ABSTRACT
Scientific efforts to understand global environmental changes on land, in the oceans and in the biosphere began among atmospheric chemists, meteorologists, ecologists and other natural scientists. Because of the anthropogenic nature of current global change, it was, however, soon realized that social and behavioural sciences could contribute to an understanding of how to bring about changes in human behaviour necessary to prevent or respond to global change. Most of the early research efforts by psychologists were derived from psychological concepts in relative isolation from the practical issues of policy-making. However, we believe that a successful implementation of policy instruments requires an understanding of the motivations that determine people's attitudes towards such policy instruments. In our view, a more applied approach in which the practical issues are taken into account should be sought. We thus propose that psychology, together with natural and other social sciences, should work closer to the policy process. In this endeavour, the contribution from psychology should not come to a halt at the individual perspective in policy-making, but should also try to relate this perspective to other social scientific levels of analysis.
