Research in brief: exploring the link between mindfulness and environmental behavior
10/02/2023
It’s a fairly common paradox. While most individuals want to take different measures to help fight the climate crisis – many don’t manage to put their good intentions into practice. A new study by researchers in France and Italy focuses on this so-called ‘intention-behavior gap’ or ‘green gap’. In other words, why don’t more people with environmentally friendly attitudes actually engage in more sustainable behavior?
The research team decided to study one potential way of reducing this gap – namely mindfulness meditation practices. “Recent studies have explored how mindfulness – the state of being aware or conscious – can foster attitude changes toward climate change and have demonstrated a positive correlation in terms of intentions for more environmentally-friendly behavior,” explains Julie BAYLE-CORDIER, professor of ethics and mindfulness at IÉSEG and one of the co-authors of the study. “One of the key issues, however, is now understanding the mechanisms for reducing the gap between what we intend to do, and what we actually do in practice.”