To psychologize is to interpret or analyze people in psychological terms, such as needs, fears, or identity issues. Psychological explanations generally imply that behavior, beliefs, or attitudes are "without an objective, or reasonably logical foundation”. It is no surprise, then, that psychological explanations tend to ignore whether people have a valid case for their point of view.

In other words, to psychologize is a way of saying it’s all in your head.

These thoughts were triggered by a recent conversation during which I argued that American consumer sentiment has improved quite a bit during the Trump years and I thought progressives should at least acknowledge that fact. My companion responded that consumer sentiment was merely subjective and had no bearing on whether the current administration’s policies had anything to do with people’s actual situations. I pointed out that consumer sentiment was an excellent indicator of future GDP growth, so there is something objective that the sentiment is responding to. Sentiment (consumer or otherwise) does track reality to a greater or lesser extent - which is to say: to some extent. He shrugged and changed the subject.

Then just today I came across an academic paper that “explained” why some people are climate skeptics. According to the authors, people may be skeptical of climate change, because 1) “of their need to believe in a just world”; 2) climate change “threatens a deeply seated need to protect existing socioeconomic structures”; 3) they believe that humans should have dominion over nature; 4) “their identities are tied to cultural groups which are collectively skeptical of climate change”; 5) climate change solutions “threaten beliefs stemming from their political ideology”; and 6) “because they are unaware that nearly all scientists agree that it is occurring”.

This is psychologizing gone amuck. (And I say that as someone who accepts the consensus that the climate is changing mostly as a result of human activity). Nowhere in this paper was there any acknowledgement that skeptics might have some valid points, re dishonesty about the “consensus”, prior environmentalist false alarms, misrepresentation of “business-as-usual” scenarios,  biased reporting in the media, the coupling of climate activism with leftist political agendas, and publication bias in the literature.

Psychology is implicated in everything humans do, think and feel - as in all humans, whether climate change skeptics or climate change believers. But “psychology” is not independent of reality. Things are rarely “in our heads” or “in the world”. Pointing out that a belief serves a psychological need (a “use-value”) says nothing about whether that belief is correct (it’s “truth-value”).

Links and Reference:

Psychologize: “to interpret or analyze [people] in psychological terms” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/psychologize

Psychological: “without an objective, or reasonably logical foundation” https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/psychological

Santos, Jessica, and Irina Feygina. 2017. “Responding to Climate Change Skepticism and the Ideological Divide.” Michigan Journal of Sustainability 5 (1): 5–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3998/mjs.12333712.0005.102