Scaling Up and Out: Psychological Science in the Service of Promoting Sustainable Consumption

Abstract

In this commentary for the special issue on the psychology of sustainable consumption, we infer four themes that are evident in the contributions and which serve as principles for psychological science on sustainable consumption. First, research should build on psychological science's existing strengths and expand in new directions, while continuing to improve the overall quality of research standards. Second, sustainability psychology should embrace a problem‐solving, solutions focused approach to go hand‐in‐hand with the traditional focus on theory building of most rigorous areas of psychology. Thinking about solutions will inevitably lead to the third theme, the need to explore broader community, social, cultural, national, and global processes. Research at these levels of analysis is necessary to produce the kind of solutions to environmental problems that can have sufficient impact to reverse the damage humanity has already caused to the planet. The fourth principle is interdisciplinary collaboration, a necessary approach to carry out research and translate knowledge into scalable solutions. The challenge is great, but the stakes are greater and psychologists must be a part of the efforts to bring about effective solutions.

Youth Knowledge and Perceptions of Climate Mitigation

“…Individual behaviour change alone, however, will not be sufficient to mitigate climate change. Broader-scale initiatives implemented on a societal level will also be necessary (Romero-Canyas and Hiltner, 2020) and public discourse now focuses on which policies should be enacted. For example, recent research from the US suggests that people prefer policies that employ disincentives for businesses rather than individuals (Swim and Geiger, 2021) but there has been little analysis of such preferences in Ireland, particularly for younger people.…”

A People‐Focused Systems Approach to Sustainability

“…Notably, in the WSCW project, the first author was part of the school community as a parent for all 11 years covered here and initially also as a member of the governing board. The process cannot be led by the neutral change agent so often invoked by the variable‐focused approaches that have dominated environmental psychology (e.g., Nielsen et al., 2020 ; Ones & Dilchert, 2012 ; Romero‐Canyas & Hiltner, 2020 ). In addition, there must be some openness on the part of the organization as a whole; although it may be very difficult to judge in advance, if and in what domains, change is possible.…”

“…Research from these fields has resulted in a plethora of variables that are offered as “effective treatments” (Osbaldiston & Schott, 2011 , p. 285), “evidence based practices” (Ones & Dilchert, 2012 , p. 512), or “change mechanisms” (Stephan et al., 2016 , p. 1262). Context is recognized in this work; however, it is often treated as another variable that will eventually be specified, allowing a “theory of what generalizes and what does not” (Nielsen et al., 2020 , p. 9) or the “scaling up and out” of sustainability solutions (Romero‐Canyas & Hiltner, 2020 , p. 169).…”

Sustainable Consumption: The Psychology of Individual Choice, Identity, and Behavior

“…The importance of identifying solutions is the focus of the commentary by Romero‐Canyas and Hiltner (2020), which concludes this special issue. They argue that for social psychology to contribute to developing solutions to the global problems facing us, it must exploit its existing scientific strengths, embrace a problem‐solving approach, and broaden its scope to include community, social, cultural, and national processes.…”

“…There are many challenges, but many rewards too, in working in such environments (Bammer et al., 2020). As Romero‐Canyas and Hiltner (2020) point out in their commentary, many of the institutional practices of social psychology impede this interdisciplinary work. In this vein, Richardson et al.…”