Environmental Education and Sustainability

Understanding why people act—or fail to act—in environmentally responsible ways sits at the intersection of psychology, education, and policy. Researchers draw on frameworks like the Theory of Planned Behavior and the Norm Activation Model to trace how personal attitudes, perceived social expectations, and deeply held values translate into concrete choices, from household energy use to broader sustainable consumption. Getting this right matters because even well-designed environmental policies routinely underperform when they ignore the behavioral and normative factors shaping public response. Active questions include how education can durably shift value orientations rather than just raise awareness, and how interventions can be calibrated to different social and cultural contexts where the weight of norms and attitudes varies considerably.

Works

74,757

Total citations

1,240,652

Keywords

Pro-environmental BehaviorEnvironmental AttitudesSocial NormsEnergy ConservationTheory of Planned BehaviorEnvironmental Education