About
I am deeply concerned about human wellbeing and planetary health and always actively thinking about what I can contribute as a psychologist. In the early 2010s, I decided to switch all my research attention and energy to the study of environment and human behavior. My primary research focus is to understand how people construe their relationship with nature and the emotional and behavioral implications of such construal. Some examples of my output in this direction include my works on anthropomorphism of nature, connectedness to nature, empathy with nature, and, most recently, gratitude to nature. My other focus is to uncover the cross-national variability of phenomena regarding environmental attitude and pro-environmental behavior. For example, I demonstrated that the relationship between environmental concern and environmental action varies systematically along the cultural orientations and political contexts in different societies. In my recent projects, I have expanded my interests to include human responses to the problem of climate change, such as climate change anxiety, support for climate policies, and conspiracy theories about climate change.
I have published more than 60 peer-reviewed journal articles. Based on the standardized citation indicators released by Prof. John P.A. Ioannidis of Stanford University in October 2023, I am listed among the world’s top 2% scientists based on my research impact in the single year of 2022.
I am now an Associate Professor in the Division of Social Science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and an Affiliate Researcher at the Center for Experimental Research in Social Sciences at Hokkaido University. I was formerly the Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Journal of Social Psychology, and am currently an Associate Editor of PLOS Climate, PsyEcology, and Royal Society Open Science. I am also serving on the editorial boards of the British Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Environmental Psychology, Global Environmental Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Review. I have reviewed manuscripts for over 70 journals. I regularly teach environmental psychology at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels and collaborate with and offer consulting services to local and international environmental organizations.