The psychology of collective climate action: a systematic review

Worldwide, a small minority of individuals mobilizes to address the climate crisis through activism, advocacy, educational initiatives, civic engagement, and community projects. Understanding the underlying psychology can inform the collective action efforts needed for fundamental societal changes. In the last years, collective action research has drastically increased. By systematically reviewing the literature, we synthesize and critically evaluate the empirical evidence on the psychological underpinnings of collective climate action. The review examines (a) which psychological constructs, collective mitigation behaviour, methods, and samples have been studied, (b) which psychological constructs are associated with collective climate action, and (c) what methodological limitations constrain that evidence, including non-objective behaviour measures (e.g., self-reported behaviour or intentions) and lack of causality through the research design. We searched four databases for publications between 2010 and 2024.