Papers by Carmen M Lawrence
Policy Analysis In Australia, 2015
This report draws together the evidence from multiple reports on the resettlement policy as well ... more This report draws together the evidence from multiple reports on the resettlement policy as well as the intimate stories of women living in fear on Nauru, where neither the local police nor some of the commercial agencies charged with protecting them have shown much desire to do so. The placement of four Australian Federal Police officers on Nauru has seen no improvement in protection for women. Real concerns about the failure of the Nauru police to investigate and charge perpetrators means there is little likelihood that the women will be protected on the island or that perpetrators will be punished for their crimes.
Cover: A firefighter addressing a community meeting. Photo by CFA Communities and Communication.
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2020
In Australia and many other bushfire-prone countries, at-risk residents are encouraged to share t... more In Australia and many other bushfire-prone countries, at-risk residents are encouraged to share the responsibility of bushfire management by preparing themselves and their properties to reduce the impact from bushfires (Australasian Fire and Emergency Services Authorities Council, 2010). Bushfire preparedness involves both physical preparedness -preparing the property and oneself to stay and defend or leave early -and psychological preparedness -reducing and managing the psychological and emotional impact of a bushfire Teague, McLeod, & Pascoe, 2010). To date, the primary focus has been on understanding and improving physical preparedness, while there has been less attention to psychological preparedness, particularly in the bushfire context. The central aim of this thesis was to develop a reliable and valid self-report tool of bushfire psychological preparedness to facilitate research in this field. This central aim was broken down into four subordinate goals: identifying current shortcomings in the definition and measurement of psychological preparedness; developing a comprehensive definition and conceptualisation of bushfire psychological preparedness; developing a self-report tool of bushfire psychological preparedness; and validating the self-report tool. These aims were pursued using the Classical Test Theory (CTT) approach to scale development. A systematic literature search confirmed that there were no consistent definitions or well-established measures of psychological preparedness and provided a rationale for the development of a multidimensional conceptualisation consisting of two primary elements, namely Bushfire Knowledge and Psychological Coping Capacity, the latter consisting of five secondary elements: coping self-efficacy, locus of control, proactivity, optimism and social support. A large item pool (150 items) was developed to reflect the conceptualisation and provide the foundation for the v Bushfire Psychological Preparedness Scale (BPPS). The relevance and clarity of these items were then judged by a panel of experts and refined accordingly. Preliminary evidence of the reliability and validity of the BPPS was obtained from a survey of residents in bushfire prone areas. A final, more extensive study demonstrated that the BPPS met the most important criteria for satisfactory reliability and validity. Together these studies resulted in the development of a 33 item self-report measure of bushfire psychological preparedness. They also showed that psychological preparedness is related to physical preparedness and perceived mental preparedness, in addition to being influenced by both direct and indirect bushfire experience; voluntary experience; the type of bushfire plans people make; experience of psychological preparedness education; and age. This study paves the way for better research into psychological preparedness, with a view to improving people's safety in the face of the increasing frequency and severity of bushfires. vi Contents
International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction, 2020
This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the ad... more This is a PDF file of an article that has undergone enhancements after acceptance, such as the addition of a cover page and metadata, and formatting for readability, but it is not yet the definitive version of record. This version will undergo additional copyediting, typesetting and review before it is published in its final form, but we are providing this version to give early visibility of the article. Please note that, during the production process, errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2019
The public perception of climate change as abstract and distant may undermine climate action. Acc... more The public perception of climate change as abstract and distant may undermine climate action. According to construal level theory, whether a phenomenon is perceived as psychologically distant or close is associated with whether it is construed as abstract or concrete, respectively. Previous work has established a link between psychological distance and climate action, but the associated role of construal level has yet to be explored in depth. In two representative surveys of Australians (N = 217 and N = 216), and one experiment (N = 319), we tested whether construal level and psychological distance from climate change predicted pro-environmental intentions and policy support, and whether manipulating distance and construal increased pro-environmental behaviors such as donations. Results showed that psychological closeness to climate change predicted more engagement in pro-environmental behaviors, while construal level produced inconsistent results, and manipulations of both variables failed to produce increases in pro-environmental behaviors. In contrast with the central tenet of construal level theory, construal level was unrelated to psychological distance in all three studies. Our findings suggest that the hypothesized relationship between construal level and psychological distance may not hold in the context of climate change, and that it may be difficult to change pro-environmental behavior by manipulating these variables.
Social Science & Medicine, 2019
Rationale: Childhood vaccination is a safe and effective way of reducing infectious diseases. Yet... more Rationale: Childhood vaccination is a safe and effective way of reducing infectious diseases. Yet, public confidence in vaccination is waning, driven in part by the 'manufacture of doubt' by anti-vaccination activists and websites. However, there is little research examining the psychological underpinnings of anti-vaccination rhetoric among parents. Objectives: Here, we examined the structure and moral roots of anti-vaccination attitudes amongst Australian parents active on social media parenting sites. Methods: Participants (N = 296) completed questionnaires assessing their vaccination attitudes, behavioural intentions, and moral preferences. Results: Using Latent Profile Analysis, we identified three profiles (i.e., groups), interpretable as vaccine "accepters", "fence sitters", and "rejecters", each characterised by a distinct pattern of vaccination attitudes and moral preferences. Accepters exhibited positive vaccination attitudes and strong intentions to vaccinate; rejecters exhibited the opposite pattern of responses; whilst fence sitters exhibited an intermediate pattern of responses. Compared to accepters, rejecters and fence sitters exhibited a heightened moral preference for liberty (belief in the rights of the individual) and harm (concern about the wellbeing of others). Compared to acceptors and fence sitters, rejecters exhibited a heightened moral preference for purity (an abhorrence for impurity of body), and a diminished moral preference for authority (deference to those in positions of power). Conclusion: Given the sensitivity of fence sitters and rejecters to liberty-related moral concerns, our research cautions against the use of adversarial approaches-e.g., No Jab, No Pay legislation-that promote vaccination uptake by restricting parental freedoms, as they may backfire amongst parents ambivalent toward vaccination.
Global Environmental Change, 2018
Current research shows that emotions can motivate climate engagement and action, but precisely ho... more Current research shows that emotions can motivate climate engagement and action, but precisely how has received scant attention. We propose that strong emotional responses to climate change result from perceiving one's "objects of care" as threatened by climate change, which motivates caring about climate change itself, and in turn predicts behaviour. In two studies, we find that climate scientists (N = 44) experience greater emotional intensity about climate change than do students (N = 94) and the general population (N = 205), and that patterns of emotional responses explain differences in support for climate change policy. Scientists tied their emotional responses to concern about consequences of climate change to future generations and the planet, as well as personal identities associated with responsibility to act. Our findings suggest that "objects of care" that link people to climate change may be crucial to understanding why some people feel more strongly about the issue than others, and how emotions can prompt action.
Frontiers in Psychology, 2016
Childhood vaccination is widely considered to be one of the most successful public health interve... more Childhood vaccination is widely considered to be one of the most successful public health interventions. Yet, the effective delivery of vaccination depends upon public willingness to vaccinate. Recently, many countries have faced problems with vaccine hesitancy, where a growing number of parents perceive vaccination to be unsafe or unnecessary, leading some to delay or refuse vaccines for their children. Effective intervention strategies for countering this problem are currently sorely lacking, however. Here, we propose that this may be because existing strategies are grounded more in intuition than insights from psychology. Consequently, such strategies are sometimes at variance with basic psychological principles and assumptions. By going against the grain of cognition, such strategies potentially run the risk of undermining persuasive efforts to reduce vaccine hesitancy. We demonstrate this by drawing on key insights from cognitive and social psychology to show how various known features of human psychology can lead many intuitively appealing intervention strategies to backfire, yielding unintended and undesirable repercussions. We conclude with a summary of potential avenues of investigation that may be more effective in addressing vaccine hesitancy. Our key message is that intervention strategies must be crafted that go with the grain of cognition by incorporating key insights from the psychological sciences.
WIREs Climate Change, 2017
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is seeking to prepare for loss... more The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) is seeking to prepare for losses arising from climate change. This is an emerging issue that challenges climate science and policy to engage more deeply with values, places, and people's experiences. We first provide insight into the UNFCCC framing of loss and damage and current approaches to valuation. We then draw on the growing literature on value‐ and place‐based approaches to adaptation, including limits to adaptation, which examines loss as nuanced and sensitive to the nature of people's lives. Complementary perspectives from human geography, psychology, philosophy, economics, and ecology underscore the importance of understanding what matters to people and what they may likely consider to constitute loss. A significant body of knowledge illustrates that loss is often given meaning through lived, embodied, and place‐based experiences, and so is more felt than tangible. We end with insights into recent s...
Government agencies and community leaders have begun to examine the problem of violence in Indige... more Government agencies and community leaders have begun to examine the problem of violence in Indigenous communities. Given the severity and pervasiveness of violence in Indigenous communities, a high level of coordination between agencies and programs is essential such is as due involvement of health, substance abuse, education, child protection, and law enforcement agencies.
Every person suffers from fear in some way or the other, which sometimes proves to be advantageou... more Every person suffers from fear in some way or the other, which sometimes proves to be advantageous, though high fear has widespread and distorting effects resulting in psychological and physical effects, distorting policy choices. Even in democratic countries fear is used as a political tool and such fears are aroused and exploited by the people who are in power or those without power in order to gain it.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2016
This study examined the relationships between place attachment, the theory of planned behaviour a... more This study examined the relationships between place attachment, the theory of planned behaviour and place-protective action. Place attachment was higher in people who evaluated place change as negative. However, only half of the people who thought change would be negative reported protesting. The theory of planned behaviour was found to predict protesting. People who had positive attitudes about the value of protesting, who thought that most people around them were protesting, and who had greater perceived behavioural control were more likely to protest. A follow-up study after the place-protective actions had been successful found that people who thought their actions had influenced decision making were more likely to intend to remain civically engaged. These results have implications for our understanding of civic behaviour and the roles attachment to place, attitudes, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control play in how people interpret and react to place change.
Too little, too late for the Burrup The decision by the Minister for the Environment to give Nati... more Too little, too late for the Burrup The decision by the Minister for the Environment to give National Heritage listing to the rock art of the Burrup Peninsula and Dampier Archipelago is overdue, insufficient, and lacks courage. Greens Senator Rachel Siewert, Labor’s Dr Carmen Lawrence and Independent Peter Andren welcome the listing, but say: “The Minister’s belated decision to recognise the undisputed heritage values of the Dampier Archipelago and the Burrup Peninsula comes too late to stop the damage that has occurred, and is sadly framed to allow further damage. It would have taken uncommon courage for the Minister to protect the full scope of the Burrup art against the wishes of Woodside Energy. Unfortunately, he hasn’t shown that courage.” “The Burrup petroglyphs form an organic cultural record that cannot be chopped up into bits and pieces, especially when the government has never bothered to fund a comprehensive scientific and historical survey of the artworks. What we do know is that the Burrup is ‘a place of unparalleled artistic, cultural, religious and historical significance’ as far as Australia is concerned, and that it is one of the most incredible continuous records of ancient human culture on the planet.” “At this point we call on Woodside Energy and the Western Australian government to go one better than the federal Minister, and to protect Australia’s heritage by relocating the proposed Pluto gas plant to one of the perfectly adequate alternative sites that have been identified.”
Journal of the Association For the Study of Australian Literature, Nov 29, 2007
The complexity and breadth of both rural and urban Indigenous culture are analysed and an effort ... more The complexity and breadth of both rural and urban Indigenous culture are analysed and an effort is made to understand Indigenous culture and experience. Progress in reducing violence and abuse in affected communities can be achieved with a proper understanding of the causes of such violence and the most important prerequisite to produce sustained improvements in violence levels is the involvement of Indigenous people in decision-making at all levels.
Journal of Environmental Psychology, 2014
This study explores the relationships between place of residence, living in a threatened place an... more This study explores the relationships between place of residence, living in a threatened place and the subsets of place attachment: place identity and place dependence. Six hundred participants living in south-west Western Australia in rural and urban areas with varying degrees of bushfire risk responded to surveys asking about their reasons for living in their local area, their place attachment and their sociodemographic details. MANOVAs revealed a significant effect of place of residence on place identity with rural residents reporting higher place identity than urban dwellers. Urban dwellers reported lower place dependence than rural dwellers except when they lived in a fire prone area, in which case their place dependence was on par with that of rural residents. Socio-demographic predictors of both place identity and place dependence to the home and local area were also explored, these included length of residence, education, and owning one's home.
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Papers by Carmen M Lawrence