What persuades people to help protect threatened species and ecosystems? Most scientists think facts alone will change minds. They’re wrong.
Anne Toomey has a tough message for me: Facts alone won’t convince anyone to help an endangered species or ecosystem.
I’m a scientist trained to evaluate data and support evidence-based decision-making, so to me, this is a jarring statement. But personal experience, as well as decades of data, help me realize it’s true.
I’ve spent the past decade communicating with the public about why marine life deserves our conservation attention. I’ll often share shark facts on social media, or with policymakers, only to see people reject objectively true information — or, even more bafflingly, accept that the facts are accurate but choose not to support a conservation policy endorsed by experts and evidence.
Toomey, a conservation scientist at Pace University’s Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, tells me why this happens: It’s human psychology.
“Knowledge is formed by our experiences, not just by reading facts in a textbook,” she says. “Scientists believe ‘if only people knew what I know, they’d think differently from how they think now.’ But that’s not how it works. We don’t just need to give people information. We need to start understanding how that information can be brought into a process of change-making.”
That’s where Toomey comes in. Her work focuses on understanding what makes the public take action to save threatened species and the ecosystems that they, and we, depend on. It’s an important field of research, as developing policy solutions to address the planet’s many environmental threats requires more than just convincing conservation scientists and environmental activists — we also need the public on our side.
How do we accomplish that? Toomey has reviewed decades of psychological and education research on how to change minds and then applied it to environmental science. Her results may surprise many conservation scientists and environmental activists whose public outreach often focuses entirely on sharing facts.
How to Make Friends and Influence People — to Save the World • The Revelator
Anne Toomey has a tough message for me: Facts alone won’t convince anyone to help an endangered species or ecosystem.
I’m a scientist trained to evaluate data and support evidence-based decision-making, so to me, this is a jarring statement. But personal experience, as well as decades of data, help me realize it’s true.
I’ve spent the past decade communicating with the public about why marine life deserves our conservation attention. I’ll often share shark facts on social media, or with policymakers, only to see people reject objectively true information — or, even more bafflingly, accept that the facts are accurate but choose not to support a conservation policy endorsed by experts and evidence.
Toomey, a conservation scientist at Pace University’s Department of Environmental Studies and Sciences, tells me why this happens: It’s human psychology.
“Knowledge is formed by our experiences, not just by reading facts in a textbook,” she says. “Scientists believe ‘if only people knew what I know, they’d think differently from how they think now.’ But that’s not how it works. We don’t just need to give people information. We need to start understanding how that information can be brought into a process of change-making.”
That’s where Toomey comes in. Her work focuses on understanding what makes the public take action to save threatened species and the ecosystems that they, and we, depend on. It’s an important field of research, as developing policy solutions to address the planet’s many environmental threats requires more than just convincing conservation scientists and environmental activists — we also need the public on our side.
How do we accomplish that? Toomey has reviewed decades of psychological and education research on how to change minds and then applied it to environmental science. Her results may surprise many conservation scientists and environmental activists whose public outreach often focuses entirely on sharing facts.
How to Make Friends and Influence People — to Save the World • The Revelator