Hikaru Komatsu (Associate Professor, IPCS)

Did the title of this article surprise you? As a sustainability studies scholar, I really believe that psychology is the most important key for developing sustainable human society. I thus happily accepted the offer from the Department of Psychology, National Taiwan University (NTU) to deliver a talk on November 3, 2021 (Figure 1).

I started the talk with demonstrating that human society has been failing in developing sustainability despite their efforts for decades. As early as in the 1970s, The Limits to Growth predicted that our society would face environmental catastrophe in the middle of this century (Meadows et al., 1972). Despite advances in science and technology, improvement of education, and international agreements for reducing human environmental impacts, historical data recorded since the 1970s have confirmed that we are still on the trajectory toward environmental catastrophe (Turner, 2012).

Why are we failing to change our trajectory and achieve sustainability? Philosophers and historians argue that we have been unsuccessful in shifting our mainstream culture that has been deemed as the root cause of our environmental crisis (e.g., White, 1967). More science, technology, and modern education would not thus allow us to change our trajectory, because these are actually a part of the mainstream culture and therefore a part of the problem.

Despite its increasing acceptance in academia, this argument has yet to be mainstreamed in policymaking. The primary reason is language mismatch. Policymakers want to see empirical evidence based on quantitative data, which is their primary language, to develop policies. However, very few philosophers and historians use this language.

This is exactly where psychology can help. Psychology can translate the language of philosophers and historians into quantitative data. I have used psychological instruments to measure culture and demonstrated that quantitative data support the argument (Komatsu et al., 2019, 2020, 2021, in press). My work has then successfully attracted attentions of policymakers and I have been invited to serve as an advisor for several international organizations (e.g., the UNESCO and the World Bank, Figure 2) and national governments (e.g., Japan and Cambodia).

Although policymakers now listen to my colleagues and me, I am facing another challenge. Policymakers in international organizations want my colleagues and me to create intervention plans for shifting the mainstream culture, because these policymakers have already started working to develop post-SDG goals. What intervention plans should I propose?

I thus want to ask psychology for help again. Psychologists, particularly those working for NTU and other non-western universities, can easily see problems of the mainstream culture. They know both Western mainstream culture and their indigenous cultures. Psychologists working for NTU and other non-western universities can thus help me develop intervention plans. Please help me! This was the message that I wanted to convey in my talk.

I was very happy that I received many feedbacks from psychologists during and after my talk. Because I cannot introduce all the feedbacks due to space limitation, let me pick up two of them.

Professor Yeh Su-Ling suggested that NTU should give students more time for meditation. From what I understood, she was saying that although modern universities focused mainly on cognitive dimensions, NTU should highlight ontological dimensions as well. I fully agree with her suggestion. Indeed, one preliminary survey conducted by the IPCS suggests that NTU has been unsuccessful in shifting students' ontological dimensions for a better nature-human relationship (Komatsu et al., in review). Highlighting ontological dimensions could be one effective way to move toward sustainability.

I received another great feedback from Ms. Wu Lingchen. She suggested that feeling a sense of awe in nature could be one important factor for developing a better nature-human relationship. The papers she introduced me reported that feeling a sense of awe and connectedness to nature diminished the individual self and promoted pro-social and pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., Piff et al., 2015).

These papers reminded me of moral education in Japanese middle schools that often mentioned awe at nature. After a brief literature survey, I found that the Japanese official curriculum guideline explicitly stated that one pillar of moral education was to promote students' sense of awe at nature (MEXT, 2015). I also found that many moral education textbooks in Japan indeed underscored awe at nature. Here is one excerpt from a moral education textbook:

Nature moves and blesses us.
At the same time, nature inspires awe in us with forces beyond our power.
We are finite beings.
While humbly accepting this fact, we should contemplate what it means to live better as a human being in nature. (MEXT, 2014, p. 114)

Furthermore, I identified a number of education practitioners in Japan trying to create pedagogical methods that would promote students' sense of awe (e.g., Ishizawa, 2005).

The discussion with Ms. Wu Lingchen has thus stimulated me to connect various pieces of information in different sectors and contemplate potential intervention plans for a culture shift. The most important lesson that I have learned from her is that much information is already there. What I need to do is to identify useful pieces of information and connect them in a meaningful way. I will then be able to propose potential intervention plans for the international organizations (e.g., UNESCO).

When I started my talk, I was pretty sad about the current situation of human society. However, psychologists in NTU have suggested a direction of my future research and encouraged me to move forward. I hope that I will have more chances to interact with psychologists in NTU for further lessons.

References

1. Ishizawa Y. (2005) Pedagogy in moral education that promotes students' awe at beings beyond human power. Tokyo Metropolitan School Personnel In-Service Training Center Research Report.
https://www.kyoiku-kensyu.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/09seika/reports/kenkyusei/h17.html

2. Komatsu H, Rappleye J, Silova I. (2019) Culture and the independent self: obstacles to environmental sustainability? Anthropocene 26, 100198.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ancene.2019.100198.

3. Komatsu H, Rappleye J, Silova I. (2020) Will Education Post-2015 Move Us Toward Environmental Sustainability? In Grading Goal Four: Tensions, Threats and Opportunities in the Sustainable Development Goal on Quality Education, edited by Antonia Wulff, Brill | Sense, 297–321.
https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004430365_014.

4. Komatsu H, Rappleye J, Silova I. (2021) Student-centered learning and sustainability: solution or problem? Comparative Education Review 65 (1), 6–33.
https://doi.org/10.1086/711829.

5. Komatsu H, Rappleye J, Silova I. Social mindfulness for global environmental sustainability? Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, in press.

6. Komatsu H, Fu H, Lin M, Hsieh Y, Rappleye J, Silova I. Measuring the transformation of university students' self-construal for greater environmental sustainability. Sage Open, under review.

7. Meadows DH, Meadows DL, Randers J, Behrens III WW. (1972) The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Book.

8. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [MEXT] (2014) Our Moral: Middle School. Koseido Akatsuki, Tokyo.

9. Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology [MEXT] (2015) Partially Revised Curriculum Guidelines: Moral Education in Middle Schools.
https://www.mext.go.jp/a_menu/shotou/doutoku/index.htm

10. Piff PK, Dietze P, Feinberg M, Stancato DM, Keltner D. (2015) Awe, the small self, and prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 108(6), 883–899.
https://doi.org/10.1037/pspi0000018.

11. UNESCO (2019) Educational Content Up Close. UNESCO, Paris.
https://learningportal.iiep.unesco.org/en/library/educational-content-up-close-examining-the-learning-dimensions-of-education-for-sustainable.

12. Turner GM. (2012) On the cusp of global collapse? Updated comparison of The Limits to Growth with historical data. Gaia 21(2), 116–124.
https://doi.org/10.14512/gaia.21.2.10.

13. White Jr. L. (1967) The historical roots of our ecologic crisis. Science 155(3767), 1203–1207.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.155.3767.1203.