From Goal-Directed Inference Chains to Action: An Integrative Framework for Promoting Sustainable Behaviour

Addressing climate change requires behaviour change - not just in daily actions, but also in how people develop and adopt broader solutions. However, existing interventions often fail to leverage insights from cognitive science on how individuals adopt and maintain pro-environmental behaviours. The EFPA opinion paper calls for integrative, evidence-based approaches that bridge individual cognition with collective transformation (Kalwak et al., 2024). In response, this paper introduces the Goal-Directed Predictive Processing (GDPP) framework, which models behaviour as emerging from dynamic inference chains linking goals, beliefs, and behavioural predictions. We demonstrate the framework’s utility through applications to a range of climate-relevant behaviours and provide a structured intervention pathway, illustrated with a case analysis of insect-based food consumption. This approach offers a scalable, mechanistic basis for fostering sustainable behaviour change.