One of the reasons behind the lack of of a change in people’s behaviours towards environmental issues, is that there is a dichotomy between risk and the perception of risk. When it comes to processing information and stimuli, humans are affected by several biases that skew their perceptions. Failure to act can come about in several different ways. Firstly, paying attention to the ways one can help prevent these environmental threats, can take a lot of cognitive effort. Therefore, to save cognitive resources, individuals tend to ignore certain risks, how their behaviour has an effect and how to manage it. This is to avoid a constant state of anxiety and preoccupation with one’s actions, to protect oneself from harm and too much psychological stress.

Secondly, according to psychological stress theories, there can be two responses to environmental problems after the process of appraisal (Lazarus, 1999). When individuals are confronted with a stressful stimulus, they will first appraise the magnitude of it (primary appraisal) and, secondly, the degree to which they are equipped to cope with it (secondary appraisal). In the case of the loss of biodiversity and environmental issues, the magnitude of the threat is very large and therefore can cause high levels of anxiety and stress. This, paired with a potential perceived lack of ability to cope and control the situation, can lead to two strategies to cope with the stressor. Certain individuals will revert to problem-focused coping, where they attempt to deal with the stressful stimulus itself (e.g. adopt environmentally friendly behaviours, educating themselves and others). Whereas others will revert to emotion-focused coping, where they attempt to decrease the emotional and affective effect of the stressor (e.g. avoidance and denial of impact).

Furthermore, biases and perception influencers aren’t mutually exclusive, so it is likely that individuals will experience them together to further impact their perception of environmental threats and risks concerning the Mediterranean Sea. The loss of biodiversity, for instance, will have such a sizeable effect on human lives and will becaused by a multiplicity of sources. Thusly, it is possible that individuals who are inactive in environmental contexts are being affected by these two processes. Since there are many things a person has to do to behave sustainably, it is also possible that individuals will then ignore the threats and the consequences of their actions (e.g. when buying single-use plastics) to avoid scrutinizing and overthinking their every action. Furthermore, it is possible that, due to the sizeable impact of environmental changes on human lives and people’s perceived inability to cope, individuals prefer taking emotion-focused coping strategies to protect themselves from stress. However, these faults in perception can be changed with Environmental Education (EE).

Next: Tragedy of the commons

Useful: Environmental Education