Isabel Richter
Isabel Richter, førsteamanuensis, NTNU
Hovedinnhold
- environmental psychology
- future thinking
- marine conservation
- creative engagement
Research interests: I've built my career in social and environmental psychology around the interplay between human behaviour and the environment. My academic path started in Germany with a Diploma that delved into the intricacies of power, social dominance, and their impact on environmental behaviour. Then I continued my academic career at NTNU, where I earned my PhD by investigating the drivers of sustainable seafood consumption, combining my passion for psychology with urgent environmental challenges such as overfishing in this case.
I'm committed to driving positive change by fostering eco-friendly decisions and behaviours, especially in marine conservation. I engage in international projects, always seeking to identify the drivers and barriers to sustainable practices. These drivers could be social norms, values, attitudes, trust or perceptions. Collaboration is a cornerstone of my approach, allowing me to work with experts across various disciplines to find creative and innovative solutions for marine conservation and sustainable development.
In my work, I am trying to engage with marginalised communities in order to shed light on their challenges and together find solutions from the bottom up. As an example, in the GCRF Blue Communities project, I collaborated with over 200 scientists globally to support sustainable development in Southeast Asia's marine biosphere reserves. We focused on creating alternative future scenarios to encourage sustainable practices in coastal communities. As a psychologist, my role was to examine how these scenarios affect perceptions, emotions and intentions.
I'm also the founder and editor-in-chief of the journal "Global Environmental Psychology”, a journal dedicated to setting a high standard in open science, transparency and diversity within our field. My focus in this journal is promoting diversity, for example by actively inviting authors from the Global South to ensure a broad spectrum of perspectives.
In terms of my research topics, I work with a range of issues from plastic pollution to sustainable tourism, using both quantitative and qualitative methods from social and environmental psychology. My work is more than a profession; it's a testament to my dedication to making a meaningful difference for the ocean, the planet and us humans.
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