ABSTRACT
The psychology of sustainability is an important, underemphasized piece of the three legged stool of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social—it has applicability to all three legs because it is, after all, human behavior that causes unsustainable practices. The chapter covers the major perspectives in psychology that can apply to sustainability topics with special focus on social, cognitive, and behavioral examples such as influence techniques, heuristics and biases, and difficulties with changing behavior. Practical applications such as human factors psychology are also discussed. The chapter provides examples of what leads people to be happy in life and ends with some more challenging aspects in terms of the psychology of sustainable behavior.
