For my social sphere course, I took Environmental Psychology. Taking this course was very impactful for me, since it is representative of the field I am ultimately interested in as a career. One of the largest take-aways I got out of this course was that there are no “environmental” problems, rather, there are human behavior problems. This course taught me a lot of base knowledge that allowed me to confidently root myself more firmly in my motivation to understand why humans do and do not participate in sustainable behaviors. I learned about attitudes, worldviews, and other characteristics that have been shown to lead to unsustainable behaviors. Since the field is relatively new, it was also very evident to me that there was a lack of empirical research and that there was still much to be done, which made me feel empowered to want to contribute to the field. Taking this course changed the way I thought about sustainability, as now I see much farther behind the surface level reasons and realize there are much deeper reasons, or even unconscious ones, that lead us to act certain ways. For example, a prominent worldview influencing many living in the Western world is something called the Dominant Social Paradigm, which essentially is a worldview in which humans see themselves are separate from and dominant to nature. This way of thinking generally goes against pro-environmental attitudes and sustainable behavior, however in increasing our knowledge and researching such topics we can find ways to help inspire change in behavior. Instead of becoming emotionally reactant when I perceive others’ environmentally insensitive behavior, I am now more able to take a step back and come from a more scientific approach, thinking about why this behavior might be occurring, how it could be changed, and how to effectively communicate with others in ways that might better promote sustainable living.
