Getting, keeping, and mastering a job is a huge confidence-building experience. Hope falters without confidence. Effort falters without hope: if nothing will come of my effort, why try? Chronic unemployment zaps the will and can lead to a downward spiral. That’s why it's so important for employers to be willing to take risks on 'non-optimal' job applicants.
What is the right question? Something along the lines of what the Pew survey asked: assuming climate change is happening, are humans the primary cause of global warming? The Verheggen et al paper comes closest to having both the right question and the appropriate respondents. Plus, they had the largest sample size - more than the other three studies combined. And they found a roughly 90% endorsement of anthropogenic global warming.
For some people, the mere possibility of achieving a goal matters more than favorable opportunities. A chance, not necessarily a good chance.
Sometimes uncomfortable thoughts and feelings take us down a path to nowhere and sometimes they lead to new insights or solutions to vexing problems. We might want to follow their lead for awhile and see where they are taking us. If we cut them off (“gently redirect” – same dif) the moment we notice them, we might miss out on a valuable learning experience.
The inner audience may nod in agreement, clap with enthusiasm, talk back to the stage, or perhaps engage in a distancing maneuver. The difference is between a receptive, engaged audience and an audience that observes without commitment to the narrative.
It also makes a world of difference when the scientific consensus on climate change is represented as nearly unanimous (e.g., 97%) rather than merely a large majority (e.g., 90%). The former intimidates and discourages potential dissent; the latter, not so much.
Given the personal pain exacted by goal failure, we develop "optimization heuristics" to increase the likelihood of success and provide a psychological cushion for when we fail. One heuristic is to maintain sufficient goal diversity to insure a sense of control, optimism, and competency in at least a few life domains. So if we suck at x, at least we know we're good at y.
To control is to make things happen or not happen. Primary control is when we align the world to our wishes. Secondary control is when we align ourselves to the world, often because the world isn't cooperating with our wishes.
We have no idea what the actual wage increases were, since the “tip credit” was used by many employers. Also, Seattle was booming during the period studied. How did the researchers control for the effects of skyrocketing employment and economic growth in Seattle?
The Bray and von Storch 5th International Survey of Climate Scientists consists of over a hundred statements related to climate change and its effects. For each statement, respondents indicated their level of agreement or opinion via a seven-point scale. Around a third of the 651 respondents were involved (as author, reviewer, etc.) with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report (2014 IPCC AR5).
Of the scientists convinced or confident that climate change is occurring, 48% were convinced that most of the recent or near future climate change is the result of anthropogenic causes; 26% were very confident of this; and 14% were modestly confident.
...only those authors who self-rated their papers as having an opinion on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) were asked if they personally endorsed AGW themselves. These authors represented 62.7% of the whole sample - 746 out of 1189 respondents. The authors who self-rated their papers as having no position on AGW were not asked about their opinion on global warming. They were also climate scientists...
...we tend to become more categorical in our opinions when they serve as markers of belonging to a moral community.
Doctors need to be willing to act boldly, willing to do nothing, and willing to change their minds. Because the health of the patient is what’s important – not a foolish consistency with past opinions....So it should be when the planet is the patient.
Those few hundred milliseconds between relief and renewed vigilance. Researching and thinking hard before the game - and then the payoff, the sense-making, in-between the momentary triumphs.
Living in the jungle is hard: building nests every evening, extracting the nutritious stuff from thousands of plants. That takes deliberation, reasoning, inference, problem-solving, weighing the pros and the cons.
The idea is that competing and cooperating with one's fellows takes smarts. Individual animals who are better at these social interactions are more likely to transmit their genes to future generations. Over evolutionary time, you get a smarter species.
Thoughts are remnants of automatic brain processes that have temporarily captured our attention. If we are aware of a thought, we have recreated it.
"Our conscious experience is assembled on the fly, as our brains respond to constantly changing inputs, calculate potential courses of action, and execute responses." Michael S. Gazzaniga
Sometimes simply doing something is the payoff, especially when coming after a period of indecision. Of course, the same behavior may have multiple potential payoffs: enjoyable in its own right, doubly so if applauded by others, triply so if it advances one's career.