Psychology of Sustainable Development: Challenges and Prospects

Abstract

Today the task of practical implementation of sustainable development has become even more important than three decades ago, when the corresponding concept was formulated. The coronavirus pandemic, which caused natural avalanche of negative consequences in the economy and society at the global, national, local, and individual levels, is just one of the tragic evidences of this. Initially, the term “sustainability” was put forward in natural sciences, but it is currently used in a wider context, which leads to misunderstanding. In this regard, the important role of the humanities, particularly psychology, is difficult to overestimate. The article is devoted to the review of problems and prospects in the field of psychology of sustainable development as a new and very relevant scientific area. The study presents the results of scientometric analysis of dissertational studies on this topic conducted in the USSR / Russian Federation from 1987 to 2019. It has been established that the vast majority of them was done in economic sciences (85.4%), and only a few in the field of psychology (0.5%). The content of the main, critical and alternative domestic and foreign discourse in the field of sustainable development has been disclosed. Methodological approaches, i.e. phenomenological, metacentric, ecopsychological have been described; they can serve as the basis for the psychology of sustainable development. In general, sustainable development is a dynamic process, the study of which includes many academic subjects and points of view and is constantly transformed as scientific knowledge, including psychological knowledge, develops.

Keywords

• sustainable development
• psychology
• discourse
• methodology
• approach