Conservation psychology

Conservation psychology is the scientific study of the reciprocal relationship between humans and the rest of the nature with a stress focus on how to encourage conservation of the natural world. The field looks into conservation of ecosystems, resources and quality of life issues for humans and other species.

The field of conservation psychology is broad and employs varies aspects of psychology into the study. For example:

Clinical psychology which is the field that integrates science, theory and practice to understand , predict, and alleviate maladjustment, disability and discomfort as well as to promote human adaptation, adjustment and personal development. This field is employed by conservation psychologist in the study of the impact of natural environment on mental well-being of people especially the restorative effect of nature.

Social psychology, the branch of psychology that studies the effect of social variables on individual behaviour, attitudes, perceptions, and motives; also studies group and intergroup phenomena can be employed to see how social norms can affect conservation efforts.

Cognitive psychology, the study of higher mental processes such as attention, language use, memory, perception, problem solving, and thinking can be employed to see the link between human decisions making in relation to conservation. For example, in a study about adoption of green electricity ( Ozaki,2009), it was found that even though people often report high interested in green electricity they are often hesitant to actually adopt it.  This link between attitude and behaviour is what cognitive psychologist focus on.

We can see that conservation psychology spans across various disciplines of psychology and cognitive psychology is an import aspect in conservation psychology. Because any efforts in conservational issues requires human to adopt behavioural changes, for example, switching off power-points when not in use, in order to have an impact on the environment. Therefore, we should consider how knowledge in cognitive psychology can be employed to educate people about the shortcomings in human decision making.