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9 - The relevance of psychology to conservation conflicts

from PART II - Contrasting disciplinary approaches to the study of conflict in conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 May 2015

By
Herbert H. Blumberg
Edited by
Stephen M. Redpath ,
R. J. Gutiérrez ,
Kevin A. Wood  and
Juliette C. Young
Herbert H. Blumberg
Affiliation:
University of London
Stephen M. Redpath
Affiliation:
University of Aberdeen
R. J. Gutiérrez
Affiliation:
University of Minnesota
Kevin A. Wood
Affiliation:
Bournemouth University
Juliette C. Young
Affiliation:
NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, UK
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Summary

Psychology is the scientific study of human thought, behaviour and emotion. Accordingly, this makes it applicable to understanding conflicts and their resolution, at all levels from intrapersonal to international.

Research on conservation conflict in the psychological literature began mainly in the 1980s and has been increasing gradually since then. Notwithstanding a substantial psychological literature on conservation, of the papers published between 2003 and 2012, only about 10% of those retrieved via the PsycINFO database using the joint keywords ‘environment’ (i.e. environment, environmental, etc.) and ‘conflict’ were actually about and relevant to conservation conflicts. Furthermore, there has hitherto apparently been no systematic overview of this literature particularly as regards application to conflict resolution (Coleman and Deutsch, 2012; see also: Deutsch, 1998 and Deutsch et al., 2006). I base much of the discussion in this chapter on approximately 270 publications on psychological aspects of conservation conflict published between 2003 and 2012 plus a number from earlier decades in order to give an overview of relevant aspects of psychology-specific fields and their interface with other disciplines and to demonstrate the diversity of approaches and intersections that psychology brings to conservation issues.

An overview of some areas of psychology and its interface with other disciplines

Psychology is a diverse field. Cognitive psychologists, for example, might point to the importance of how a particular situation is perceived and to common biases and heuristics (mental shortcuts) in perception. Developmental specialists might examine lifespan changes, including how people are socialised into their respective, sometimes conflicting, groups. Other specialities are concerned with human motivation, principles of learning and individual differences. Individual differences include not only demographic variables such as age and geographical location but also some potentially conflict-relevant personality dimensions, such as agreeableness, extraversion, conscientiousness and openness to others’ views. A substantial part of contemporary psychology is concerned with neuro-biological underpinnings of the phenomena being studied, but this is not considered here.

Type
Chapter
Information
Conflicts in Conservation
Navigating Towards Solutions
 , pp. 122 - 136
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2015

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