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

Lena Ramstetter; Silke Rupprecht; Luis Mundaca; Walter Osika; Cecilia U D Stenfors; Johannes Klackl; Christine Wamsler

doi:10.1016/j.isci.2023.106191

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

iScience. 2023 Feb 24;26(3):106191. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2023.106191. eCollection 2023 Mar 17.

Authors

Lena Ramstetter¹, Silke Rupprecht², Luis Mundaca³, Walter Osika⁴, Cecilia U D Stenfors⁵, Johannes Klackl⁶, Christine Wamsler⁷

Affiliations

¹ Department of Political Science, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
² Centre for Applied Health Sciences, Leuphana University Lüneburg, Lüneburg; Awaris, Germany.
³ International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics (IIIEE), Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
⁴ Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institute, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁵ Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
⁶ Department of Psychology, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
⁷ Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS), Lund University, Lund, Sweden.

Abstract

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.

Keywords: Global change; Interdisciplinary application studies; Nature conservation; Psychology.