Environmental policies may crowd out pre-existing green values, leading to a weaking of the messages.

Research on 3,306 Germans found that enforced restrictions to promote carbon-neutral lifestyles would trigger strong negative responses because they ‘restrict freedom’. This was true even among those who would adopt green lifestyles when voluntary, thus possibly undermining support for green political movements.

A similar set of questions about Covid policies (conducted during the fourth wave of the pandemic) creates a comparison and a benchmark of control-averse responses to public policies and their broader political ramifications. Comparing the two provides insights on the mechanisms behind control aversion and allow more adequate understanding of control aversion as a generic psychological trait with some domain-specific aspects is needed.

Such conventional approaches to policy design often neglect the plasticity of citizens’ beliefs and values upon which policy effectiveness and political sustainability depend. The research now proposes a more dynamic approach recognising that to succeed, essential policies including bans, carbon taxes and the promotion of new technologies must be both implementable and politically sustainable, entailing a critical role for citizens’ green values, which may be either diminished or cultivated, depending on policy design.

Published in the journal Nature Sustainability, common initiatives, such as banning cars, eating less meat or reducing air travel, may be weakening their people’s positive environmental beliefs.

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