The Applied Psychology of Sustainability

Robert G. Jones

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780429948732
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Why doesn't everyone see sustainability as a huge issue? Why don't people think more carefully before making choices? What will it take for people to change? Examining the many psychological factors that lead to human behavioral effects on the environment, this book answers these questions definitively and provides practical guidance for approaches that have been used to successfully stimulate change.

The Applied Psychology of Sustainability provides an extensive, integrated definition of the processes that lead to climatic, ecological, and socio-economic results: It defines a Psychology of Sustainability. Each chapter applies elements from the core research areas of cognitive, social, and developmental psychology into the context of criteria specific to sustainability. Comprehensively updated to embrace great change in the field, this new edition expands on critical issues yet maintains its strong foundation that the psychology of decisions is the essential precursor to sustainability and that these decisions should be treated as the primary target of change.

Throughout the book, readers will find new ways of framing questions related to human adaptability and evolutionary psychology. The Applied Psychology of Sustainability is essential reading for students and professionals in a range of disciplines who wish to contribute to this crucial conversation.

1

Applied psychology and the environment

Promises and Assumptions

And shall we esteem it worthy the labour of a philosopher to give us a true system of the planets, and adjust the position and order of those remote bodies, while we affect to overlook those who, with so much success, delineate the parts of the mind, in which we are so intimately concerned?

David Hume in An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

Can we hold out hope that the scientific study of what goes on within us can help us to adapt to the natural world of which we are a part? It may seem obvious that basing our decisions on the results of careful scientific study will help us to adapt. But there are at least two ironies to this “common sense” belief. First, it is through such scientific results that we have wound up with many of our current problems. While dramatically improving the individual human experience, we have created species-level survival problems. Just in the past century, we have built very comfortable, fast, and safe transportation that billions of humans can and do use every day. But these same transportation machines that are so accommodating to individual needs also emit waste products that threaten the health of masses of human beings and contribute to the extinction of numerous species of living things.

This same trade off holds true for scientific psychology, as well. Psychology has dramatically enhanced our understanding of how we think and behave. During the same time that humans have developed our revolutionary transportation systems, applied psychologists have invented means to measure, explain, and successfully treat a host of individual problems, from common adjustment issues to complex neurological disorders that used to leave people dead or unable to function. At the same time, psychological science has been used quite successfully to incite overconsumption, mostly by circumventing our ability to make rational choices (Cialdini, 2007). This overconsumption is a major contributor to some of the species level problems in the news these days. So, the first irony of using science to solve problems is that it is a double-edged sword: The psychological tendencies and abilities from which science springs have both saved us (as individuals) and led us into some of our worst difficulties as a species.

The second irony is that, to the extent that we are able to dispassionately explore the psychological bases for our success, we may find its limits. That is, through the scientific study of thinking and behavior, we may discover the limits of our species’ ability to adapt. Put differently, we may become quite accurate at identifying the factors that will eventually make us extinct. These limiting factors will be explored in this book. The promise of this book is that, by understanding our psychological limitations, we will be able to realistically make the best of things, whether by successful adaptation or by preparation for extinction.

This exposes the first two assumptions of this book. The limiting factors we will explore include both our fundamental tendencies of thought and behavior and more complicated matters of individual and social conditions that place limits on our ability to think, learn, and change—in short, to adapt. We will start with the assumption that there are such individual and social psychological limits to our adaptive capacity: That we are not infinitely adaptable. A second assumption is that, although there is considerable science to support the idea that these factors affect our adaptability, there is an enormous amount we still have to learn in order to understand ourselves more accurately. And, finally, this book assumes some hope that, by honest and clear-eyed assessment of our strengths and shortcomings, we will be able to use our own limitations as leverage for enhancing the lives of those who will come after us. Like good parents, we will find ways to shield our offspring from the worst of our psychic warts. This paradox of using our limitations to manage the effects of these same limitations is at the heart of many applied psychological practices.

Why This Book?

It has become increasingly clear that there are substantial problems in our relationships with the intra-planetary systems of which we are a part. However, restating the list of sustainability problems confronting us is not a primary focus of this book. Rather, this book will focus on human decisions and actions, rather than the results of these decisions and actions. The next assumption follows from this: That human activities, especially during the past 200 years, are important causes of our sustainability woes.

For now, it is important to understand that any efforts to change the results of our activities—that is, to reduce sustainability problems—rely on understanding the causes of the human activities that contribute to them. In this book, human activities themselves will be the focus of inquiry, as well as the source of solutions. A way to think of this is that, if all the environmental outcomes that have been worrying scientists are the result of human activities, then the relationship between the psychological causes that lead to these environmental outcomes is entirely mediated by our activities. The mediated nature of this relationship is depicted in Figure 1.1.

Figure 1.1 A mediated model of human effects on the environment

It may seem obvious that the logical targets for changing the results of our activities are (1) the activities themselves and (2) the human psycho-social processes that lead to these activities. But it is not so obvious as it first appears. The fact is that the vast majority of scientific inquiry and media attention has been on the results (global climate change, resource depletion, environmental toxification, species extinction, etc.), rather than on the psycho-social causes of relevant human activities. This book puts the scientific spotlight on the aspects of human thinking and behavior that are likely to lead to (un)sustainable activities and their results. The conclusions common in other scientific work on sustainability include such statements as, “Changes in XYZ are required,” and, “We must endeavor to reduce this form of waste.” The applied psychological approach will lead to advice about changing the human activities that are the actual causes of our problems. For example, “Reducing automotive emissions at the individual level relies partly on framing automotive advertising toward increased status for people at the conventional stage of moral development.” This is the kind of direct advice emanating from applied psychology.

The Nature Conservancy has a long and successful history of protecting sensitive ecosystems in North America and, more recently elsewhere. Here is a recent quote from their quarterly news magazine (Nature Conservancy, Fall 2018, italics added):

We must cut 30 gigatons a year of carbon emissions by 2030 if we are to keep global temperature increases well below 2 degrees Celsius. Nature can reduce more than one-third of the emissions needed to hit this goal if countries invest in carbon-storing forests, grasslands, wetlands, and farms.

This illustrates the precision of basic earth sciences in describing and predicting climate change, as well as some of the potential ways to limit its destructive effects. The italicized part illustrates something that can be seen in most descriptions of environmental sustainability problems. Specifically, the main challenges involved in accomplishing this goal rely on changing human thinking and behavior—in this case getting entire countries to invest in protecting and restoring plant growth. The Nature Conservancy’s mission encompasses a small but important part of this (buying sensitive lands for protection), but those who have tried to change the policies of entire countries know that this requires working with people to change how they make decisions. One phrase in one sentence, as in this example, gives short shrift to the changes required to realize sustainability goals.

Still, some may argue that the focus on environmental results has led to important solutions, without much reference to psycho-social causes. In fact, this is true, at least to some extent. First, we wouldn’t have known about global climate change, water scarcity, and other environmental changes without climatologists, hydrologists, and other earth scientists. Second, some solutions proposed without psychologists or social scientists have been tried and have met with success. An important example is the wide success of single stream recycling programs to reduce solid waste, which has caught on in many larger municipalities. Here, the solid waste generated by municipalities has been significantly reduced through scientists identifying the problem, followed by decision makers identifying and proposing solutions, and implementing programs, usually without direct help from psychologists.

A closer examination of the change process leading to happy environmental results shows clearly that psychological processes are integral to these efforts. Waste in many forms, from household trash to large scale mining slag is (obviously) an important environmental result of human activity. Using sophisticated recycling programs to reduce waste starts with predictions of the amounts and sources of waste generated from human activities, then by attempts to control the waste stream by diversion to relatively productive ends. This diversion process relies on the motivations of many community members, which reflect the costs, profits, and convenience of the particular controls used in the recycling program. It also requires someone in the community having some knowledge of the ways to gather and interpret the data necessary to understand the waste problem. Notice that human activities, knowledge, and motivations are the primary concerns when trying to identify problems and implement solutions. Clearly, an understanding of these psychological functions (human activities, knowledge, and motivations) has played a role in communities where recycling has met with success.

Notice also that there are far fewer public programs dealing directly with the psycho-social causes of waste than with recycling existing waste. Following the household waste example back to its psycho-social causes quickly leads to questions about ways to reduce consumption of things like food, shopping bags, and food containers that are turned into “waste” in the first place. This seems not to have received as much attention, despite its obvious and perhaps greater potential impact. This is probably because the usual approach to controlling outcomes has focused on measuring results, rather than on the psycho-social causes of these results. The third assumption of this book is that programs that do gather information about these psycho-social causes are going to meet with even greater success.

Fresh water shortages provide another good example of the value of understanding the human causes of environmental results. The amount of accessible fresh water is a very small percentage of the total water on the planet, and supplies of it have been decreasing worldwide (National Geographic, 2018). Although some wealthy nations have increased supplies of water using sophisticated filtration systems that turn undrinkable water (sewage, salt water) into drinking water, they are neither universally available nor completely reliable (United States Geological Survey, 2018). Meanwhile, the widespread, lethal results of water shortages have begun to appear, partly because of the existing systems built to channel fresh water. A recent example in the U.S. comes from Flint, Michigan, where city drinking water was contaminated as a direct result of human mismanagement.

Some local governments in wealthy nations are also taking the further step of managing consumption—the human behaviors that have led to water shortages—by such means as taxing consumption, instituting fines for water consumption (i.e. fines for watering lawns on certain days of the week), and incentives for use of “gray water.” While these may help in wealthy nations, more catastrophic problems of water quality and quantity seem to have been addressed by building refugee camps in places like Darfur, Syria, and other arid regions where large populations have been displaced due to fights over scarce resources. Focusing efforts on the psycho-social causes of water shortages (human water extraction and use, human contamination of water sources, human management of “waste” waters), though very challenging, is a more direct approach to controlling the results of these human activities. We will return to this example. For now, it should be clear that our assumptions that environmental issues are the result of human activities, and that these activities and their causes should be the primary focus of our efforts moving forward.

Why an Applied Approach?

The urgency of scientific warnings argues for more than just working to understand the human activities that have caused our current planetary dilemmas. Many are convinced that we need to take action now, which requires predicting and controlling human activities, as well. The distinction between “describing and understanding” our world and “predicting and controlling” it are the emphases of “basic” and “applied” science, respectively. This book delves into both basic and applied fields, with the hope of providing support for the latter—for an applied psychology of sustainability. Thus, the need for action is urgent enough that prediction and control are required, in some cases before basic science has done much to describe or understand the human activities that cause environmental problems.

Put another way, we will assume that the scientific findings about the results of our activities convincingly show that recent environmental changes present us with urgent problems. Things are far enough along that we need to focus on controlling human activities, rather than taking the extra time to carefully describe their causes first, then take action. All science of course relies on description of phenomena, but applied psychologists rely on adequate description, rather than accurate, high fidelity description of human decisions. Applied psychologists are like travelers rather than (basic psychologist) cartographers: We rely on maps that are “good enough” to get from one place to another. High fidelity renderings of terrain and other physical features that are made by cartographers can be of value, but are rarely necessary for finding our way from town to town. Thus, applied science is expedient, in the sense that “good enough” description is all that is required for prediction and control of phenomena. We will return to discuss the potential for ethical quandaries that follow from this expedience.

This decision to focus on applied science may sound to some like a premature rush to action, to change the results of our activities. Ironically, this focus on results has dominated applied psychological work so far—with little reference to sustainability. Despite over a hundred years of scientific discovery in psychology, and over a hundred thousand applied psychologists who make good salaries by working to change human thinking and behavior, we know very little about how to sustain our species. Because applied psychologists do this work for a living, we are paid to address the concerns of our clients, rather than other interested parties. So predicting and controlling results such as mental health, workplace safety, perso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• 1. Applied psychology and the environment: Promises and Assumptions
• 2. Applied science and sustainability: Some Basic Competencies
• 3. The determinist in us all
• 4. Differences among people
• 5. Opening the black box
• 6. Social contexts
• 7. Development, identity formation, and motivation
• 8. Learning and behavior change
• 9. Processes in applied psychology
• 10. Broad interventions
• 11. The adaptive capacity scorecard
• References
• Index