The Psychology of Environmental Law (Psychology and the Law)

**Offers psychological insights into how people perceive, respond to, value, and make decisions about the environment** Environmental law may seem a strange space to seek insights from psychology. Psychology, after all, seeks to illuminate the interior of the human mind, while environmental law is fundamentally concerned with the exterior surroundings—the environment—in which people live. Yet psychology is a crucial, undervalued factor in how laws shape people’s interactions with the environment. Psychology can offer environmental law a rich, empirically informed account of why, when, and how people act in ways that affect the environment—which can then be used to more effectively pursue specific policy goals. When environmental law fails to incorporate insights from psychology, it risks misunderstanding and mispredicting human behaviors that may injure or otherwise affect the environment, and misprescribing legal tools to shape or mitigate those behaviors. __The Psychology of Environmental Law__ provides key insights regarding how psychology can inform, explain, and improve how environmental law operates. It offers concrete analyses of the theoretical and practical payoffs in pollution control, ecosystem management, and climate change law and policy when psychological insights are taken into account. "[This book] provides key insights regarding how psychology can inform, explain, and improve how environmental law operates. It offers concrete analyses of the theoretical and practical payoffs in pollution control, ecosystem management, and climate change law and policy when psychological insights are taken into account"-- Provided by the publisher Introduction -- Key features of environmental law and psychology -- Diffusion -- Complexity -- Nonhuman impacts -- General law and psychology in environmental law -- The psychology of pollution control -- The psychology of ecosystem management -- The psychology of climate change law and policy -- Conclusion "This title examines environmental law from a psychological perspective"