Dr Ganga Shreedhar

This course is available on the MSc in Behavioural Science, MSc in Organisational and Social Psychology, MSc in Social and Cultural Psychology, MSc in Social and Public Communication and MSc in Societal and Environmental Psychology. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process. For information on controlled access courses, including eligibility, application processes, deadlines, and departmental contact details, please refer to the Controlled Access Courses webpage.

How to apply: All PBS 0.5-unit courses in Winter Term are controlled access and capped. Students enrolled on PBS programmes will be given priority. Each course is available with permission as an outside option to students outside of PBS where regulations permit, providing there is space. All students must submit a short statement (around 100 words) outlining their motivation for enrolling on the course, which will be considered by the course convenor.

Deadline for application: Please apply as soon as possible after the opening of course selection for all courses.

For queries contact: Pbs.msc@lse.ac.uk

We live in the Anthropocene, an era defined by profound human-driven planetary change, from climate change and mass extinction to plastic pollution and ecosystem collapse. Debates about understanding and transforming human behaviour are central to addressing these challenges.

This course imparts knowledge of, and critical thinking about, human behaviour and planetary change across individual, social, and systemic levels, and the interactions between them. It is interdisciplinary and draws on frameworks, concepts, and tools from Behavioural and Ecological Economics and Environmental and Social Psychology, as well as other fields including geography, anthropology, history, and development studies. The course is structured in three parts. The first examines how people understand and act on Anthropocene challenges, covering the Anthropocene itself, mental models, non-human relations, and individual agency. It engages with debates about models and measures around the antecedents and consequences of behaviour, the role of preferences and intentions versus impacts, and different ways of knowing and valuing the non-human. The second part moves onto collective forms of (dis)engagement, from social norms and collective resistance to organisations and policy and law, examining how community, organisations, and policy enable or constrain behaviour change and support for transformation. The third focuses on debates about pathways to change, from incrementalism to transformation, interrogating the power of the individual versus the system and what transformation looks like from a behavioural perspective.

Aims

This course aims to:

• Introduce the concept of the Anthropocene and its key planetary challenges, including climate change, mass extinction, and plastic pollution.
• Examine diverse ways of knowing planetary problems, including mental models, perceptions of non-human nature, and questions of individual agency.
• Investigate behaviours and habits across consumer and citizen domains, including their individual, social, and structural antecedents and consequences.
• Explore collective forms of (dis)engagement with planetary challenges, from social norms and resistance to organisational action and policy and law.
• Critically evaluate pathways to change, from incremental behavioural interventions to radical systemic transformation.

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

• Understand frameworks and debates about the role of human behaviour in causing, and as a solution to, Anthropocene challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss and extinction, pollution, and food and energy security.
• Evaluate the ways in which people understand planetary problems, including through mental models, cultural worldviews and narratives, and approaches to valuing non-human nature and relations.
• Analyse individual behaviours and habits in consumer and citizen domains, and their individual, social, and structural antecedents and consequences.
• Examine collective forms of (dis)engagement with planetary challenges, including social norms and cooperation in environmental dilemmas, resistance via critical social movements and calls for justice, organisational action and leadership, and policy support and political polarisation.
• Critically compare and evaluate pathways to change, from incremental behavioural interventions to radical systemic transformation, and critically discuss the potential of behavioural interventions.
• Work independently and creatively by proposing and designing a novel behaviour change intervention.

30 hours of seminars in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

 Students will be expected to produce one piece of formative work during WT

• Adams, M. (2021). Critical psychologies and climate change. Current Opinion in Psychology.
• Carlsson, F., Gravert, C., Johansson-Stenman, O. and Kurz, V. (2021). The use of green nudges as an environmental policy instrument. Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, 15(2), pp.216-237.
• Clayton, S., Devine-Wright, P., Stern, P.C., Whitmarsh, L., Carrico, A., Steg, L., Swim, J. and Bonnes, M. (2015). Psychological research and global climate change. Nature Climate Change, 5(7), pp.640-646.
• Crutzen, P.J. and Stoermer, E.F. (2000). The Anthropocene. Global Change Newsletter, 41, pp.17-18.
• Hackmann, H. and St. Clair, A.L. (2012). Reconceptualising the Anthropos in the Anthropocene: integrating the social sciences and humanities in global environmental change research. Global Environmental Change, 22(1).
• Haraway, D. (2015). Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: making kin. Environmental Humanities, 6(1), pp.159-165.
• Horton, R., Beaglehole, R., Bonita, R., Raeburn, J., McKee, M. and Wall, S. (2014). From public to planetary health: a manifesto. The Lancet, 383(9920), p.847.
• Moore, J.W. (2017). The Capitalocene, Part I: on the nature and origins of our ecological crisis. Journal of Peasant Studies, 44(3), pp.594-630.
• Ogunbode, C. A., Doran, R., Ayanian, A. H., Park, J., Utsugi, A., van den Broek, K. L., ... & Clayton, S. (2024). Climate justice beliefs related to climate action and policy support around the world. Nature Climate Change, 14(11), 1144-1150.
• Ostrom, E. (2010). Polycentric systems for coping with collective action and global environmental change. Global Environmental Change, 20(4), pp.550-557.
• Reckwitz, A. (2002). Towards a theory of social practices: a development in culturalist theorizing. European Journal of Social Theory, 5(2), pp.243-263.
• Schill, C., Anderies, J.M., Lindahl, T., Folke, C., Polasky, S., Cardenas, J.C., Crepin, A-S., Janssen, M.A., Norberg, J. and Schluter, M. (2019). A more dynamic understanding of human behaviour for the Anthropocene. Nature Sustainability, 2, pp.1075-1082.
• Seto, K.C., Davis, S.J., Mitchell, R.B., Stokes, E.C., Unruh, G. and Urge-Vorsatz, D. (2016). Carbon lock-in: types, causes, and policy implications. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 41, pp.425-452.
• Shove, E. (2010). Beyond the ABC: climate change policy and theories of social change. Environment and Planning A, 42(6), pp.1273-1285.
• Shove, E., Pantzar, M. and Watson, M. (2012). The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How it Changes. London: Sage.
• Shreedhar, G. (2026). Mental models of the sixth mass extinction reveal pathways for transformative sustainability action. Scientific Reports, 16, 10004.
• Shreedhar, G., Moran, C. and Mills, S. (2024). Sticky brown sludge everywhere: can sludge explain barriers to green behaviour? Behavioural Public Policy, 8, pp.701-716.
• Steffen, W. et al. (2015). Planetary boundaries: guiding human development on a changing planet. Science, 347(6223), 1259855.
• Unruh, G.C. (2000). Understanding carbon lock-in. Energy Policy, 28(12), pp.817-830.
• Warde, A. (2005). Consumption and theories of practice. Journal of Consumer Culture, 5(2), pp.131-153.
• Weber, E.U. (2020). Heads in the sand: why we fail to foresee and contain catastrophe. Foreign Affairs, 99, p.20.
• Yoeli, E. et al. (2017). Behavioral science tools to strengthen energy and environmental policy. Behavioral Science and Policy, 3(1), pp.68-79.

Presentation (100%).

Presentation and verbal examination with discussion in WT. Students will have to prepare a presentation based on course content and have a discussion in an interview format. They will also submit the slide deck.