Coping with transition pain: An emotions perspective on phase-outs in sustainability transitions

Abstract

With this perspective paper, we aim to raise awareness of and offer starting points for studying the role of emotions and associated behavioural responses to losses in relation to phase-outs. We start from a psychological perspective and explain how losses due to phasing out dominant practices, structures, and cultures may threaten core psychological needs and lead to - what we introduce as - ‘transition pain’. We borrow insights from the psychological coping literature to explain that different forms of transition pain may elicit characteristic coping responses (e.g. opposition, escape, negotiation), shaping individual meaning-making and behaviour in ongoing sustainability transitions. We then expand this psychological lens and present three additional perspectives, namely, that transition pain is (1) dynamic and process-dependent, (2) collectively shared and socially conditioned, and (3) political. We discuss how a ‘coping with transition pain’ lens can contribute to a better understanding of individual and collective meaning-making, behaviour and agency in transitions as well as a more emotion-sensitive governance of phase-outs.