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Abstract

Psychology as a discipline has been slow to engage with capitalism as a lens through which to understand and explain the human experience, yet neoliberal capitalism is causally entangled with a range of significant threats facing humanity today. This theoretical discussion contributes to a critical conversation—taking place largely beyond psychology—regarding the Capitalocene (the Age of Capital) and the global polycrisis, highlighting important linkages between capitalism, climate change, and social and economic inequality. With aims of moving the field beyond the individualism and depoliticization that characterizes much of its history, I introduce ecopolitical psychology, a holistic, systems-critical approach to psychological inquiry that attends simultaneously to people, planet, politics, power, and profit in the study of human behavior and mental processes. After applying an ecopolitical psychology perspective to the cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions of everyday life at the intersections of capitalism and the climate crisis, I identify promising directions for future research at the capital-climate nexus. To more effectively respond to a range of critical, interconnected issues across today’s global risk landscape, ecopolitical psychology invites psychologists across sub-disciplines to more deliberately engage with systemic factors in the study of psychological phenomena, particularly at the ecological and political-economic system scale.

Keywords

Capitalocene climate change climate justice neoliberal capitalism ecopolitical psychology polycrisis planetary justice

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Ecopolitical Psychology at the Capital-Climate Nexus: A Research Agenda for the Capitalocene

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