New Episode of Resources Radio on the Psychology of Pro-Environmental Behavior

WASHINGTON, DC—Resources for the Future (RFF) today released a new installment of Resources Radio: “Nature and Nurture: Understanding the Psychology of Pro-Environmental Behavior, with Susan Clayton.”

Host Kristin Hayes talks with Susan Clayton, the Whitmore-Williams Professor of Psychology and Chair of Environmental Studies at the College of Wooster. Susan Clayton discusses the psychology behind individual attitudes toward the environment and how someone's personality and upbringing can influence the environmental decisions s/he makes. Clayton also comments on how these insights into individual psychology can help inform environmental policies.

Listen here.

Notable quotes from the podcast:

• “[There] is a social framework in which there's certainly increasing awareness and acceptance of the reality of climate change, but there's still very strong support for denial. So if you want to deny it, you can find people to agree with you.”—Susan Clayton (24:47)
• “[Social context] has been used really effectively in a number of public domains. Tell people what other people are doing, and then give them feedback about how they’re doing themselves and how that relates to social context . . . I want to highlight that, the feedback. Because a lot of times we don't even know how much energy we're using, so how can we adjust our behavior if we don't even really understand what our behavior is?”—Susan Clayton (15:59)
• “People have a number of social identities, and they usually are somewhat invested in them, and they want to maintain them, and they want to feel good about those identities. You can encourage sustainable behavior that's linked to that identity.”—Susan Clayton (18:18)

Resources Radio is a weekly podcast series exploring timely environmental, energy, and natural resources topics, and can be found on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, and SoundCloud.