Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Environmental psychology is rapidly growing and becoming more diverse.This is evidenced, for example, by the expanding numbers and geographical reach of delegates to the field's main conferences (e.g. International Conference on Environmental Psycholog y-ICEP; International Association of People-Environment Studies-IAPS)and the emergence of new regional networks (e.g.Asian Network of Environmental Psycholog y).At the latest ICEP in Vilnius, Lithuania, a bibliometric analysis was presented that revealed the diversity and evolution of the field (Ratcliffe et al., 2025).Since its inception in the 1970s, the field has expanded beyond its traditional focus on the built environment to global issues of climate change and sustainability (Bo et al., 2025).This transformation signals both opportunity and responsibility: as our topics widen, so too must our ways of knowing.Greater geopolitical and ecological relevance affords more interdisciplinary collaborations with fields like economics, ecology, engineering, public health and geography.Moreover, environmental psychology has always been a problem-oriented field (Stokols, 1995) and worked at the intersection of other fields (e.g.design and architecture; Proshansky et al., 1970).What distinguishes this new phase is the movement beyond interdisciplinarity towards transdisciplinarity, or partnerships that bridge academia and lived experience to co-create knowledge and solutions.As environmental psychologists work with non-academics to use their insights in policy and practice (Bennett, 2016;Brick et al., 2024), the demand for outlets that reflect this diversity and inclusivity grows stronger.This expanded field suggests a need for more (inclusive) journal outlets.Existing journals, though highly respected, cannot alone accommodate the expanding range of topics, methods and worldviews that now define the field.Indeed, environmental psycholog y stands at a pivotal moment-expanding in influence yet constrained by persistent structural and epistemic boundaries (Ratcliffe et al., 2024).While the topics that environmental psychologists tackle are becoming more diverse, journal publications, authorship, data and theory remain heavily concentrated in Global North contexts (Anjum & Aziz, 2025;Brick et al., 2024;Ratcliffe et al., 2025;Tam & Milfont, 2020).Understanding global problems requires going beyond Global North or WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) samples (Henrich et al., 2010).Findings from the Global North do not necessarily translate to Global South, and relevant topics also vary across different regions (Aruta, 2023).For instance, while studies in Europe may focus on energy conservation or sustainable transport (to address over-consumption; Akenji et al., 2025), researchers in the Pacific or South Asia have long been confronting issues of displacement, food insecurity and post-disaster recovery, as well as conservation issues like deforestation and overfishing.This imbalance not only limits the generalizability of our theories but also constrains the kinds of questions that are asked, the methods considered valid, and the solutions imagined.To avoid reinforcing a narrow worldview, we should actively engage with different epistemologies, local knowledge systems and lived experiences from the majority world.At the same time, the field's flagship journals (Journal of Environmental Psychology, Environment & Behavior) are dominated by quantitative and experimental methodologies, with qualitative and mixed-methods
DOI: 10.1002/epr2.70000
Institutions: De La Salle University, University of Bath
Language: English
Subfield: Information Systems and Management
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W7124307911