A Social Engagement: How Ecopsychology Can Benefit From Dialogue With the Social Sciences

The argument put forward in this paper is that ecopsychology would benefit from engaging in more dialogue with developments in the social sciences. The benefits are predominantly in terms of enriching ecopsychological understandings of how we might encourage connectedness to nature and environmental advocacy and discourage environmentally distructive behaviors. More particularly, recent work in the social sciences asserts that existing models of behavior are unlikely to lead to changes on the scale necessary to create something akin to genuinely sustainable societies. The article draws on theory and research emphasizing the irreducible relationship between the psychological and the social, as a basis for better understanding the apparent obstinacy of environmentally destructive behavior and for interventions that offer the hope of change.