Foreground and Background: Environment as Site and Social Issue

Abstract

To examine how the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI) has engaged with environmental issues throughout its 75-year history, we consulted five SPSSI-based data sources. Our analysis, attentive to the larger sociopolitical contexts over time, focuses on SPSSI's attention to the physical environment, the places in which social living and interactions occur. In SPSSI's early years, social issues research was often situated within specific locales. Since 1960 and the emergence of environmental psychology and the environmental movement, SPSSI increasing focuses on environment as a social issue in its own right as well part of other social issues. Over time there has been a decline in mentions of the physical environment in SPSSI's methods texts. This historical analysis highlights the specifics of context in SPSSI's environmental research and urges attention to the physical as well as social aspects of environment in research and activism.

Polluting Black space.

“…A foundational theme in this field is how context shapes human experiences and how humans shape the world around them (Fiske, Kitayama, Markus, & Nisbett, 1998; Plaut, 2010). Though historically the primary focus often has been limited to social context, increasingly researchers are emphasizing the importance of physical context (for reviews see Oishi, 2014; Opotow & Gieseking, 2011). Some researchers have examined physical context as a cue for normative behavior (Aarts & Dijksterhuis, 2003; Cialdini, Reno, & Kallgren, 1990; Goldstein, Cialdini, & Griskevicius, 2008).…”

Racialized physical space as cultural product

“…Largely missing from the psychological study of race, however, is physical space. Consistent with recent trends in social psychology to consider physical context (for reviews, see Oishi, ; Opotow & Gieseking, ), we define physical space broadly, to include the built environment (e.g., structures like schools, houses, neighborhoods, roads, and city infrastructure), the natural environment (e.g., naturally occurring habitats like forests, fields, and rivers), and places (e.g., geographic regions, nations, and states). It is surprising that social psychologists have largely overlooked physical space in the study of race because physical space has been inherent in the social construction of race (Gould, ; Lipsitz, ; Lipsitz, ).…”

Improving Research on the Psychology of Sustainable Consumption: Some Considerations from an Early Career Perspective

“…Social psychology is a field with a strong history of methodological problem solving (Sassenberg, Muller, & Klauer, ), and researchers in the field of sustainable consumption regularly take stock of the research corpus and societal needs to suggest strategic directions for questioning (e.g., Lorek & Vergragt, ; Opotow & Gieseking, ; Steg & Vlek, ). Strategic considerations of methodology from a psychological perspective, however, are not a common focus in these reviews, which can result in researchers lacking resources to deal with methodological issues or being unaware of relevant methodological developments in the field.…”

“…In this article, we aim to place these issues in the spotlight so that solutions and action can be discussed. We do not discuss the specifics of research focus (see for example, Gifford, ; Lorek & Vergragt, ; Opotow & Gieseking, ; Steg & Vlek, ), but instead review some of the critical methodological issues facing today's early career psychological researchers focusing on sustainable consumption, examine the barrier each issue poses to the collective ability of the field to build upon past research to maximize impact, and suggest a selection of possible solutions.…”