Collective dissociation is preventing people from taking effective action to tackle the overwhelming climate emergency, research published in Cambridge Prisms: Global Mental Health has found.

The overwhelming scale and complexity of the climate emergency often leave individuals feeling powerless, leading to a sense of futility in their ability to effect meaningful change. Collective dissociation is a form of trauma processing, and it threatens the cooperation needed to address the climate emergency. Instead, it reinforces isolation and prevents objective assessment of a destructive reality.

A team of NYU scientists has developed an AI model that can identify aspects of human behavior in videoconferences, such as conversational turn-taking and facial actions, and predict, in real-time, whether or not the meetings are seen as enjoyable and fluid—comfortable and flowing rather than awkward and marked by stilted turn-taking—based on these behaviors.