Dr Ganga Shreedhar is an Assistant Professor in Behavioural Science in the LSE Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science. She is interested in ecology and the environment, including how it relates to human psychology and behaviour. We had a wide-ranging discussion about Ganga's academic background, her interest in the environment and how this has made her into a kind of nomad who has worked in many different disciplines. We discussed Ganga's (and my) current discipline of behavioural science and what it can contribute.
Behavioural science has focused on the idea of 'Nudge': how small shifts in people's decision making environments can alter their behaviour. In a recent paper, Ganga, myself, and Stuart Mills argued that this may be limited for the environment because of what we call' brown sludge': the sea of restrictions and limitations individuals face when trying to behave pro-environmentally. You can find the paper here:
https://osf.io/preprints/osf/yc4zg
This took us into a wide-ranging and in my opinion, extremely interesting conversation about the role of social science in promoting pro-environmental behaviours. We touched on climate (dis)information and media, car-centric cities, and degrowth. Enjoy!
Originally recorded on 12th April 2024.
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