The Psychological Foundations of Climate Solutions

The Climate Cognition Class is a graduate level course offered by Prof. Madalina Vlasceanu in the Environmental Social Sciences Department of the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. The course will focus on the insights drawn from research in cognitive, social, and environmental psychology relevant to understanding climate beliefs and behaviors. From low level processes such as perception, memory, emotions to the higher order processes involved in judgment and decision making, to macro level emergent phenomena leading to social movements and policy change, this course covers research on the psychological factors behind climate action at the individual, collective, and systemic level. Throughout the quarter, we will be hearing from numerous experts, overview the field, and discuss new empirical research, with the goal of identifying promising future research directions.