ABSTRACT
The disjuncture in the literature concerning the appropriateness of individual behaviour change represents an element of the debate in the social sciences, which relates to the epistemological and methodological basis for behaviour change research. Perhaps the most important question about environmental behaviour change is why it is apparently such an assumed orthodoxy amongst the majority of policy makers in both developed and developing world nations. To begin with what has undoubtedly been the dominant field in environmental behaviour change research; those adopting a psychological approach have been concerned with utilising a range of social-psychological frameworks to understand the influences of various factors on specific individual behaviours. In contrast to the psychological approach to understanding behaviour change, many of those from a sociological and human geography background have progressively questioned both the theoretical and methodological assumptions made by those using a psychological approach.
