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Philip Howlett is a Friendship and Cross-Cultural Researcher at University of Bath, working with young changemakers and Global Action Plan to research the role of values in environmental engagement. Here, he introduces the project and research team.

As a friendship researcher, it might seem strange how I’ve ended up as a research associate on the environmental project “When young people discover their shared values: Effects on hope and environmental engagement”, a collaboration between Global Action Plan and the University of Bath. However, friendship could not be more relevant when it comes to both values and the environment.

Research finds that young people do care about other people and the planet, but they think their peers do not feel the same. This values perception gap can leave people feeling disconnected from others, hopeless about the future, and disengaged from taking meaningful action.

With everything I know about friendship, the values perception gap existing among young people is highly surprising. Our teenage years are the time in our life when we tend to have the most active friendships. Our friends are more likely to share our values and attitudes, and even adopt similar environmental behaviours such as taking the bus. So why do young people fail to see these similarities? Perhaps young people do not talk about their values and focus on what sets them apart rather than what unites them. Therefore, we need to find a way for young people to discover their shared values so that we can foster a sense of connection and get young people more involved in environmental action.

Our team at the University of Bath is currently working hard on a project to address this issue. We are investigating the extent of the value perception gap among young people and how the size of the gap relates to hopeless and environmental disengagement. We are also testing interventions to reduce this gap and in turn inspire hope and environmental action. Young people are a particularly important group in this regard, because they will need to have the strength to deal with a climate crisis that will likely only get worse over the course of their lifetime. By instilling greater hope and action, we seek to equip them with this resilience to deal with challenges in the future.

And who is the team? Well, the project lead is Lukas Wolf, a social psychologist specialising in the effects of our shared values. There is also Greg Maio whose research includes the psychology of values and attitudes, Elizabeth Marks whose research explores eco-emotions and connection to nature, and Lorraine Whitmarsh whose research focuses on climate change perceptions and behaviours. Finally, Pip Howlett, myself, a friendship and cross-cultural researcher.

With Global Action Plan’s help, we are currently working with schools to complete the second stage of our project. In the next blog, I will give an update on some of the work we’ve been doing so far, along with some promising findings. So, stay tuned!

Read more about the project here