Environmental Psychology as Environmental psychology is defined as the interdisciplinary field that investigates the complex relationships between human behaviour and the built and natural environments, offering both theoretical insights and practical strategies for fostering individual and collective well-being; as detailed in Steg et al. (2013), the discipline is uniquely positioned to tackle pressing global challenges such as climate change, resource depletion, and urban stress by understanding how psychological processes—values, identities, emotions, and norms—interact with environmental structures; unlike conventional psychological fields, environmental psychology places significant emphasis on contextual embeddedness, asserting that behaviour is always situated within specific spatial and social contexts, which are both shaped by and responsive to human action; its applications span environmental design, policy-making, sustainable transportation, energy conservation, and nature restoration, each aiming to align human conduct with ecological integrity; for instance, the field has produced robust models to explain pro-environmental behaviour, highlighting the role of intrinsic motivation (e.g., acting in line with biospheric values) and external incentives (e.g., infrastructure, social norms); beyond utilitarian outcomes, environmental psychology also examines how places support identity, attachment, and meaning, and how disruptions to these connections—through displacement, environmental degradation, or urban sprawl—impact mental health and civic participation; by integrating qualitative and quantitative methods, the discipline continues to refine its capacity to inform spatial planning, environmental education, and public engagement in ways that promote both individual flourishing and systemic sustainability.
Steg, L., van den Berg, A.E. and de Groot, J.I.M., 2013. Environmental Psychology: History, Scope, and Methods. In: Steg, L., van den Berg, A.E. and de Groot, J.I.M. (eds.) Environmental Psychology: An Introduction. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 1–12.
