Susan Clayton
Biographic Data
| ID | 161125 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Susan Clayton |
| GIVEN NAMES | Susan |
| FAMILY NAME | Clayton |
| SIGNATURE | CLAYTON S |
| AFFILIATIONS | College of Wooster |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2343-6865 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 75 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 414 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 74 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Climate emotions and future planning: How climate-engaged adults integrate grief and anxiety into meaningful visions for their future
As climate change reshapes the ecological, social, and economic foundations of society, it also transforms how individuals feel about, negotiate, and decide upon their futures. Despite this, little research has examined how climate emotions affect future-oriented perceptions and decision-making. We examined how 15 adults from Alberta, Canada who participated in a climate–mental health program about ecological grief described the ways climate chan…
“With all these feelings, I just can't stay passive”: A qualitative exploration of eco‐emotions, political perception, perceived injustice and pro‐environmental behaviors among young adults in France
Recent studies have highlighted the emotions individuals may experience in response to environmental crises, particularly climate anxiety. Despite a growing literature investigating eco‐emotions, further research is needed to identify the associated appraisals–especially moral constructs. This study qualitatively explores young adults' perspectives on environmental crisis, particularly looking at how environmental injustice and perception of poli…
An Adolescent-Caregiver Dyad Approach to Climate Anxiety in the Pediatric Emergency Department
Climate change and mental health research has predominantly focused on adults in non-clinical settings; investigations among youth and in clinical settings are lacking. Our objectives were to understand the relationship between adult caregiver and adolescent patient climate-anxiety and to examine caregivers' community-level concerns and their association with adolescent climate anxiety. This cross-sectional study occurred in a single-center pedia…
Describing teachers’ environmental identity as part of education for sustainable development
Climate justice beliefs related to climate action and policy support around the world
Climate justice is increasingly prominent in climate change communication and advocacy but little is known about public understanding of the concept or how widely it resonates with different groups. In our global survey of 5,627 adults in 11 countries spanning the global north and south, most participants (66.2%) had never heard of climate justice. Nonetheless, endorsement of climate justice beliefs was widespread (for example, acknowledging the …
Preliminary Development of the Climate and Racial Justice Scale
Background: The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement has increasingly brought attention to climate change as both a global environmental crisis and human rights issue that disproportionately affects people of color. Climate change is a global crisis that is both an environmental concern and a human rights issue, as communities of color are disproportionately affected. Little research has been conducted on perceptions of the intersections between cli…
I am really scared for the future’: Climate distress among Brazilian youth
Looking at Emotions to Understand Responses to Environmental Challenges
Emotions are keys to understanding the response to environmental problems. We discuss three important roles. First, emotions like worry, anxiety, pride and hope can motivate pro-environmental behaviour. Second, emotions are also consequences; the emotional impacts of environmental degradation, such as climate anxiety, can affect mental health, and recognising these impacts is necessary to encourage individual and societal resilience. Finally, emo…
Navigating eco-anxiety and eco-detachment: Educators’ strategies for raising environmental awareness given students’ disconnection from nature
Awareness of environmental problems such as climate change can motivate action, but educators debate whether to raise students’ awareness \ngiven that it may provoke eco-anxiety. We have even less understanding \nof how these relationships are affected by young people’s growing disconnection from nature. Through 28 semi-structured interviews in Canada and \nthe United Kingdom, we explore how educators perceive students’ nature \nconnection and ec…
Emotions and perceptions surrounding teaching climate change in the United States: Results from a teacher survey
Children are worried about climate change. Educational settings provide an opportunity to help children cope with their worries, but teachers do not always feel comfortable doing so. One reason for hesitancy may be their own negative emotions. This paper describes findings from a survey of climate-aware teachers, looking at their perceptions and emotions about climate change, as well as their experiences in teaching climate-related topics. Teache…
Climate change anxiety and mental health: Environmental activism as buffer
Should we connect children to nature in the Anthropocene
To most conservationists and many parents, it seems obvious that it is a good thing to teach children to value the natural world. Not only does connection with nature support their development and well‐being, but it also supports ongoing efforts by humans to sustain the natural world. However, there are incontrovertible trends towards a diminution of the state of nature as a consequence of human activities. In this context, as a thought experimen…
Social psychology of climate change in the Asian context: Introduction to special issue
Elsevier’s Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Research on climate change in social psychology publications: A systematic review
There is a strong scientific consensus that anthropogenic climate change is happening and that its impacts can put both ecological and human systems in jeopardy. Social psychology, the scientific study of human behaviours in their social and cultural settings, is an important tool for understanding how humans interpret and respond to climate change. In this article, we offered a systematic review of the social psychological literature of climate …
Climate anxiety in children and young people and their beliefs about government responses to climate change: A global survey
BACKGROUND: Climate change has important implications for the health and futures of children and young people, yet they have little power to limit its harm, making them vulnerable to climate anxiety. This is the first large-scale investigation of climate anxiety in children and young people globally and its relationship with perceived government response. METHODS: We surveyed 10 000 children and young people (aged 16-25 years) in ten countries (A…
Biodiversity conservation as a promising frontier for behavioural science
Climate anxiety: Psychological responses to climate change
Development and validation of a measure of climate change anxiety
The Insidious Impacts of Climate Change: Mood, Mental Health, and Psychosocial Well-Being
Assessing the effectiveness and pathways of planned shelters in protecting mental health of flood victims in China
Background. Evacuation and sheltering are commonly used strategies for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, but may negatively affect mental health of internally displaced persons (IDPs). Recently, Chinese governments have developed planned settlements providing integrated and intensive health services and environmental interventions to reduce immediate disastrous impacts and support the mental health of IDPs. Methods. Here we s…
Educating for resilience: Parent and teacher perceptions of children’s emotional needs in response to climate change
Children are worried about climate change. Environmental education aims to increase knowledge and pro-environmental behavior but typically gives little attention to meeting children’s emotional needs. This is particularly important as direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including the Australian bushfires in 2019–20, become more salient. This study explored caretaker perceptions of children’s climate change emotions, and the needs and c…
How psychology can help limit climate change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5C or 2C of global warming.To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change.Psychologists need to go further, and in…
Environmental Identity in Russia: Validation and Relationship to the Concern for People and Plants
Environmental identity is a self-concept that incorporates and is defined by a relationship with nature. In the current paper the concept is investigated in three empirical studies using the Environmental Identity (EID) scale. Study 1 (n = 222) was devoted to validating the Russian version of the EID scale. Along with the EID scale, we measured environmental attitudes with the New Environmental Paradigm and Global Awareness of Consequences scales…
Environmental literacy and nature experience in Chengdu, China
This research investigated environmental literacy and nature experience among 1433 children and adults in Chengdu, China. Utilizing a standard measure of environmental literacy modified to be culture- and age-appropriate, we found almost universal agreement that nature should be protected. Although our results showed that older groups were less likely to enjoy experiences in nature compared to the younger ones, this was not reflected in a reduced…
Psychology and Climate Change: Human Perceptions, Impacts, and Responses
The psychological impacts of global climate change
An appreciation of the psychological impacts of global climate change entails recognizing the complexity and multiple meanings associated with climate change; situating impacts within other social, technological, and ecological transitions; and recognizing mediators and moderators of impacts. This article describes three classes of psychological impacts: direct (e.g., acute or traumatic effects of extreme weather events and a changed environment)…
Psychology's contributions to understanding and addressing global climate change
Global climate change poses one of the greatest challenges facing humanity in this century. This article, which introduces the American Psychologist special issue on global climate change, follows from the report of the American Psychological Association Task Force on the Interface Between Psychology and Global Climate Change. In this article, we place psychological dimensions of climate change within the broader context of human dimensions of cl…
How psychology can help limit climate change
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has encouraged psychologists to become part of the integrated scientific effort to support the achievement of climate change targets such as keeping within 1.5C or 2C of global warming.To date, the typical psychological approach has been to demonstrate that specific concepts and theories can predict behaviors that contribute to or mitigate climate change.Psychologists need to go further, and in…
Cognitive biases in the perception of discrimination: The importance of format
Educating for resilience: Parent and teacher perceptions of children’s emotional needs in response to climate change
Children are worried about climate change. Environmental education aims to increase knowledge and pro-environmental behavior but typically gives little attention to meeting children’s emotional needs. This is particularly important as direct and indirect impacts of climate change, including the Australian bushfires in 2019–20, become more salient. This study explored caretaker perceptions of children’s climate change emotions, and the needs and c…
Expanding the role for psychology in addressing environmental challenges
Environmental challenges, though daunting, present an important area for psychologists to apply their knowledge. Psychological theories, research methods, and interventions are essential for examining the questions about human impacts, tendencies, and capacities that are integral to constructing effective responses to these challenges. Although a great deal of relevant research has been done, there is scope for psychologists to be more extensivel…
Human behavioral contributions to climate change: Psychological and contextual drivers
We are facing rapid changes in the global climate, and these changes are attributable to human behavior. Humans produce this global impact through our use of natural resources, multiplied by the vast increase in population seen in the past 50 to 100 years. Our goal in this article is to examine the underlying psychosocial causes of human impact, primarily through patterns of reproduction and consumption. We identify and distinguish individual, so…
New Ways of Thinking about Environmentalism: Models of Justice in the Environmental Debate
Justice has become important in public and private consideration of the environment, but a number of different ways of operationalizing justice can be seen. Previous literature suggests that principles stressing responsibility and the public good are more common than need and equity in thinking about environmental issues. The results from two questionnaire studies, presented here, confirm that environmental justice—responsibility to other species…
Connecting to nature at the zoo: Implications for responding to climate change
Societal response to climate change has been inadequate. A perception that the issue is both physically and temporally remote may reduce concern; concern may also be affected by the political polarization surrounding the issue in the USA. A feeling of connection to nature or to animals may increase personal relevance, and a supportive social context may counteract political tensions. Zoos may provide opportunities for both sense of connection and…
Affirmative Action and the Issue of Expectancies
The goal of affirmative action policies, the elimination of racial and sexual inequality, generates at least public agreement among most Americans, but affirmative action methods remain controversial, even among their intended beneficiaries. Affirmative action programs are criticized for reinforcing rather than dissolving racial and sexual barriers, and for making social categories salient. Further, if affirmative action programs appear to involv…
The relationship of childhood upbringing and university degree program to environmental identity: Experience in nature matters
Education has been proposed as an important way to increase environmental concern. Beyond providing information, education could also encourage a stable sense of oneself as connected to the natural world, or environmental identity (EID), which is a predictor of environmental concern and behavior. This study explored the relative roles of environmental education at university and previous personal characteristics on the level of individual EID. Re…
What kind of landscape management can counteract the extinction of experience
Belonging at the zoo: Retired volunteers, conservation activism and collective identity
The present study affirms previous research findings that volunteering satisfies personal needs but goes further by considering the factor of collective identity for volunteers and its consequences for them. The study specifically focused on older volunteers working at zoos. In the initial phase at Central Park Zoo 30 volunteers completed a short self-completion questionnaire. The second phase involved one-on-one interviews with 21 Bronx Zoo volu…
The experience of injustice: Some characteristics and correlates
Biodiversity conservation as a promising frontier for behavioural science
Green Justice: Conceptions of Fairness and the Natural World
The natural environment is a topic of increasing importance, and themes of justice are increasingly relevant to that topic. This introduction to the special issue on Green Justice will describe the ways in which justice issues relate to the natural environment. It will discuss some of the overarching questions with regard to justice and the natural environment, as well as suggest some of the ways in which this area can be studied. Finally, it wil…
Appeals to Justice in the Environmental Debate
Arguments over issues with environmental implications are increasingly salient in the public arena, and appeals to justice are made by both those who favor and those who oppose environmental regulations. But can justice really be claimed by each side with equal plausibility? The concept of justice can be defined in different ways, which may tend to favor one side or the other. Although there is a high degree of variability among the arguments pre…
Making Sense of the Senseless: Identity, Justice, and the Framing of Environmental Crises
Social Need Revisited
Considerable debate has taken place as to the nature of social need and ways in which it can best be identified in individual people, but little attention has focussed on the way assessments of need are used in the process of policy formation. The article takes Jonathan Bradshaw's commonly quoted taxonomy of social need and assesses its strengths and weaknesses for use in a practical policy making setting, that of assessment of need for sheltered…
Environmental literacy and nature experience in Chengdu, China
This research investigated environmental literacy and nature experience among 1433 children and adults in Chengdu, China. Utilizing a standard measure of environmental literacy modified to be culture- and age-appropriate, we found almost universal agreement that nature should be protected. Although our results showed that older groups were less likely to enjoy experiences in nature compared to the younger ones, this was not reflected in a reduced…
Values and Science: Reply
Introduction: The Search for Connections
Connections between the facts of people's personal circumstances and their judgments about social and political issues are often murky or invisible. This seems counterintuitive. The nature of social issues is such that most people in a particular society possess some information about them and, if pressed, will be able to offer an opinion concerning them; it would seem reasonable to assume that these opinions reflect the individual's personal cir…
Emotions and perceptions surrounding teaching climate change in the United States: Results from a teacher survey
Children are worried about climate change. Educational settings provide an opportunity to help children cope with their worries, but teachers do not always feel comfortable doing so. One reason for hesitancy may be their own negative emotions. This paper describes findings from a survey of climate-aware teachers, looking at their perceptions and emotions about climate change, as well as their experiences in teaching climate-related topics. Teache…
The Role of Perceived Justice, Political Ideology, and Individual or Collective Framing in Support for Environmental Policies
"Introduction to "Environmental Justice
Authorship: On Authorship
Journal Article Authorship: On Authorship Get access Sue Clayton, Sue Clayton Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Jonathan Curling Jonathan Curling Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Screen, Volume 20, Issue 1, Spring 1979, Pages 35–61, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/20.1.35 Published: 01 March 1979
Feminist History and The Song of the Shirt∗
Social Need Revisited
Considerable debate has taken place as to the nature of social need and ways in which it can best be identified in individual people, but little attention has focussed on the way assessments of need are used in the process of policy formation. The article takes Jonathan Bradshaw's commonly quoted taxonomy of social need and assesses its strengths and weaknesses for use in a practical policy making setting, that of assessment of need for sheltered…
Health Policy in Britain (Book)
Cognitive biases in the perception of discrimination: The importance of format
Postscript: The Nature of Connections
What commonalities appear among the richly diverse set of articles we present? What conclusions about the interface between personal life and social issues can be drawn from the theories and research findings contained in this issue? Some of the authors represented here (e.g., Elms; Stewart & Healy) have presented evidence for a social‐personal link, while others (e.g., Crosby & Herek; Tyler & McGraw) have demonstrated a discontinuity between the…
Introduction: The Search for Connections
Connections between the facts of people's personal circumstances and their judgments about social and political issues are often murky or invisible. This seems counterintuitive. The nature of social issues is such that most people in a particular society possess some information about them and, if pressed, will be able to offer an opinion concerning them; it would seem reasonable to assume that these opinions reflect the individual's personal cir…
Affirmative Action and the Issue of Expectancies
The goal of affirmative action policies, the elimination of racial and sexual inequality, generates at least public agreement among most Americans, but affirmative action methods remain controversial, even among their intended beneficiaries. Affirmative action programs are criticized for reinforcing rather than dissolving racial and sexual barriers, and for making social categories salient. Further, if affirmative action programs appear to involv…
Racism and sexism at work
The experience of injustice: Some characteristics and correlates
Justice, Gender, and Affirmative Action
Demonstrates the fairness and necessity of affirmative action for women and minorities in the workplace
Green Justice: Conceptions of Fairness and the Natural World
The natural environment is a topic of increasing importance, and themes of justice are increasingly relevant to that topic. This introduction to the special issue on Green Justice will describe the ways in which justice issues relate to the natural environment. It will discuss some of the overarching questions with regard to justice and the natural environment, as well as suggest some of the ways in which this area can be studied. Finally, it wil…
Appeals to Justice in the Environmental Debate
Arguments over issues with environmental implications are increasingly salient in the public arena, and appeals to justice are made by both those who favor and those who oppose environmental regulations. But can justice really be claimed by each side with equal plausibility? The concept of justice can be defined in different ways, which may tend to favor one side or the other. Although there is a high degree of variability among the arguments pre…
What is valued in resolving environmental dilemmas: Individual and contextual influences
L'habit ferait-il le mari ? L'exemple d'un female husband, James Allen (1787-1829)
James Allen, qui fut pendant 21 ans le mari d'Abigail, mourut à la suite d'un accident du travail. C'est à cette époque que les médecins découvrirent qu'Allen était une femme. De nombreux journaux britanniques en parlèrent. Cet article situe le cas d'Allen dans le contexte plus large des female husbands (telles que Mary Hamilton et Catherine Vizzani) et analyse trois aspects récurrents dans la presse de 1829, ainsi que dans les autres récits : d'…
New Ways of Thinking about Environmentalism: Models of Justice in the Environmental Debate
Justice has become important in public and private consideration of the environment, but a number of different ways of operationalizing justice can be seen. Previous literature suggests that principles stressing responsibility and the public good are more common than need and equity in thinking about environmental issues. The results from two questionnaire studies, presented here, confirm that environmental justice—responsibility to other species…
Affirmative action: Psychological data and the policy debates.
Justice and Identity: Changing Perspectives on What Is Fair
Most research on justice has aimed to describe abstract, depersonalized models that could apply to anyone. However, much of this research has involved identity, if only implicitly. We argue that justice needs to be contextualized to take into account the powerful effects of identity in determining when justice matters. The complexity and fluidity of identity need to be considered to understand when, why, and how strongly people care about justice…
Environmental Identity: A Conceptual and an Operational Definition
Identity and the Natural Environment: The Psychological Significance of Nature
The often impassioned nature of environmental conflicts can be attributed to the fact that they are bound up with our sense of personal and social identity. Environmental identity—how we orient ourselves to the natural world—leads us to personalize abstract global issues and take action (or not) according to our sense of who we are. We may know about the greenhouse effect—but can we give up our SUV for a more fuel-efficient car? Understanding thi…
Values and Science: Reply
Jobs with Justice: A Review of “Just Work” by Russell Muirhead
Domesticated nature: Motivations for gardening and perceptions of environmental impact
Zoo experiences: Conversations, connections, and concern for animals
One way in which zoos attempt to fulfill their goal of conservation is by educating visitors about the importance of protecting wildlife. Research has only begun to examine the effectiveness of zoos in place‐based learning, and there has been much debate about how such informal learning is defined and measured. Free‐choice learning research has demonstrated that educational outcomes are often indirect, constructed by the visitor as much as they a…
Conservation Psychology: Understanding and Promoting Human Care for Nature
Psychology (50 works) · Environmental Education and Sustainability (39 works) · Political science (37 works) · Sociology (37 works) · Social Psychology (35 works) · Climate Change Communication and Perception (34 works) · Social Psychology (28 works) · Geography (21 works) · Environmental ethics (20 works) · Ecology (19 works)