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	Background Courses Research interests Recent publications Current projects Recent Independent Studies Contact information			Susan Clayton Whitmore-Williams professor of psychology Chair of Environmental Studies
		Background Susan Clayton, professor of social psychology, received her B.A. from Carleton College in 1982 and her M.S., in 1984, and Ph.D., in 1987, both from Yale University. She is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (SPSSI), and the Society for Population and Environmental Psychology, and a member of the International Society for Justice Research (ISJR) and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Clayton is on the editorial boards for the Journal of Social Issues, the Journal of Environmental Psychology, Human Ecology Review, and Environmental Communication. Currently she is the president of APA's Division 34, the society for population and environmental psychology; her presidential term will last from August 2007 to August 2008.
		Courses Regular course offerings include Experimental Social Psychology, Psychology of Women, and Environmental Psychology. I also teach Introductory Psychology and Research Methods. Special courses that I have offered on an irregular basis include Psychology and Law, Self and Identity, and (with Lyn Loveless in the Biology Department) Protecting Nature: The How and Why of Conservation. I have also offered first-year seminars in Environment and Identity, and Humans and Other Animals. Fall 2008: Social Psychology: Theory and Research (Psychology 330) Social Psychology Lab Advanced Topics: Seminar in Peace and Conflict (Psych 340) Independent Study Spring 2009: Psychology of Women and Gender (Psych 215) Independent Study			up too early for a class field trip
		Research Interests My research interests can be roughly grouped into three categories: environment, gender, and justice. Environment The natural environment plays an important part in many people's work, recreational, and/or emotional lives.My research examines the ways that people think about, and make personal connections to, the natural environment. I have conducted a number of studies on the ways in which people decide what is fair in environmental conflict situations, and I developed an Environmental Identity (EID) Scale to assess the degree to which the natural environment plays an important part in the way in which people think about themselves. A book which I edited (with Susan Opotow of the University of Massachusetts) on Identity and the Natural Environment (2003; MIT Press) presents a variety of empirical approaches to the ways in which people think about themselves with regard to the natural environment, and how the natural environment intersects with our group and social identities. I am particularly interested in how people make connections to the natural environment in their daily lives, through such venues as gardening and visits to urban parks and zoos. Currently, I am examining the impact of the ways in which people think about their relationship with nature, including their relationship to nonhuman animals, on conservation behavior. Conservation psychology is a relatively new field of research, drawing primarily from psychology but encompassing other disciplines as well, with the dual aim of understanding the relationships between humans and the natural world and promoting behavior that protects the natural environment. Topics that fall within conservation psychology include studies of conservation behaviors such as recycling; of the human-animal relationship; about environment and identity; on environmental education and socialization; on environmental attitudes; and on environmental conflict. Conservation psychology is distinctive in its problem focus and its outcome-based orientation: the goal of conservation psychology is to promote sustainable behavior. Click here to find out more about this emerging field and the people who are involved. Gender We all have gender, but its significance and importance varies from person to person and from situation. My research on gender has primarily concerned policies of affirmative action: why and whether affirmative action is needed and how people react to the use of group identities (such as gender) for affirmative action purposes. My first book (Justice, Gender, and Affirmative Action) , with Faye Crosby, examined this topic. I am also interested in the role of gender at work, the impact of gender on body image and parenthood issues, and in the question of when and to what extent gender constitutes a group identification for people. A recent chapter with Dr. Crosby and with my colleague Amber Garcia examines the impact of gender on the lives of working women. Justice The various ways in which people define justice constitute a long-standing research focus. People may consider justice to involve individual rights, fair procedures, entitlements, responsibilities, or any combination of these. I am particularly interested in circumstances under which people define justice for the society, group, or other collective as opposed to the individual level. Both gender, as an individual difference variable, and the environment, as a contextual variable, seem to have an effect on people's willingness to define justice at the collective level. Most recently I have been exploring the implications of identity for the ways in which people think about justice. Sense of oneself as a group member affects beliefs about what is fair in sociopolitical contexts. A sense of oneself as connected to, or separate from, the rest of nature affects beliefs about whether nature, and animals in particular, have rights that must be respected.
		Recent Publications Books Clayton, S., & Opotow, S. (2003, Eds.) Identity and the natural environment: The psychological significance of nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Articles Clayton, S., Fraser, J., & Saunders, C. (2008). Zoo experiences: Converstions, connections, and concern for animals. Zoo Biology. Clayton, S. (2007). Domesticated nature: Motivations for gardening and perceptions of environmental impact. Journal of Environmental Psychology. Clayton, S. (2005). Jobs with justice: A Review of “Just Work” by Russell Muirhead. Social Justice Research, 18, 465-480. Clayton, S., & Brook, A. (2005). Can psychology help save the world? A model for conservation psychology. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 5 (1), 87-102. Crosby, F., & Clayton, S. (2004). Affirmative action and the search for educational equity. Analyses of Social Issues and Public Policy, 4 (1). 243-249. Crosby, F., Clayton, S., Downing, R., & Iyer, A. (2004). Values and science. American Psychologist, 59, 125-126. Clayton, S., & Opotow, S. (2003). Justice and identity: Changing perspectives on what is fair. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 7, 298-310. Crosby, F., Iyer, A., Clayton, S., & Downing, R. (2003). Affirmative action: Giving psychology away. American Psychologist, 58, 93-115. Crosby, F., & Clayton, S. (2001). Affirmative action: Psychological contributions. Analysis of Social Issues and Policy, 1 , 71-87. Clayton, S. (2000). Models of justice in the environmental debate. Journal of Social Issues, 56 (3), 459-474.
		Current Projects For the past few years I have been studying zoo visitors. Why do people visit zoos? What is it that is appealing about observing non-human animals? And what are the ways in which these interactions with other animals affect us? A number of Wooster students have been involved in this zoo research. So far we have collected data at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo, the Brookfield Zoo in Chicago (with the help of Carol Saunders), and the Bronx Zoo (in collaboration with John Fraser). With Gene Myers of Western Washington University, I am finishing up a book on Conservation psychology. Our goal is to review the psychological research related to the ways humans interact with the natural environment and the impact on the health of both humans and environment. This book is due out from Blackwell in 2009. Another group I am involved with is the Urban Landscape Ecology Project (ULEP) , run out of the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center of Ohio State University. This is an interdisciplinary group of researchers devoted to understanding the value of nature in urban settings and to promoting sustainable urban landscapes. A new project concerns the relevance of the natural environment to conflict. The struggle for diminishing environmental resources can create or exacerbate conflicts between existing social groups. But can a shared investment in protecting the environment reduce intergroup conflict? That is one of the hopes behind the many transboundary protected conservation areas, more colloquially known as "peace parks." With Dr. Saleem Ali of the University of Vermont and a group of collaborators, I am beginning to plan research investigating the impact of shared environmental benefits and concerns on intergroup relationships, both in the lab and in the real world.
		Recent Independent Studies Supervised Natalie Gertz, "In support of natural beauty: A study of the effects of urban and national parks on conservation attitudes and mood" Dave McNew, "Fighting the inevitable: The effects of religious orientation and mortality salience on self-esteem and anxiety" Kerry Melenovsky, "Psychosocial characteristics of rural Tanzania for interventionists planning a health reform" Martina Ward, "Liberty and justice for all? The influence of media exposure and socioeconomic identity on perception of crime" Steve Zumbrun, "Diminishing the other-race effect: An investigation into creating better cross-cultural facial recognition using social categorization"
			Contact Information mailing address: Psychology Department, The College of Wooster, 930 College Mall, Wooster, OH 44691 mailto: sclayton@wooster.edu Psychology Department Home Page: www.wooster.edu/psychology Environmental Studies Home Page: www.wooster.edu/envs Wooster Home Page: www.wooster.edu
		Last modified: June, 2008