Hi Reader, how are you handling the political developments?
You might think it's necessary to put all initiatives for change on ice...
However, I am here to make sure that doesn't happen!
Indeed, you'll need to deal with more resistance than ever before—whether it's an EHS team, a skeptical supervisor, or a non-compliant lab member. However, we will drive change anyway.
Here’s what might stop others—and how to overcome it effectively:
Today's Lesson: Overcoming Resistance
How to drive change on several levels
Number Of The Day
People believe in what aligns with their upbringing rather than what is actually true. The Illusory Truth Effect is based on a study in which participants rated the truthfulness of trivia statements. Confidence in the statements (even when false) increased from an average rating of 0.5 on a seven-point scale simply because participants had been repeatedly exposed to them. Since misinformation never stops, advocacy for positive change should neither!
0.5
Driving Change Despite Resistance
By default, we avoid effort, uncertainty, and setbacks. Therefore, you will encounter resistance at least on four levels:
1. Inner Resistance
The first challenge is yourself. Too often, we underestimate our abilities and fall for the allures of our minds, making us insecure about effort and the probability of success.
Although this data from 1416 individuals from Italy (mean age 23) might not strongly support this notion, I would argue there is a clear trend between Self-Esteem and Self-Liking. Grow beyond your anxiety and realize who you want to be!
Key Realization: We find excuses as long as we feel scared, no matter how important or valuable the alternative.
Overcome resistance with these 3 key questions:
What false beliefs do you hold? (What limits your belief in change) → Identify the root of those beliefs. Once done, assume any limitation is just an illusion. How would you make it work if you knew it was possible? Where could you find inspiration?
What concerns you? (What makes you insecure?) → Some doubts stem from circumstantial fears, like contamination risks. But remember: you are never truly safe—you’ve simply learned to manage that risk in your routine work. Play the worst case out in your mind, learn from it, set up a plan, and then take action with full focus.
What reinforces the right behavior? (What makes you feel good?) → Find an easy first step that provides a quick win. Do something today, no matter how small, and plan the next action for tomorrow. The key is to find something you can celebrate – therefore, quantify your savings, collect the waste to visualize progress, or write a short diary entry.
Self-Confidence and performance (in the paper termed “Accuracy) seem to correlate. Data includes information from 15-year old students from Singapore.
2. Onboarding the Motivated
Key Realization: Most people do what others do. What like-minded people accept is perceived as safe, meaningful, and reasonable.
Set up: One test individual was paired with 7 actors. In multiple round of inquiry, participants should match lines of similar length. In some, actors voted intentionally for a false pairing – surprisingly often making the test individual choose a similar response. However, tendencies for conformity seem to change throughout time.
How to Drive Change: To move people beyond lip service, drive change with them in a highly visible movement. Simply exposing them to your activities and letting them take part suffices to separate the wheat from the chaff. Over time, peer pressure will bring others on board too.
Visibility – People need to know the movement exists. Communicate clearly and frequently, and make it enjoyable. In other words, keep the door open when discussing sustainability over a beer or wine.
Address their fears - Provide practical solutions that make them feel safe. Here, perception is reality—if someone hesitates to reuse pipettes in the hood, simply offering to look over their shoulder the first time they try can make all the difference.
Recognize their efforts - Acknowledge their contributions and remind them of their successes. If they care about tangible metrics (e.g., financial impact), offer an Excel template to estimate cost reductions.
Competitions – These can be effective, but only if the competitive aspect aligns with something people actually value. Nobody wants to compete over who writes in the smallest font to save paper.
Streamlining for Late Adopters – Allow those joining later to integrate without feeling like they "missed out." Frame it as "recruitment rounds" or say, “It was almost impossible for you to start earlier because of X, but now you can.”
3. Catching Disinterested Groups
Key Realization: Your counterpart’s worldview, assumptions, and beliefs significantly differ from yours even though you both are scientists.
Beliefs shape how we see and act in the world. They’re not just thoughts but frameworks that filter reality, determining what we notice, value, and pursue. If your beliefs are flawed, your actions lead to chaos; if they’re aligned with reality, they bring competence and meaning.
Resistance often stems from the perception that the benefits of change are too low. If someone believes that saving pipette tips is meaningless compared to industrial plastic waste, convincing them based on environmental arguments alone is often futile.
If sustainability isn't their passion, don’t think anyone is able ignite it.
How to Drive Change: Shift the focus to what they do care about. Find common ground with sustainability. Here, you seem to only care about efficiency, safety, or improved research output.
Optimizing pipetting practices saves money on expensive antibodies → More resources
Optimizing waste handling protects lab members → Safety
Optimizing protocols improves data quality → Higher Impact Factor publications
Bonus: Involving superiors without being confrontational can be a powerful way to bypass resistance. However, since this is a sensitive topic, I’ve shared the details only in our Slack community – join/read here.
Applying The Knowledge
Before convincing others, ensure you’ve figured yourself out first. Onboarding others requires a lot of emotional stamina. Plus, having already changed your own workflows serves as robust proof.
Your Green-Psy Cheat Sheet - for non-apparent Resistances
I listed the 7 most common psychological barriers and how to use them to your advantage:
Personal Hurdles
Loss Aversion → Scientists fear data loss and workflow disruptions. Small-scale testing before a major rollout is key (they might need your help or guidance).
Certainty & Reliability → Frame sustainability as selective optimizations, not as an overhaul of protocols or workflows.
We all feel more pain from losing than pleasure from winning the same amount (Loss aversion). On top of that, we overvalue what we own beyond its objective worth (Endowment Effect), and once we’ve invested effort, we tend to invest disproportionately more to finish it (Sunk Cost Fallacy). All these traits can hold you back from making positive changes.
Socially Anchored Barriers
Fear of Insufficiency → Reduce uncertainty by making participation easy and intuitive. The more complex a change appears, the less likely people are to engage due to fear of failure.
Status & Recognition → PIs may support sustainability efforts if framed as mentorship opportunities or certifications for students. Share awards and certificates that can be added to CVs.
Guilt → People want to avoid negative feelings. Instead of fear-mongering, create a vision of success that people want to be part of.
However, be prepared: Unfortunately, some individuals will resist change no matter what you do. (For more direct words on this, check/join Slack.)
Upcoming Lesson:
Saving Plastics Case Study
How We Feel Today
References
Hasher, L., et al., 1977. Frequency and the conference of referential validity. J. Verbal Learn. Verbal Behav., 16(1), 107–112. doi:10.1016/s0022-5371(77)80012-1.
Polage, D.C., 2012. Making up history: False memories of fake news stories. Eur. J. Psychol., 8(2). doi:10.5964/ejop.v8i2.456.
Stankov, L., et al., 2012. Confidence: A better predictor of academic achievement than self-efficacy, self-concept and anxiety? Learn.
Asch, S., 1951. Effects of group pressure on the modification and distortion of judgments. In: G. E. Swanson, T. M. Newcomb, and E. L. Hartley, eds. Groups, Leadership and Men: Research in Human Relations. Carnegie Press, pp. 177–190. ISBN 978-0-608-11271-8.
Walker, M.B., et al., 1996. Conformity in the Asch Task as a function of age. J. Soc. Psychol., 136(3), 367–372. doi:10.1080/00224545.1996.9714014.
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