Alexa, Play “Earth” by Lil’ Dicky
When all else fails, turn to music, or at least that’s what Helen Prior suggests in her article, “How Can Music Help Us to Address the Climate Crisis?”(2022). It is no secret that music has an impressive power to influence individuals’ emotions, moods, beliefs, motivations, and behaviors. At least for me, I know I can always count on a certain playlist to motivate me to study, another one to workout or another one to simply lift my mood when I’m having a bad day. Prior analyzes the influence that music has on individuals’ cognitions and actions and suggests, why not use that power to help create some good in the world, like protecting the environment?
For context, climate change is a rapidly growing issue for our planet and it has disastrous effects on essentially everyone and everything on Earth. According to the United Nations, climate change refers to “the long-term shifts in temperatures and weather patterns” (un.org). These shifts in temperature and weather patterns have come as a result of humans repeatedly partaking in damaging activities, specifically, burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, and gas which increases greenhouse gas emissions. Climate change has a wide variety of negative consequences, affecting our health, ability to grow food, housing, safety, and even our jobs, hence, creating the climate crisis. Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where the main solutions need to come from corporations and countries as a whole, but that doesn’t mean that the individual efforts of every person wouldn’t make a difference, which Prior is trying to understand how to facilitate, through the use of music. By using music as a means to influence individuals’ behaviors, beliefs, and motivations, an important message regarding the climate crisis can be sent to a mass audience, but it must be done correctly. Prior is taking a holistic approach to understanding the theories behind both environmental psychology and music psychology and using that knowledge to bridge the gap and find a way to use music in an influential and meaningful way regarding the climate crisis.
Prior identified that many human behaviors and motivations can be explained through Goal Framing Theory, which suggests that every individual has three main goals that influence how and why they behave in certain ways. The three goals are as follows:
- The Hedonic Goal: The hedonic goal is described as the desire to “maintain or improve the way one feels right now.” In relation to environmental behavior, the hedonic goal poses a threat because it suggests that people will often take the easier, more enjoyable option which may be worse for the environment. Prior uses the example of taking a quicker, colder shower which would benefit the environment, but would not necessarily be as enjoyable or improve how one feels right now.
- The Gain Goal: The gain goal is the goal of “maintaining or improving one’s resources” which in the case of environmental behaviors could have to do with making or saving money, or appearing of higher status. This goal is associated with two sub-theories, the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Protection Motivation Theory. These two theories explain how beliefs, attitudes, and intentions influence actual behaviors, as well as how the analysis of costs and benefits can impact whether individuals implement those behaviors or not.
- The Normative Goal: The normative goal is probably the most familiar aspect of goal framing theory as it is the goal to “behave appropriately, conforming to social norms and rules.” The normative goal suggests that in general, individuals feel the need to “fit in” and conform to the informally created “rules” of society such as saying “bless you” if someone sneezes, going to the end of lines, not picking your nose, and hopefully taking care of the environment. These norms can be both personal or societal and an important feature of norms is that they are flexible, meaning they can be altered and adapted depending on situations and beliefs.
These three main goals offer insights into environmental behavior and allow researchers, like Prior, to better understand the reasoning behind certain actions. For example, based on the hedonic goal, Prior anticipates there to be a reaction between people’s anticipated positive emotions and their likelihood of engaging in pro-environmental behavior. Additionally, she believes that based on the gain goal there is the potential for the mere influence of musical performers to affect how their fans behave, and therefore, if popular musicians were spreading the message of environmental awareness, perhaps it would lead their fan’s base to be more aware as well. Finally, the normative goal poses the opportunity for music to be used as a platform to create a society as a whole that is more environmentally conscious, therefore creating a new set of norms revolving around environmentally friendly behaviors.
A prime example of these three goals coming together is in Lil Dicky’s song, “Earth”, in which the rapper took on the challenge of raising awareness for climate change through his music. The song came out in 2019 when climate change was beginning to gain some attention, but it still wasn’t viewed as a pressing enough issue for people to take action against it. To spark some motivation amongst the younger generation, Lil Dicky, along with 30 other celebrities ranging from Justin Bieber to Leonardo DiCaprio created a song centered around protecting the environment and encouraging their fans to change their behavior. This song encouraged prosocial behavior in each of the 750 million streams that it received, perfectly combining environmental psychology with music psychology to utilize music as a method for environmental change. First, the hedonic goal was fulfilled from the satisfying effects of listening to music while also creating a sense of positive emotions by making their music listening feel purposeful and meaningful. Secondly, Lil Dicky, generously vowed to donate all of the proceeds from his new hit, to various environmental resources, therefore allowing his listeners to know that every time they listen to the song, they are creating revenue that will be donated to a valuable cause. Lastly, by reaching an audience of millions of people, Lil Dicky was able to shift the culture of many young individuals to make climate change awareness something that is “cool” and worth caring about.
While “Earth” by Lil Dicky may be one of the more popular current examples of how music can be used to help address the climate crisis, Prior would agree that it shows promising evidence that music is something that can really make a difference in this situation and should be taken advantage of more frequently. If more artists were to follow in Lil Dicky’s footsteps, more fans could be reached, and more people could be exposed to the environmental crisis that is taking place and hopefully be convinced to take a stand against it by donating to organizations like Earth Alliance and Sierra Club or just by changing some of your daily habits to be more environmentally conscious.
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Heath, H. (2019, October 20). What is the goal framing theory? Rampfesthudson.com. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://www.rampfesthudson.com/what-is-the-goal-framing-theory/#:~:text=We%20introduce%20goal%2Dframing%20theory,that%20are%20in%20the%20background.
Prior, H. M. (2022, February 1). How can music help us to address the climate crisis? Sage Journals. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20592043221075725?ai=8nv9&ui=rm1b&af=T
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Sierra Club home page: Explore, enjoy and protect the planet. Sierra Club. (n.d.). Retrieved May 11, 2022, from https://www.sierraclub.org/
United Nations. (n.d.). What is climate change? United Nations. Retrieved March 28, 2022, from https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change
