sciences understand
those conditions. Furthermore, human nature is not just a source
of the problems being faced but also a fount of solutions await-
ing dissemination. Indeed, seeking interventions that help craft
a better world is a centuries-old quest that cuts across all the
social sciences. This would seem to call for broad involvement
in forming a biophysical psychology. It echoes the assertion of
the American Psychological Association that research address-
ing climate change cannot be left to just one sub-discipline but
must utilize the expertise of researchers and practitioners from
multiple areas (Swim et al., 2009). Thus, rather than dismissing
behavioral interventions as an ineffective response, many empir-
ical findings from a variety of academic disciplines support the
decidedly optimistic view that individual behavior can change in
timely, profoundand durable ways (Clayton and Myers, 2009;Basu
et al., 2014;Kaplan and Basu, in press) and the behavioral sciences
know how to help initiate and then support this process of social
change.
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SIMPLIFICATION OF BEHAVIOR CHANGE
Early on it was imagined that since more than 70% of what
an industrial nation produces is for personal use, encourag-
ing green consumption would be a direct means of achieving
environmental sustainability. Thus, behavioral science focused
on encouraging green consumerism, a belief that by modifying
consumption choices it would be possible to “green and lean”
industrial society enough to create an ecological steady-state. This
approach drew from the many interventions used to change behav-
ior (De Young, 1993,2011;Stern, 2000;Abrahamse et al., 2005;
Steg and Vlek, 2009;Osbaldiston and Schott, 2012;Steg and
Nordlund, 2012). The goal here was to inform, motivate and
guide behavior but always with the understanding that behav-
ior change was ultimately voluntary. Rarely was it proposed to
directly coerce or restrain consumer choice. Such restrictions,
when applied, were usually upstream in the industrial design
and production process. Moreover, these restrictions were most
often efficiency-driven efforts that affected consumer choice only
indirectly (e.g., CAFE standards, EnergyStar appliances) and were
usually slow-acting.
Green consumerism is an approach fully compatible with the
principle of voluntary behavior change. It poses no threat to
business-as-usual within industrial society where consumers are to
be treated as sovereign and their purchasing behavior is to remain
inviolate (Princen et al., 2002;Princen, 2010). Green consumerism
is also a gentle approach because it contains the implicit promise
that after achieving a sustainable state, the comforts and conve-
niences of modernity will remain as would the belief that such a
lifestyle could be made available to everyone on the planet.
Unfortunately, despite enlightened efforts at green marketing,
environmental education, sustainable design and environmental
policy-making, the consumerist life pattern continues to consume
the planet. In fact, decades of education and intervention have
produced not decline but growth in industrial society’s ecological
footprint (Rees, 2010). One could argue that without these inter-
ventions, and the behaviors they changed, things now would be
much worse. But despite the truth of that statement, humans
continue to overshoot the planet’s carrying capacity (Catton,
1982;Turner, 2012) in part because green consumption does not
necessarily mean less consumption (Jackson, 2005).
If these prospects are not attention-getting enough, the
approaching biophysical limits expose another realization. Under-
lying the commendable principle of voluntary behavior change is
a key supposition. It presumes that circumstances permit people
the choice either to continue consuming or to reduce their con-
sumption. Yet, given the biophysical context outlined above, this
presumption may no longer be valid. This is what sustainability
at its core is about—behaviors that are or become unsustainable
will end.
Thus, soon now, whether due to energy descent, declining
net energy or some other ecological limit, modern society likely
will be consuming less, ready or not. A reduced-consumption
existence may become commonplace not because conservation
behavior was voluntarily chosen by the public or cleverly initiated
by behavioral scientists but because there will be no other choice.
Having ignored many opportunities for voluntary simplicity
(Gregg, 1936), industrial society now faces involuntary simplicity.
It will consume less because there will be less to consume. Dire
consequences will still arise from past consumption and its delayed
consequences (e.g., drawdown of fossil aquifers, loss of soil fertility,
ocean acidification, climate disruption) but future consumption
will first slow then decline.
This feature of the new behavioral context, what might be called
behavioral simplification, unexpectedly may make the process of
transitioning easier. First, the downshift most likely will be slow. As
Greer (2012, pp. 97–98) points out, “The resource base of indus-
trial society is shrinking but it’s far from exhausted, the impact
of global warming and ecological degradation build slowly over
time ...” This is not at all what the popular folk mythology of
resource apocalypse predicts. It lacks Hollywood’s sudden and
catastrophic collapse motif. The change is more likely to emerge
slowly over decades—a persistent step-wise downshift to a new
normal.
Yet, there are still behavioral challenges to be addressed if this
downshift is to be experienced more gently than it might other-
wise be. Modern society, as a whole, does not have a settled pattern
of voluntarily exploring and adopting alternative life patterns in
advance of being forced into so doing. In fact, there is ample
evidence that whatever resources were available were consumed
to the point of overshoot (Catton, 1982). What behavior change
successes there have been all too often are followed by a return
to previous consumerist tendencies once the initiating event sub-
sides. Such experiences might leave people with the sense that an
effective strategy is to wait out the apparent crisis and anticipate a
return to normal.
The rest of this paper recommends an agenda for helping the
development of new living patterns before such major adaptations
are forced upon society. One issue here involves the choice of how
to assess the prospects of responding in time to energy descent.
Another is the need to acknowledge that the behavioral and social
sciences may not be in charge of the ensuing response. Meadows
et al. (2004, p. 284) faced the first issue and framed it as a choice
among three prospects:
“...the world faces not a preordained future, but a choice. The choiceis
between different mental models, which lead logically to different sce-
narios. One mental model says that this world for all practical purposes
has no limits. Choosing that mental model will encourage extractive
business as usual and take the human economy even further beyond
the limits, the result will be collapse.
Another mental model says that the limits are real and close, and
that there is not enough time, and that people cannot be moderate
or responsible or compassionate. At least not in time. That model is
self-fulfilling. If the world’s people choose to believe it, they will be
proven right. The result will be collapse.
A third mental model says that the limits are real and close and in some
cases below our current levels of throughput. But there is just enough
time, with no time to waste. There is just enough energy, enough mate-
rial, enough money, enough environmental resilience, and enough
human virtue to bring about a planned reduction in the ecological
footprint of humankind: a sustainability revolution to a much better
world for the vast majority.
That third scenario might very well be wrong. But the evidence we have
seen, from world data to global computer models, suggests that it could
conceivably be made right. There is no way of knowing for sure, other
than to try it.”
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De Young Biophysical psychology
Their perspective is a guarded optimism to be sure. But for the
issue at hand—shifting behavior patterns to those compatible with
biophysical reality—it is particularly fortunate that the patterns
that people may need to adopt are not totally without precedent.
As Boulding (1978, p. 93) once quipped, “Anything that exists is
possible.” The needed patterns are neither new nor untested nor
absent from the world at large; what they are is unfamiliar and
perhaps unwelcomed by most members of industrial society. But
change need not start all-at-once in every corner and with every
member of society, indeed it rarely does.
Early experimentation with simple living is recorded in the his-
tory of intentional communities in North America (Kanter, 1972;
Morris, 2007). A few of these continue to exist, most often as living
museums but occasionally as growing communities (e.g., Amish).
There also are modern social experiments involving early adopters
who are exploring changes to deeply ingrained life patterns. Some
are approaches derived from Lewin’s (1952) pioneering work on
using citizen assemblies to affect radical change by first present-
ing people with the issue being faced and then giving them the
trust, time and support needed to develop local responses. A use-
ful update of this method, focused on environmental stewardship,
was done by Matthies and Kromker (2000). Several examples,
relevant to but not directly addressing energy descent, employ
a community-based intervention called EcoTeams (Staats et al.,
2004;Nye and Burgess, 2008). These include changing a broad col-
lection of behaviors but center on the household or neighborhood
scale and usually focus on consumer behavior.
Some fascinating examples that directly address energy descent
and are being implemented at a somewhat larger scale include
ecovillages (Liftin, 2011,2012,2013a,b) and transition towns
(Hopkins, 2008,2011;Chamberlin, 2009). There is great varia-
tion across these settlements but they seem to have in common
a focus on environmental and social stewardship. What is fas-
cinating is that these latter explorations were not initiated nor
supported by the behavioral or social sciences, corporations, gov-
ernments or the major non-governmental organizations; they
self-initiated. Some of them are being chronicled by scholars but
empirical research on their evolution has only just begun (see, for
instance1).
Perhaps more important than their appeal to the pioneers is
the potential for these social experiments to serve as models for
other, later adopters. It seems likely that many people will decide to
change only after signs of an energy descent become overwhelm-
ingly clear to them. Fortunately for these late adopters, each step
down the energy descent, as unnerving as it may be, will likely
be followed by relatively stable periods. It may be reasonable to
expect the periods in-between each downshift to be stable enough
to allow time for exploring and experimenting with alternative
life patterns. These intervals also may provide the time needed to
build resilience into social and community systems and thus allow
these systems to better deal with the next ecological or societal step
down (Alexander, 2012).
Although the descent may be slow and punctuated, it likely
will be relentless. Early on, each drop may seem like an emer-
gency or crisis making it possible to expect that, with time, things
1www.transitionemergingstudy.ca
may return to normal. But slowly, every next downshift, cou-
pled with the unknowable duration of each pause, will make such
an expectation untenable. Instead, over time, a growing number
of people will experience biophysical constraints as unavoidable,
directly perceivable and palpable. The need to change behavior
would become blatantly obvious. Denial occasionally might be
possible, perhaps prompted by the slow descent and stable lulls.
Butwitheverynextstepdownanevergrowingnumberofpeople
would find delay to be a non-functional response, maybe even a
personally perilous one.
Thus, the long-drawn nature of the descent, with interludes
supportive of social experiments, may make behavior change eas-
ier. Practitioners and educators may no longer need to persuade
people to change but instead would need to be ready to help them
to do so. No longer would the public need to judge the veracity
of abstract notions of limits-to-growth. Under the signals of an
emerging energy descent, the process of societal transition and
individual behavior change would not await professional inter-
vention, governmental permission or venture capital support. It
would self-initiate—although, perhaps initially, hidden in plain
sight.
PROSPECTING THE COMING TRANSITION
If the biophysical situation and the resulting change in the behav-
ioral context unfold as just outlined then modern society will
face an involuntary transition of unprecedented depth and dura-
tion. Prefiguring a variety of responses might make for an easier
transition. The process of crafting a response may also con-
tain some fascinating opportunities. But getting people to this
realization cannot be achieved just by laying out the facts of a
potential energy descent. After all, presenting such threats-of-
change in the past has rarely prompted environmental stewardship
behavior. If that approach had worked as well as needed then soci-
ety might not be facing the current predicament. And although
we may be facing a future of slow regress rather than rapid
progress, “regress is quite literally an unthinkable concept these
days” (Greer, 2012, p. 99). Thus, taking a direct, facts-first
approach has virtually no chance of easing the transition, particu-
larly when the context is not a solvable problem but a complicated
predicament.
If we paused for a moment, and reflected on this social dilemma,
it might be easy to despair of the human prospect. Yet the issue
here may be one of mis-framing and thus lends itself to re-framing.
An approach that might have promise is to help people to slowly
build their own understanding of the newly emerging biophysical
context while simultaneously helping them to explore behaviors
that are meaningful to them now,while also pre-familiarizing them
with behaviors that might be essential further on.
THE USEFULNESS OF SMALL EXPERIMENTS
Behavior change under conditions of urgency, great environ-
mental uncertainty and grave stakes might be advised to start
with small steps. As anthropologist and political scientist Scott
(1998, p. 345) advises with respect to interventions for eco-
nomic development, “Prefer wherever possible to take a small
step, stand back, observe, and then plan the next small move.”
Scott’s (1998) suggestion follows, in part, the “small experiment”
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De Young Biophysical psychology
approach to environmental problem-solving outlined by Kaplan
(1996; see also Kaplan et al., 1998;Irvine and Kaplan, 2001).
Small experiments are a framework for supporting problem-
solving that is based on people’s innate inclinations to explore
and understand (Kaplan and Kaplan, 2003,2009) and on their
brain having evolved to prospect the future not just track the
past (Seligman et al., 2013). The small experiment approach also
supports behavioral innovation, maintains local relevance and
experimental validity, all while promoting rapid dissemination
of findings. It also contrasts with the large-scale approach that
dominates research these days. This framework can help people
who are not trained as scientists to discover what works in their
locality.
To enhance engagement, the small experiment framework care-
fully manages the scale of the activity. Picking the appropriate
scale is a crucial step. It was Weick’s (1984) insight that peo-
ple anchor around the scale and structure of the initial problem
definition and start to work on responses that are only at that
same scale or structure. If we cast the problems faced as being
at a large-scale or involving large systems, as is often the case
with environmental issues, then it is hard to imagine anything
but a large-scale or large system response sufficing. Fortunately,
although large-scale problems may seem to demand large-scale
responses, the scale of the problem does not dictate the scale of
the response.
Small experiments are going on all the time. They are often
the basis of stories told by at-home tinkerers, dedicated garden-
ers, community organizers, and innovative teachers. They are part
of team efforts where experts and citizens coordinate and apply
their talents and knowledge to an issue of mutual concern. Con-
sider the many pilot programs, demonstration sites, field tests,
and trial runs regularly reported in both popular and scientific
publications, as well as the neighborhood, community, and vil-
lage examples mentioned earlier. In fact, small experiments are
so common that they may seem inconsequential to the casual
observer; nevertheless they can be a powerful means of behav-
ioral entrepreneurship. Despite their ubiquity, Kaplan (1996) and
Irvine and Kaplan (2001) have discussed guidelines for enhancing
the effectiveness of small experiments and broadening their appeal
beyond just early adopters. Very briefly summarized, these are:
Scale
While already an integral aspect of small experiments, smallness
can be understood in a variety of ways. Keeping the physical scope
small is obvious. Others include keeping the time-span short and
the breadth of exploring restricted as well as involving only a small
number of people. The experiment can also be tentative, tried out
for a limited time. These guidelines help keep the costs of project
initiation and management low.
Expectations
So too should expectations be kept in check. The findings of small
experiments are unavoidably imperfect and incomplete. Yet small
too are the consequences of failure; failure is always a possibility
if an experiment is genuine. Even so, findings from a mod-
est enterprise may prove extraordinarily useful and have broad
effects.
Goal and focus
An energy descent would be felt in all parts of society and affect
all daily activities. Nevertheless, it is useful to keep the focus of the
small experiment on only one specific issue. While it may be okay
to start exploring before having everything in place, it is essential
to first have a concise question. Anticipating what would be most
useful to be able to say at the end is an excellent way of formulating
the initial question.
Tracking and record keeping
Empirical research, at its core, involves being attentive to what
is going on. Whether formal or informal information gather-
ing is used, the objective is to systematically learn what worked
and what did not. In the immediate timeframe and at the local
level, the tracking allows for feedback to those directly engaged.
Over a longer timeframe, it informs next steps and may pro-
vide the basis for developing generalizations that might be useful
elsewhere.
Dissemination and communication
Sharing the successes of a small experiment is a way to let the
people involved knows that their efforts matter. It is also an oppor-
tunity to validate the correctness of the proposed changes for the
community members who were not engaged in the effort. Finally,
communicating with people at a distance may provide credibility
to other small experiments and help to motivate and support the
efforts of later adopters; successes in one locality become plausible
options to explore elsewhere, while communicating about failures
instills caution and may prevent wasted effort.
It is noteworthy that nothing in these guidelines restricts small
experiments to taking only small steps or to a slow discovery pro-
cess. A behavior change process called adaptive muddling stresses
this subtle but important issue and also adds the element of sta-
bility to the small experiment framework (De Young and Kaplan,
1988). A stability component is used to reduce the cost of fail-
ure for the individuals involved. It also makes highly improbable
unchecked and disorienting social change. With a safety net in
place people need not privilege the status quo by investigating
only marginal behavior change. Far reaching change can be con-
templated, explored and tentatively adopted. The scale of the
experiment may be small but adaptive muddling supports peo-
ple exploring life-changing responses to the advent of biophysical
limits.
The small experiment notion also provides researchers with a
framework for exploring a number of behavioral questions with
important practical implications. Among the questions that seem
to me most urgent to explore are the following: what are the con-
ditions under which people domesticate the notion of a dramatic
biophysical descent? Does the new behavioral context require a
shift from green consumerism to green citizenship? Are there
intrinsic reward embedded in crafting a response that may has-
ten the process? Might it be possible that crafting a response
to energy descent directly increases well-being? Each is briefly
outlined below in the hope that they inspire future work or,
where sufficient research exists to fully address the question,pack-
age known science as guidelines to “give away” to practitioners.
Clearly, this list is not exhaustive. Researchable questions about
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De Young Biophysical psychology
the behavioral aspects of energy descent abound and span all of
the social sciences.
PRE-FAMILIARIZATION
In conversations about behavior, it is often claimed that people
resist change because they rigidly anchor to the status quo. Also
referred to as behavioral inertia, this tendency has been identified
as a major impediment in efforts to get people and institutions to
adapt to global environmental change (World Bank, 2009). The
power of the current situation is related to cognitive availabil-
ity (Tversky and Kahneman, 1973). The instances or examples
that can most readily be thought of, those that are most men-
tally available, become powerful predictors of the things to which
people attend and that motivate them. Thus, it would seem
that the existing state of the world is what is both justified and
deemed desirable (Jost et al., 2004). Under this framing, crafting a
response to an energy descent would be heavily burdened by the
collective, tangible and century-long experience of exponential
growth in available energy, material consumption and consumer
sovereignty.
However, an alternative perspective is to reframe what might
appear to be a bias toward the status quo as, instead, a bias toward
the familiar (Kaplan and Kaplan, 1983). Although this may sound
as if it is an insignificant, perhaps even an academic distinction, it
may be one with major implications for adapting to the coming
downshift. A status quo bias means that very little can change,
and what does change will stay close to present circumstances. A
familiarity bias, in contrast, means that change is limited not by
where people are now but is also affected by what they know and
where they imagine themselves going.
Clearly, adapting to a long-drawn decline in resource availabil-
ity is not something with which people are currently familiar. We
can know that humans once lived this way, and that many still do,
but most citizens of industrial society do not. The researchable
question here is how such familiarity might be influenced. Does
a bias for the familiar always lead people to favor the more phys-
ically tangible status quo rather than an imagined future reality,
thus identifying this bias as a barrier for transitioning to a new
behavior pattern? Or can tangible imagery create knowledge vivid
enough to be a sufficient substitute for direct experience (DeYoung
and Monroe, 1996;Kaplan, 1972;Hunt, 1984)? The challenge here
is to discover if there are conditions under which knowledge of an
emerging but not yet present energy descent, coupled with peo-
ple’s future aspirations, creates a familiarity as powerful as that
created by people’s current circumstances.
It might be fascinating to examine the role and successes of the
arts and humanities in pre-familiarization. Kaplan (1972) points
to the influence on the behavior of medieval society exerted by the
anticipation of hell. Society needs far more useful examples than
the existing melodramatic tales of techno-expansion (e.g., the Star
Trek franchise) or eco-collapse (e.g., Hunger Games, The Road).
Liftin (2011) has done this in her inspiring video narrative of
the ecovillage movement. Similar efforts at affirmative storytelling
exist at the Resilience2and Transition Network websites3.But
2www.resilience.org
3www.transitionnetwork.org
missing, yet needed, are examples from a behavioral science per-
spective. The goal would be to share stories that not only honestly
portray life under a prolonged and involuntary energy descent,
but do so in a way that people crave the experience enough to seek
it now.
GREEN CITIZENSHIP
Another way to understand the behavioral aspects of energy
descent is to ask what social role people may need to play. Tra-
ditionally, in efforts to promote conservation behavior, people
have been cast in the role of green consumer. The researchable
question here is to ascertain if this role—once thought adequate
for the creation of a sustainable society—is now insufficient to the
task of responding to a long-drawn-out energy descent. Then, if
the circumstances being imagined here demand that each of us
take up green citizenship, how might this new role be promoted?
The distinction between these roles is subtle. Citizens likely
have long-term intentions, motives and sources of social-support
that differ from and are broader than those of consumers.
These differences might constitute opportunities for behavior
change. For instance, if the changing biophysical context can be
conveyed in a way that does not frighten or overwhelm peo-
ple, then we may be able to leverage considerable behavioral
entrepreneurship.
But promoting green citizenship over green consumerism may
require altered forms and formats of behavioral interventions. Yet,
to date, almost all attention, funding, and science has been focused
on the green consumer. The few exceptions suggest that green citi-
zenship is a far more complex role than just selecting from among
the green products in the marketplace (Gilg et al., 2005;Evans and
Abrahamse, 2009). The related concept of ecological citizenship is
also being explored (Dobson, 2003,2006,2007;Wolf et al., 2009;
Wolf, 2011). It provides a starting point for answering the question
posed here but it may need to be expanded to both fit the chang-
ing biophysical context and accommodate the broader array of
motives that promote green citizenship. Of particular importance
may be adding the requirement of coping with energy descent
while having diminishing amounts of the infrastructure and cap-
ital inherent in industrial civilization. Furthermore, ecological
citizenship presupposes that a deep attitude change precedes any
significant behavior change. However, the behavioral response to
energy descent may be driven as much by necessity as by a prior
change in attitude, although the latter may hasten developing a
response.
EMBEDDED BENEFITS
It is possible to imagine three broadly framed categories of behav-
ior necessary to thrive through a prolonged downshift. The first
is a response to the unsustainability of hyper-specialization. Indi-
viduals and their communities will need to become adept at many
new or newly relearned skills. Knowledge and abilities either long
dismissed as outdated or consigned to the ranks of the working-
class may once again be widely needed. Rather than being efficient
in narrow domains, people may need to become proficient at
many crafts, have broad practical knowledge, retain the capacity
to mindfully plan and restrain their behavior, and be willing to
continuously build and share these competencies.
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De Young Biophysical psychology
People will also need to be resourceful in ways true to the origi-
nal definition of that word. Society will come to value the ability to
deal with a difficult situation while utilizing only those resources
currently at its disposal. Equally respected will be practical knowl-
edge of how to work with the natural world in the thriftiest of ways.
This is frugality, an ability that will need to become widespread if
a community is to prosper.
Finally, there will be a need for people to maintain their pro-
social inclinations and develop those character strengths that make
them welcome as community members. For some people this will
mean the ability to take and hold a leadership role. For every-
one it will mean remaining cooperative through lean times and
exhibiting forbearance and genuine kindness while under stress.
These are attributes that will help people and their community to
flourish.
Pursuing these behaviors likely will make it easier to transition
through an energy downshift. The behavioral simplification men-
tioned earlier may go a long way in motivating people to pursue
these actions since at some future time, in order to thrive, people
will realize that there is no other option. But to prevent a last-
minute, hasty, crisis response to the changing biophysical context,
it would be necessary to begin this transition before circumstances
demand it of us. As Liftin (2012) suggests, society would be better
off if it begins prefiguring viable alternative life patterns in the
midst of current circumstances.
Putting aside the existential benefit of starting the transition
sooner rather than later, the challenges here are significant. Cur-
rently, except for a small subset of the population in industrial
societies, the behaviors being called for are not those toward which
people typically strive. Furthermore, the more common set of
motives guiding the behavior of citizens of western society seem
unlikely to initiate or sustain the behavior change that eventually
will be needed. So, for instance, the need for frugality just men-
tioned may be valued in the abstract by people and eventually be
necessary for community survival, yet it is presently practiced by
very few individuals within industrial society. In fact, this once
commonplace virtue (Nash, 1998) has become much maligned
and dismissed as old-fashioned. It seems likely that any motiva-
tion to be frugal is presently overwhelmed by the motivation to be
comfortable, to be successful or to better our family’s standard-
of-living. Thus the researchable question here is to determine if
it is possible to motivate the needed behavior change in advance
of any circumstances that demand it of us, and if that is possible,
identify the procedures needed to do so.
The first part of the question, the possibility of initiating endur-
ing behavior change, has been well explored. There is evidence
that humans are capable of being intrinsically motivated to pur-
sue the abilities mentioned above (Max-Neef, 1992;O’Brien and
Wolf, 2010;Sheldon et al., 2011;Howell, 2013;Van der Werff et al.,
2013). Chawla (1998) found that environmentally involved indi-
viduals credit intrinsic motivation when explaining their sense
of integrity in living up to deep values and the competence
they feel in both responding to difficulties and from interact-
ing effectively with others. Crompton (2008) reports that, when
compared to extrinsically motivated behavior, being intrinsically
motivated leads to greater behavioral intensity and perseverance.
Respondents in a study done by Wolf (2011) indicated that they
derived substantial intrinsic satisfaction from pursuing behav-
ior patterns that address environmental disruption and Brown
and Kasser (2005) found that intrinsically oriented individuals
engaged in a wider variety of conservation behaviors than did
other respondents. In a series of small studies respondents from
industrial societies reported deriving deep and direct intrinsic
satisfactions from just the sort of behaviors that will be needed
for a robust response to energy descent (De Young, 1996,2000,
2012).
This brings us to the second part of the question—the need
to develop and share procedures for using intrinsic motivation.
What complicates the matter is that these motives can only be high-
lighted for people—they can be supported and leveraged but direct
manipulation of an intrinsic motive is an oxymoron. The field of
self-determination theory has pursued this issue for some decades
(Deci and Ryan, 1985,2012;Ryan and Deci, 2000) and has recently
applied its findings to conservation behavior change (Osbaldiston
and Sheldon, 2003;Sheldon et al., 2011). But a great deal more
research is needed, particularly work that packages theoretical and
empirical findings as guidelines for practitioners engaged in social
transitions.
BIOPHYSICAL LIMITS, PSYCHOLOGICAL ABUNDANCE
A provocative suggestion is that a resource downshift has the
potential to support, perhaps even to increase, well-being (Illich,
1974;Astyk, 2008). This notion might astonish members of
industrial society where material deprivation is seen only as a
source of suffering. The more common assumption about causal-
ity is in the opposite direction: interventions create conditions
that enhance well-being which then allows people to build the
personal resources needed to later act in sustainable and gener-
ative ways. For instance, Carter (2011) discusses how cultivating
positive emotions, with the intention of thereby enhancing the
personal resource categories of mindfulness, self-efficacy and pos-
itive relations with others, subsequently inspires environmentally
responsible behaviors.
The researchable question here is whether it is possible that the
effect also functions in the other direction, whereby enhanced
well-being is derived from responding well to energy descent.
There is some support emerging for this perspective: there are
reports of positive interactions between the pursuit of sustain-
able behavior and the derived well-being elements of enhanced
happiness and satisfaction (Corral-Verdugo et al., 2011a,b). Other
researchers are exploring the interaction between the pursuit of
conservation behavior and sustainable well-being (O’Brien, 2008;
Kasser,2009;Kjell,2011). Brown and Kasser (2005) report that vol-
untarily reducing material consumption can be a direct source of
subjective well-being (although it will be important to learn if this
conservation-behavior-derived well-being also occurs under the
involuntary reduction that biophysical limits may cause). Corral-
Verdugo (2012) integrates these findings into a proposal for a
positive psychology of sustainability where conservation behavior
is viewed as the result of deliberation but is maintained by perse-
verance and derived satisfactions and where pursuing a sustainable
life pattern enhances mental health.
However, environmental stewardship behavior may have differ-
ent effects on two major categories of well-being (i.e., eudaimonia,
www.frontiersin.org November 2014 |Volume 5 |Article 1255 |11

De Young Biophysical psychology
or meaning-driven well-being versus hedonia, or pleasure-driven
well-being). In particular, it is argued that there is a strong
positive relationship between sustainability behavior and eudai-
monic well-being (Myers, 2003;Jackson, 2005;Kasser, 2009).
Venhoeven et al. (2013) report that pro-environmental behavior
itself can be experienced as meaningful action that directly
increases eudaimonic well-being, a suggestion that is consistent
with the embedded benefits concept discussed above.
The possibility that pro-environmental behavior may increase
eudaimonic well-being is made all the more significant by a
recent discovery that pursuing different types of well-being has
a differential effect on the human stress response and immune
system functioning. Fredrickson et al. (2013) report that being in
a state of hedonic well-being produces an undesirable elevation
of inflammatory gene expression, while experiencing eudaimonic
well-being causes a beneficial up-regulation of antibody synthesis
genes and a down-regulation of pro-inflammatory genes. Thus,
it sometimes may be ill advised to focus on the pleasant natu-
ral consequences of a behavior or to add pleasurable aspects to
those behaviors lacking them. From the perspective of physiolog-
ical stress and immune system functioning, the lack of inherent
pleasure in the transition process may be far less important than
people being able to frame the tasks involved as being consequen-
tial in some larger context. Thus, if handled well, the difficulty in
responding to biophysical limits may, quite unexpectedly, be its
redeeming quality.
Yet, in industrial society eudaimonic well-being is often
trumped by the pursuit of hedonic pleasure. It is a researchable
question whether the promise of eudaimonic well-being derived
from responding well to a drawn-out energy descent can be made
to overcome the hedonic pleasure gained from pursuing business-
as-usual for as long as it lasts. This raises another confounding
issue to be dealt with. Meaningful behavior can contribute to
eudaimonic well-being, yet to have that effect it seems crucial
that the choice to act be autonomously initiated (Ryan and Deci,
2000;Ryan et al., 2008;Venhoeven et al., 2013). External coercion
or temptation of any sort or from any source to pursue a sus-
tainable pattern-of-living might preclude any gain in eudaimonic
well-being (Evans and Jackson, 2008) and thus negate any subse-
quent health benefits. As Venhoeven et al. (2013, p. 1379) point
out, “it is more likely that only those who deliberately choose a
pro-environmental lifestyle will gain eudaimonic well-being from
their engagement.”
This poses a dilemma since under an energy descent scenario
the need to respond could hardly be thought of as autonomously
chosen. If the ultimate goal is to encourage durable behav-
ior change while also enhancing well-being and health then it
would be counterproductive to force people to relearn lost skills,
pre-familiarize themselves with simple living patterns or adopt
conservation behaviors. The researchable question here is whether
it is possible to support autonomous motivation under conditions
of immutable biophysical limits, and how to craft interventions
that create, but not coerce, pre-familiarization.
Yet, despite the need for more research, psychology does have
advice to offer. It has been known for some time that effectivefunc-
tioning benefits from an environment responsive to one’s attempts
to function (Carr and Lynch, 1968).An environment is responsive
when it allows people to experiment and to tentatively try out new
ideas even under the pressure of time and resource constraints
(i.e., limits-to-growth). An environment that is open and sup-
portive provides a setting where people can more easily learn for
themselves. In a responsive environment people can discover how
the world functions and what sorts of plans and intentions fit the
new biophysical circumstances. Knowing what is and what is not
achievable helps to focus one’s attention on those areas that have
the greater effect. This brings the discussion back to small experi-
ments which become all the more important when the biophysical
and behavioral context has changed from what people are familiar
with.
CONCLUSION
It may seem that much of human behavior is at odds with liv-
ing within biophysical limits. We have clearly overestimated the
capacity of the planet to provide for growth of all kinds, to secure
material well-being and to absorb the waste of industrial soci-
ety. It seems that few members of that society feel any sense of
urgency in making these things right. Interventions to change this
state of affairs have not had the needed effect. This assessment has
brought pause to the environmental and conservation psychology
community.
How we respond to the coming age of biophysical limits is one
of the defining questions of our time. Yet, there are several rea-
sons why this is a difficult topic to discuss. First, if the biophysical
scenario happens anywhere near as outlined above, then modern
civilization is facing major changes for which it is currently unpre-
pared. Second, it is being suggested that the behavioral sciences
have been ignoring the implications of this scenario. In fact, it
may be difficult to take up the challenge of responding to ecologi-
cal limits since taking that step could be construed as abandoning
other cherished social goals, the pursuit of which might depend on
the largess of industrial society. Of course, a reassessment of the
changing biophysical context suggests that industrial society soon
may be hard pressed to continue supporting our pursuit of those
valued objectives, thus calling for a realignment of our approach.
Finally, a tenet of environmental communication is to emphasize
only the positive and to highlight success stories, to do otherwise
is to risk losing the audience. However, if society is facing a chal-
lenge as daunting as that discussed here then it deserves to be told
the effects of reaching biophysical limits and the costs of ignoring
those limits.
Society still has options. There is a great deal that the behavioral
sciences can do to ease the coming transition. The task, if we are
willing to take it up, is to help people cope with the realization
that everyday life may soon differ substantially from conventional
expectations and to help them envision an alternative to their cur-
rent relationship with resources. Acknowledging the biophysical
trends is the sobering part. Next comes the hopeful part, indeed
the exciting part.
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Conflict of Interest Statement: The author declares that the research was conducted
in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed
as a potential conflict of interest.
Received: 21 July 2014; accepted: 16 October 2014; published online: 03 November
2014.
Citation: De Young R (2014) Some behavioral aspects of energy descent: how a bio-
physical psychology might help people transition through the lean times ahead. Front.
Psychol. 5:1255. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01255
This article was submitted to Cognitive Science, a section of the journal Frontiers in
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