The Social Dilemma of Climate Change: Socio-economic Implications

A social dilemma lies behind many environmental problems, such as climate change. Analytically separating temporal aspects from structural aspects of the environmental dilemma prevents wrong conclusions. This article concentrates solely on the structural aspects with different grades of complexity and different grades of ignorance in the dilemma. Dilemmas with sufficient complexity, such as climate change, and/or ignorance of the stakeholders are extremely vulnerable to individual defections. Therefore, governance is an absolute must and institutions are necessary. However, controls and sanctioning are key factors of institutions. Consequently, psychological approaches should not only target the individuals, but integrate in a multidisciplinary programme that focuses on governance tasks with respect to (1) the structural diagnosis of the social dilemma of climate change; (2) didactic instruments and methods that give addressees an insight into these structural problems; (3) the role of governance for the stakeholders on internalizing norms; and (4) the impact of structural knowledge on accepting institutions that help to solve the structural part of the sustainability problem. Psychological research in institutional ergonomics could help to create addressee-friendly governance, where the addressees know about the value and adequacy of certain restrictions for the sake of common welfare and sustainability.