Psychology

The adulting advent calendar

The science of gift giving

Today is giving Tuesday, this week marks the days of Hanukkah, and tomorrow is the first day you might get to crack open an advent calendar on the way to Christmas. There may be other events and cultural or religious celebrations happening as well, feel free to comment if you know of or celebrate one. … Continue reading →

Do we need to train empathy to achieve sustainability?

It seems that we are constantly looking for the reason why some people will engage in pro-environmental behaviour. Many of the links are tenuous at best. Recent research by Di Fabio and Kenny has explored how empathy connects to connectedness with nature with some promising results. Di Fabio and Kenny (2021) had Italian workers completing … Continue reading →

People forget about the wild part of wildlife

I went to Banff National Park this past weekend. Mostly I avoided popular places because Covid is raging in the province. But both times I ended up where people were, I saw people getting too close to wildlife and someone feeding or intending to feed the animals. To me, this behaviour is evident of the … Continue reading →

Grading requires an ego that I don’t have, at least in sustainability

Okay, so 2+2=4. If that’s the question, I can probably grade it. But most of what I teach is sustainability and “right” answers are a lot less clear. I’ve been doing research into self-reflection and sustainable assessment recently for a project and I think it applies here. Sustainable assessment, described by Boud and Falchikov (2007), … Continue reading →

Context matters in climate change policy support

I tend to set up the courses I teach in ways that students aren’t always used to. I do this based on research about effective strategies and I talk to my students about that research and the reasons why I have chosen a particular approach. I find these conversations are really important because, like most … Continue reading →

Years of good life

I’m very intrigued by the idea that we need measurements of well-being and success that go beyond income and GDP. Sure, I could have taken another contract and worked all weekend long but I’m in a position where I can choose to go kayaking instead and take care of my mental and physical health. I … Continue reading →

Co-opting social values

Greenwashing is when a company makes false or unsubstantiated claims about how environmentally friendly a product is. They are frustrating because they can be hard to distinguish from true environmentally friendly products. But what about when companies make claims that tie themselves, or at least attempt to tie themselves to broader social values like a … Continue reading →

Individual or Collective?

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about individual versus collective actions. When I worked in energy efficiency we often focused on individual actions as being a starting point towards sustainability. Part of the hope was that if an individual engaged in individual actions like installing a high energy furnace or not idling while they waited … Continue reading →

Are Kids the Way to Increase Concern in All Adults?

When I first got into environmental education the idea that kids would share what they learned with their adults at home and influence their attitudes and decisions was common. A new study by Hartley et al (2021) examined whether kids could influence adults outside of their immediate family. To sum up, kids got the power. … Continue reading →