TY - JOUR

T1 - Fostering collective climate action and leadership: Insights from a pilot experiment involving mindfulness and compassion

AU - Ramstetter, Lena

AU - Rupprecht, Silke

AU - Mundaca, Luis

AU - Osika, Walter

AU - Stenfors, Cecilia U.D.

AU - Klackl, Johannes

AU - Wamsler, Christine

N1 - Funding Information: The research was supported by three projects funded by the Swedish Research Council Formas : (i) Mind4Change (grant number 2019-00390 ; full title: Agents of Change: Mind, Cognitive Bias and Decision-Making in a Context of Social and Climate Change); (ii) TransVision (grant number 2019-01969 ; full title: Transition Visions: Coupling Society, Well-being and Energy Systems for Transitioning to a Fossil-free Society); and (iii) Green Resilience to Crisis (grant number 2020-02888 ). Special thanks go to Jeroen Janss (The Inner Green Deal), Liane Stephan (The Inner Green Deal), Gustav Osberg (LUCSUS), and Emma Li Johansson (LUCSUS) for their input and assistance during the research process. Publisher Copyright: © 2023 The Author(s)

PY - 2023/3/17

Y1 - 2023/3/17

N2 - Summary Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers. The intervention was found to have significant effects on transformative qualities/capacities, intermediary factors, and pro-environmental behaviors and engagement across all levels. The picture is, however, more complex for pro-environmental attitudes. With due limitations (e.g., small sample size), this preliminary evidence confirms the feasibility and potential of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions to foster inner-outer transformation for sustainability and climate action. Aspects that should be taken into account in larger confirmatory trials are discussed.

AB - Summary Recent research suggests that mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion relate to inner transformative qualities/capacities and intermediary factors that can support increased pro-environmental behavior and attitudes across individual, collective, organizational, and system levels. However, current insights focus on the individual level, are restricted to certain sustainability fields, and wider experimental evidence is scarce and contradictory. Our pilot study addresses this gap and tests the aforementioned proposition in the context of an intervention: an EU Climate Leadership Program for high-level decision-makers. The intervention was found to have significant effects on transformative qualities/capacities, intermediary factors, and pro-environmental behaviors and engagement across all levels. The picture is, however, more complex for pro-environmental attitudes. With due limitations (e.g., small sample size), this preliminary evidence confirms the feasibility and potential of mindfulness- and compassion-based interventions to foster inner-outer transformation for sustainability and climate action. Aspects that should be taken into account in larger confirmatory trials are discussed.

KW - Global change

KW - Interdisciplinary application studies

KW - Nature conservation

KW - Psychology

KW - Health sciences

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85150039222&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - https://www.mendeley.com/catalogue/e806e46e-f538-3b65-954a-ec75988b7ff0/

U2 - 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106191

DO - 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106191

M3 - Journal articles

C2 - 36994186

VL - 26

JO - iScience

JF - iScience

SN - 2589-0042

IS - 3

M1 - 106191

ER -