Psychology of Environmental Stewardship (NRE 561, ENVIRON 361 [Program in Environment], and PSYCH 385)
One of the enduring challenges of crafting a sustainable society is to create one in which we will all want to live. An austere existence may prove to be an ecologically necessity. But it is unlikely that people will eagerly pursue such a somber life if it is promoted merely as an unfortunate necessity of survival. The issue here is how to frame such a future so that people not only accept it but actually look forward to it as an adventure. This is primarily a behavioral, not a political nor technological, challenge. Two forms of stewardship are argued as essential parts of a sustainable society, one with an external focus - individual conservation behavior - and one with an internal focus - mental attention management and restoration. Their potential interaction is fascinating to contemplate.
This course develops approaches to promoting conservation behavior with a focus on achieving durable change. The course uses current research in the fields of environmental and social psychology to examine, critique and expand on models of human behavior. Students come to understand that humans normally require both informational and motivational interventions before they are willing and able to alter their behavior and further that only certain types of interventions result in long-lasting behavior change. (Winter term)
LOCALIZATION SEMINAR: ADAPTATIONS FOR THE COMING DOWNSHIFT
The future form of life patterns, settlements, and societies may differ substantially from what most of us have come to expect. Among our many possibilities is a future involving highly localized lives. Presumably the material standard of consumption in such a society would be substantially lower than that of the present. Possibly the sense of well-being will be greater. A premise of this effort is that energy use will unavoidably drop by 80%. We will explore the implications of this 80% drop, envision a successful accommodation to the drop, and design the transition to such a future.
Localization is well underway, albeit invisible to the global managers and techno-optimists. What it lacks is a unifying theme, a framework for coping with declining net energy and emerging ecological constraints. This seminar builds such a framework, preliminary as it necessarily must be.
The seminar assumes that a fundamental departure from recent life patterns will occur and that much about the transition will be hard. Fortunately, humans’ desire for a stable, secure and familiar existence turns out not to be a status quo bias but rather a cognitive map bias, and cognitive maps can be altered. To aid alteration, the framework we develop during the seminar assumes that a multitude of small experiments will be conducted, quickly and simultaneously, and some will fail. And yet adjusting to austerity can be satisfying in a way present generations have forgotten or never experienced. Localization is thus a dynamic, ongoing and long-term process that, paradoxically for many, can bring out the best in people. (Co-taught with Professor Princen).
The seminar’s structure
The seminar readings work through the nuances of the topic positing that, while historical insights exist, a downshift of this sort is unprecedented. Successful approaches will be those that engage people and institutions in their own discovery of how to transition well.
LOCSEM 1 (Autumn 2008)
LOCSEM 2 (Winter 2009)
LOCSEM 3 (Autumn 2009)
LOCSEM 4 (Autumn 2010)
Page revised: November 26, 2009