We review findings from social psychology and related fields to examine the bidirectional relationship between the public—what are their views about climate change and the need for policies to address the climate crisis—and the politicians who are making (or not making) climate policy and beholden to electoral constraints. We illustrate social psychological pressures that influence policy support and their relevance to how policies emerge from coordinated action and how barriers impede policy progress. We review two factors that have been the focus of research within communication, political science, and psychology and that are relevant to how climate policies are promoted (or undermined): activists and the media. We examine the process by which activists amplify and transmit the preferences of the public to politicians, and how research on persuasion and social norms helps understand how this effect can be amplified or diminished. We also describe how the media environment can amplify or diminish the roles of the public and the politicians in influencing each other. As the world confronts the climate crisis, research from social psychologists, environmental psychologists, political scientists, and communication scholars has examined the interrelations between the public, politicians, media, and activists, but largely in a disconnected way. The current paper provides a social psychological framework to integrate these approaches and, in so doing, suggest new directions for research and theory-guided ways to influence policy around climate change.

中文翻译：

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公众与政治家之间在气候政策方面的联系和错误联系：社会心理学视角

我们回顾了社会心理学和相关领域的研究结果，以考察公众（他们对气候变化的看法以及解决气候危机的政策的必要性）与制定（或不制定）气候政策和政策的政治家之间的双向关系。受选举限制。我们阐述了影响政策支持的社会心理压力及其与政策如何通过协调行动产生以及障碍如何阻碍政策进展的相关性。我们回顾了传播学、政治学和心理学领域研究重点并且与如何促进（或破坏）气候政策相关的两个因素：活动家和媒体。我们研究活动家放大公众偏好并将其传递给政治家的过程，以及对说服力和社会规范的研究如何帮助理解如何放大或减弱这种影响。我们还描述了媒体环境如何放大或削弱公众和政客相互影响的作用。当世界面临气候危机时，社会心理学家、环境心理学家、政治学家和传播学家的研究审视了公众、政治家、媒体和活动家之间的相互关系，但很大程度上是相互脱节的。本文提供了一个社会心理学框架来整合这些方法，并在此过程中提出了影响气候变化政策的研究新方向和理论指导方法。