University of Leicester
Browse

The Power Threat Meaning Framework and the climate and ecological crises

Download (211.85 kB)
journal contribution
posted on 2023-01-10, 10:19 authored by Gareth Morgan, Garret Barnwell, Lucy Johnstone, Kirsten Shukla, Annie Mitchell

Climate change poses an existential threat to today’s and future generations. Within this context, important debates are taking place about the risk of individualising and de-contextualising both climate-related distress and denial. Seeking to re-centre context and power, we tentatively share our thoughts on how the Power Threat Meaning Framework (PTMF) might provide a useful lens to understand different responses to climate change.  The paper draws on existing research, theory and experiences to elaborate on the domains of the PTMF, which include Power, Threat, Meaning, Threat Responses and Strengths. We focus on ideological and ecological power, with the latter proposed as a new aspect of power to be considered for future iterations of the PTMF.  We illustrate how the different domains of the PTMF can be brought together to generate meta-narratives by offering a climate trauma pattern. We hope this article will be of use to activists, academics and professionals in supporting non-pathologising understandings of different reactions to climate breakdown while also suggesting ways to move forward.

History

Author affiliation

School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Published in

PINS-Psychology in Society

Issue

63

Pagination

83 - 109

Publisher

Psychology in Society

issn

1015-6046

Copyright date

2022

Available date

2023-01-10

Language

en

Usage metrics

    University of Leicester Publications

    Categories

    No categories selected

    Exports

    RefWorks
    BibTeX
    Ref. manager
    Endnote
    DataCite
    NLM
    DC